The War on Solo Gameplay and Diablo 3 Greater Rift Comparison

Community General Discussion
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Over the last few days this argument has really blown up and I think we have an opportunity to approach these arguments seriously. WoW is in a terrible state, everyone knows that, and I think we should at least (on both sides of the debate) form a more structured and mature analysis about the topic of solo gameplay because it could potentially change the current trajectory of WoW. And it’s worth noting that everyone believes in solo gameplay, they just have different ideas of how that gameplay should look.

After the release of the cross-faction gameplay news we now understand that the devs are willing to make sweeping changes and challenge old thought for the sake of a better gameplay experience. This is one event in which devs potentially sacrificed future faction-change profit in order to make the gameplay better and therefore generate more revenue just from WoW being a more attractive game. So this, at least to me, is a sign that they are willing to re-question things for the sake of evolution and survival.

So back to the issue of solo gameplay: a lot of people in the thread are arguing with each other but without properly defining the things that they are talking about. Which is why, if we are to debate this topic we need to clearly define all the arguments that we present.

For instance, when people hear ‘solo gameplay’, some think it means questing (as in: main story line solo quest). Some people may think of something more akin to solo Torghast. I’m sure there are many other ideas of what solo gameplay is but even just with these two we see drastic differences. Mythic gear being rewarded for main story line quest isn’t equivalent to mythic gear being rewarded for a sort of mythic solo torghast experience.

One argument that a lot of people used against the solo thesis is that high ilvl is useless to a solo player because the solo content doesn’t require a high ilvl to complete. But consider diablo 3 greater rifts. The diablo 3 player acquires superior gear in order to challenge themselves to higher level greater rifts, eventually to compete on the leaderboard. This can be done in a completely solo way, though it may take longer than doing it with a dedicated group. But it’s still possible to do it solo. This is one thing I really respect about Diablo 3. I used to raid in WoW every week and I did so for years, but now that my time is more limited I have to reconsider how I interact with games. It’s not that I don’t have the time, I just can’t commit to a specific schedule and be beholden to it each week. Rather, I like the flexibility of being able to log in and do solo greater rifts for instance.

I think we need to look at the solo gameplay thesis from more angles than we currently are. People on both sides are making assumptions about the arguments of the other side and only considering them in the context of WoW up to this point. Also people are talking past each other, which is pretty normal in heated debates. We have an opportunity to at least theorize and debate about where WoW is going, and though we can’t make direct decisions as a playerbase, we can at least introduce novel ideas into the discourse, ideas that the devs may not have previously thought of. But we can only help once we properly define the things that we are talking about, otherwise we are using different definitions when debating with others which doesn’t help anyone gain a better understanding of the arguments.

Thanks for reading, I look forward to hearing everyone’s ideas about solo gameplay.

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I’m not saying that there isn’t a case to be made for solo gearing to not be a thing, because there are good reasons for there to be a gear path for players who don’t want to group with others for whatever reason. I am saying that any content that gives gear as a reward should give gear on a level that’s close to the difficulty of the content.

Please, give us harder solo content that awards better gear. An actual single player set of bosses that you can run for up to max valor quality gear would be a fantastic addition to the game IMO, as long as the bosses are not complete pushovers, and actually require some effort to kill.

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I found I stalled out pretty quickly in Diablo 3 rifts. I’m not a challenge-seeker at heart so pushing beyond my comfort zone burns me out pretty fast. But by the time I was ready to say “ok, this is too far, I need to go back down a step to just have fun”, I’d have gear that was almost impossible to upgrade any more from lower ranked rifts. So I’d plateau, stall and eventually quit playing.

A similar thing happened with horrific visions. I did a 5-mask run just to see if I could, but only once. I felt no interest in repeating the feat on the same character or alts. Fortunately, the rare drops I was still interested in could be farmed at lower difficulties.

Islands were a model that turned out to work well for me, possibly by accident. ( I had lots of quibbles with them, but in the last patch normal islands were essentially solo content for an overgeared character as long as I didn’t accidentally annoy the other two players and so I started doing them quite a bit; the currency rewards were lower than they would have been for a heroic/mythic run, but not radically so). Now that they are actual solo content, they’d probably be pretty high on my todo list of legacy content to run if I hadn’t already collected everything they have to offer (to the best of my knowledge)

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As long as mob health and damage scale down fairly to a match a lower number of players, I think something like this would be great in WoW. In fact, we already have Torghast. The only thing standing in the way is the devs being absolutely petrified of people gearing up outside of pre-made groups.

I am OK with easier group content, but I prefer to do really challenging content alone so that I can go in fearlessly and know that my failure isn’t going to inconvenience anyone or get me kicked. It’s like I have two personality modes depending on whether I am playing alone or not.

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I think most people are not against the solo player receiving nice rewards. At least to me Visions and Mage Tower supported this. Just the game lacks focus in a solo player front and I can’t really blame an MMO for that. It can be a black hole that causes the overall MMO to suffer as finding players for group content shrinks in favor of playing solo, and thus harming community. But I don’t think giving more content for any demographic is a bad idea.

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this is an MMORPG.

Please consider another game if you want more solo gameplay

reported your wall of text as spam

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MMORPG just means lots of players on the same RPG server.

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So this “War on Solo Players” crap is going to become the WoW community’s “War on Christmas” isn’t it? :roll_eyes:

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Please go back and read the two threads discussing the subject and you will see the issue wasn’t game play.

The issues was rewards. Specifically, players wanting high end rewards for low effort/difficulty play.

So your whole post is rendered moot.

The only thing I understood from that move is the devs are continuing on in their quest to rendering distinct, meaningful framing and features irrelevant and turn a unique immersive experience into just another competitive e-sport-centric video game.

So no, not for a better gameplay experience.

So stop saying ‘we’.

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I have read the discussions but you are oversimplifying the position and strawmanning it. Gameplay and desired quality of loot are inseparable. If we are going to discuss solo players wanting high end rewards we have to discuss the difficulty level of attaining such rewards. And to talk about the difficulty level we have to consider what kind of gameplay solo players should engage with.

If mythic equivalent solo loot would be given out, the gameplay style would have to justify it.

This goes back to what I was saying about people debating with different definitions.

My whole post is a topic of discussion and nothing outside of it can render it moot. But instead of trying to negate the discussion, why don’t you contribute your own opinion about what you think solo play should look like, and what kind of rewards should be offered?

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If that content isn’t there any longer, the solo player isn’t going to suddenly stop being a solo player and join groups he doesn’t belong in or who don’t want him. He’s going to quit if it’s clear he’s not welcome in the game.

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Comparison isn’t applicable because you don’t need a tank, healer and dps to run a Grift. You would have to completely break these mechanics to allow one player to go and do the same.

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Can y’all please stop writing massive walls of text? The average attention span can’t handle it, mine included.

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here we go … this is the wrong assumption about solo gameplay in the game.

The two threads are almost nauseating to read. For me, I just wish most gamers would get the idea of what it means and band together to make changes for both groups.

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You are asking for WoW to stop being WoW.

It is more realistic to find a game, like D3, that meets your needs instead of trying to change the 17 years of WoW design philosophy

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There’s a reason why those who are against alternative paths of progression very obtusely refuse to properly define what they are talking about…it makes it a lot easier to attack as an argument if they can make it just about “mAh CaZuUlS wAnT fReE sTuFf!”.

People have outlined many different solo focused activities that’d require skill and effort to attain similar gear, but those who are against it don’t want to hear it. And the reason they don’t want to hear it is because they’re already getting what they want and they know that what they want isn’t popular or fun for the vast majority of the playerbase.

If you notice, they keep telling on themselves when they make the argument “but then no one would do the content!”

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The reason why you’re seeing more incessant calls for solo gameplay focus is kinda obvious when you think about it. The game has lost like 75%? of it’s original peak playerbase. With that many gone, it’s become increasingly harder to find the groups and guilds you need that fit your time budget in order for you to access the content you used to be able to in e.g. WoTLK.

Also something else most people don’t seem to realise. Blizz over the last few expansions has effectively deleted the leveling process. Instead they’ve replaced it with a massive end game grind of various forms of borrowed power. This has actually increased the amount of time and effort it takes to “level up” a character compared to e.g. cata or wod.

Much like a receding tide at the beach, you’ve got more and more people being left without much choice but to move towards more solo playstyle. That’s not to say they play completely solo. It’s just that the law of averages is working inexelorably in that direction.

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They have data to show how many players are actually willing to do challenging solo content by looking at the participation levels from various solo content.

While we don’t directly have access to that data…I would say it’s a safe assumption that players who participate in challenging solo content also participate in challenging group content. Conversly, there is likely a very low participation rate from those who only do solo content.

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Do they really? I don’t mean just a few idjits, but the majority? I didn’t see that. in BFA I had no problem gearing up without going into a dungeon or raid - this expansion I do. That’s what I’ve noticed.

I also noticed that more than any expansion this one was literally funnelling people to have to do group content. I don’t mind pugging up for WQ’s or normal or heroic dungeons and don’t expect any gear near to what those that run the M+. Just a normal gear progression. They did it through every expac I’ve played from Mists and can see why it’s become such a huge issue this time around.

That said, in almost answering my own question, the content drought has left too many without enough to do in this particular expansion unless they are doing highend content.

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Bro, the “casuals” on this forum are the ones who refuse to define who they are. They refuse to self-identify because they don’t want to exclude themselves from the majority of players who are actually casual in regard to this game. The guy who spends 400 hours a month in Korthia only hitting auto-shoot can claim he is a “casual” when he’s just a hardcore anti-social bad player, not a casual.

The person who plays 5 hours a week and gets AOTC each tier and then unsubs is a true casual. The person who spends a few hours a week watering her garden is also casual. Casual simply means little time-played and not too much concern invested (I don’t consider raid-loggers who invest 60 hours a week of the first two months of a tier “casual” even if their raid-logging stage is only 6 hours per week).

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