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How important is being able to Solo play to you (corrected)?
krailov
Member Posts: 302 Arc User
One of the biggest changes Mod6 introduced was the requirement to "buddy up" if you wanted to get through any of the higher level content, compared to previously where once you achieved a certain boon/gear/enchant, solo play was very possible in those same areas. It may be that I have not reached such lofty heights yet and solo play may make a return as I grind away, but I wanted to know if the majority were missing it or not.
Might is not always right - the powerful sometimes forget that.
The Small BandHow important is being able to Solo play to you (corrected)? 135 votes
Not important to me at all - I only play with friends or guildies
4%
6 votes
Miss it, but does not really affect me
4%
6 votes
Feeling the pain and wish I could Solo more often
32%
44 votes
I cannot play without Solo'ing - I need it!
58%
79 votes
0
Comments
I'm sure I speak for some others who feel basically the same way. If it were a lot easier to team-up without fear of always being kicked for one ridiculously stupid reason or another I'd proabably do it a lot more. And I can already hear the constant advice to "go remade/join a guild/make steady friends/etc." (all of which is good advice, to be sure) but as stated above: it becomes a time-burden.
The Devs not only get to play this game 8 hours a day five days a week, they get *paid* for doing it. LOL (I know they don;t literally play eight hours a day, etc - my point being there's a 'disconnect' there as has been stated on countless occasions before.)
Whenever I pug up, the play tempo is faster. Pugs are: let's get this over with as fast as possible, we just want the results. Sometimes I am in this mood, too. So in general I enjoy pugging.
Without any translators its very difficult to play in groups. Not to mention getting people to help you isn't always a luxury one can afford... add that to time constraints and time gates and well that's just a <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> storm isn't it?
Irrelevant comment. There's no question about difficulty or how 'easy' anything is; it's a question about how important something is. L2R (Learn to Read, for those who can't).
you should learn to read, before you tell that to others, there is no such requirement, never has been for most classes
and questions are set up the way it sounds like they removed ability to solo
I can do any of the lairs from ToD just fine now.
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just cleared some mobs in DR on 550ilvl GF and 1200 ilvl combat hr, its doable, gf was almost naked and hr had no enchants, r5s alone would add a lot
Some content should be interesting.
Some content should be difficult.
And everything should be in it's place.
Module 6 does not offer this, and i highly doubt that module 7 will be any better.
If you think that the whole content is too easy, feel free to help everyone else, that is struggling with it. And not just with hollow words, but by playing with them ingame side by side.
Every. Single. Day.
...with the right class and/or tree, the backing you have from your "friends in high places" (i.e. higher level alts producing AD to buy stuff like R7/8s), and good knowledge of what's relevant in this game, sure.
I frankly doubt that Mr. or Mrs. Firsttimer can do that. Drowned Shore and ToD are basic leveling matter. They should be able to do that lair solo, and that HE with the appropriate number of chars...
Which then ofc the experienced player will find something between cheesy-easy nd mildly annoying, probably.
And that is the problem, IMHO. Knowledge is power, and newcomers should have ample room for errors and learnin processes.
Lastly: Drowned Shore is Level 61-63. That's almost old stat curves, so you should be able to do that with one hand tied to your back...
It's actually a good thing that the game is complex enough that you can't figure out each and every significant thing without a lots of time/an outsider's nudge in the right direction. Seriously, we can only equip like 3 encounters at a time. If the rest of the game were that simple we'd be bored out of our minds.
The problem is that good players tend to spend (a lot more of) their time doing something productive instead of whining in chat. Therein lies the problem.
There was a time when the game was designed to be a solo-er's paradise. In case you don't remember, people absolutely hated it and demanded that their DCs be "true healers" and their GFs be "true tanks". Among others, I was against the whole thing but was massively overruled. Hence the gameplay we have atm.
The problem with specialized roles is that balance-wise they're considered part of a greater whole. That obviously affects solo.
I read a Dev statement that DR, IWD etc should not be Solo'able, and I think that statement takes away from those of that need / desire Solo, hence my poll to see how many want it, without having to be over specced for it. I have a couple of toons that can solo (barely), others - not a chance. All my toons should be able to, IMHO.
Might is not always right - the powerful sometimes forget that.
The Small BandThat said...
The queue sys tem works for me some tines...
But never the Epic DDs
So
I guess that is very broken
For me, there is a certain amount of confusion and ambiguity about the options. I myself play almost exclusively solo, and am currently enjoying the difficulty level and variation of the endgame fights (not so much the lack of new content, but more about that later). So should I answer the final option, even though it seems to me to possibly saying that there is little/no solo content available? Also there seems to me to be other players that are able to solo fine at the moment, but that they are not enjoying the difficulty levels, so what should they answer?
That's not entirely correct - the statement was
Furthermore:
To an extent, I agree - but there should be an increasing difficulty/gear level element towards it. This brings me back to what I consider to be the poor content choices made with developing mod 6. Promoting existing content to level 70+ content, and making these the only real endgame was a mistake. People had gotten so used to playing that content at level 60 that the change was jarring and not well liked. Suddenly they could not complete quests and lairs that they were doing fine before.
Then you had the changes to some mechanics and abilities that have made playing certain class/build combos lag far behind others. For me the weaker dps classes at the moment should get some love and be raised up to be able to tackle the endgame more effectively. However I do think that tank and healing classes should have a slower time in doing content solo, making it more efficient for them to join up with a dps class to quest.
The other complaint I would have is the lack of decent gear options available to newly dinged 70's - it's basically the AH or hope that they had enough campaign rewards banked from pre mod 6; or the lottery of crafting gemmed profession gear. There should have been opportunities to gain rep points to be able to kit themselves out in some decent armour and jewelry once they reach 70.
For me, Sharandar should have a reasonable difficulty level for new 70's, and reward gear/items that are an improvement so that players can progress to DR, and so on. I would say that's not really the case at this time, but again I would refer back to design decisions with mod 6.
I do feel though that some of the recurring complaints are bit much. I've seen ranged players complaining that they can't kill melee npc's before they get to them - well sometimes you should get caught by melee npc's, but you should have the abilities to survive and manage those times. The current endgame difficulty level is fine - what should change is that classes that struggle now should be improved to more effectively handle it, and gear availability should be more progressive. Hopefully many of those improvements will come with mod 7 - hopefully...
Finally, we need new story and campaign content, because doing the same things as we have for so long is getting stale. Sadly I do not think this is going to happen until mod 8 (Underdark), but hopefully with the pen and paper campaign being released in September, mod 8 will be released at the same time - so it's not too long to wait.
I completely understand how lower level players might dislike this change however.
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I don't have much more than 2.5k iLvl on any character, but have gotten back to the place where I can play any class solo in content up to level 72. It's not balanced in the regard that it takes a lot longer to do things on some classes, and I have far more ability to recover from mistakes on some classes. I haven't gone into level 73 content with my "weaker" characters in quite some time, even to test the rebalanced difficulty.
Any of them can solo Subterranean Surge except probably the GF or OP, because they'd run out of time. Yes, that includes the Warlock. Sub Surge is easy peasy with just two people, especially if you're higher level and being scaled down. Crabs probably still isn't soloable because of the boss, but I could see a competent duo handling it. Fountain of Fear I wasn't able to solo, but haven't tried since the monster damage reduction; might be doable now. Soloing Drowned Shore HEs is like soloing normal Spider or Karrundax used to be... you're massively overgeared for it. A lot of my characters can solo the HE that spawns on the steps in Reclamation Rock all the time; that one's for 5 players too.
Being able to solo repeatable quest content is important. Dungeons and skirmishes are for team play. Repeatable quests are something you should be able to do because you feel like playing by yourself, you don't have time to get involved in something longer, you're killing time waiting for friends, whatever. You should not be forced to group up for it just because. It was always an option, and plenty of people chose to exercise that option back when the levle cap was 60. And that was fine. But it should be optional, and not mandatory for any player who is not at the pinnacle of gear and skill.
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I'd like to thank Krailov for posting this poll, it's a subject that is near and dear to me, and my fellow solo artists.
Nope. They removed the links to the map doorsteps. You need to go through the queue. You might maybe find four sympathetic souls to quit then after entering, but you'd not stay alone - Q mechanism yould try to replenish your party... ...unless you first kickvote an undisclosed number of hapless people...
If you can solo fine, congrats! Please answer as to the importance of still being able to do so - hopefully that will lead to a moderation of the difficulty level if the Devs hear us...
Sorry, my bad, I should have reviewed the statement, but was in a hurry
I think that they brought the concept of needing a group to the wider play areas (open zones), and I feel that was a wrong decision. I remember first going into Sharandar and getting wiped, but as I learned the tactics (with only slightly better gear), I was able to solo there with concentration (even easier once I got boons and even better gear, naturally). Now, a couple of my toons can solo it - barely, and it is a chore. I feel that was a wrong decision, and wanted to show PWE the numbers, because numbers is money, baby!
Might is not always right - the powerful sometimes forget that.
The Small BandAnd, as I said, it was NOT just up to the devs. All things considered, you could say the players forced their hand.
At this point, the best you can hope for is a better, more streamlined grouping system (like a window that opens up and shows which groups are doing which quests, allowing you to join/leave groups without hassle; you can then choose to group up only when a particular quest is too difficult/time consuming for you). Frankly I wouldn't be surprised if they simply boosted the HR Archer's damage, for example, making it an unmatched range DPS machine in longer fights (for end-game balancing purposes) while completely ignoring everything else. Which really doesn't help the casual HR Archer player much solo-wise.
I don't actually have much trouble soloing with my SWs.
Oh, and given that it was the players who spent several mods whining and complaining in the forums that classes should have specialized roles in the first place, I find it extremely unlikely that the same approach would work twice. Especially considering the drastic (and according to this thread, negative) effects on other gameplay aspects.