No More Heroic Encounters!

kiraskytower

Enough is enough ...

This all started with Mod 3 (IWD). Heroic encounters were added as a filler for the new campaign areas. The (then) BiS gear was gated behind the epic Heroic Encounters and the campaign daily required one HE a day for progress. At the time this was frustrating for many characters who just couldn't get those gloves to drop no matter how many times they ran the Remorhaz ... but we lived with it. Little did we know what we were in for.

Mod 4 and 5 came along with more HEs ... Dragon HEs that had players standing around .. waiting. Not optimal, but again, it was only one a day (or more if you were grinding for one of the new artifacts).

Lets take a count here for a new character so far .. 1 IWD HE and 1 ToD HE per day ... not so bad ...yet.

Module 6 came along and we had more Heroic Encounters in the elemental zones. Some were quests, but all were optional (there were other quests you could do). This was fine and some of these were fun to run a couple times while leveling to 70. They also moved the 1 ToD dragon daily HE to be a weekly one ... so if you are counting, we are down to 1 IWD HE a day and 1 ToD Daily a week for progress.

Now Mod 7 came along ... and the Heroic encounters kicked into overdrive. For your daily stronghold influence you now needed to run FIVE stronghold HEs for your 400 influence a day. Worse yet, this isn't for a 35 day campaign like IWD ... getting a Stronghold to rank 20 takes at least 190 days. So now if you are a casual player and only on for an hour or two in the evening, you can easily end up doing nothing but Heroic Encounters. So if you are still counting ... 5 SH HEs, 1 IWD HE per day and 1 ToD daily per week.

Now Underdark has added even more heroic encounters. We now have 2 types of Heroic Encounters on our stronghold maps ... one to provide influence and another to provide the materials needed for the Underdark campaign. Assuming you do these HEs with 2 friends you need to run roughly 6 Demonic HEs to get what you need to advance a day in the campaign. It doesn't help that there are only 3 different demonic Heroic Encounters so doing each one twice is quite a chore. Yes ... skirmishes are also an option for this and the big Demegorgon fight, but it's fairly obvious they developers intended us to run the HEs as some of the materials needed for the boons only drop from them.

So where does this leave us? Up to 6 Underdark HEs, 5 SH HEs, 1 IWD HE per day and 1 ToD daily per week. At 10 minutes per HE this is 2 hours per day of Heroic Encounters!

The final straw came when I decided to start the quest for one of the new artifact weapons. Collect 100 motes the druid said ... collect them from Heroic Encounters. Worse yet, the only heroic encounter that reliably drops a mote id the epic 15+ person one in each area. The others only have a chance (and from what I have done so far, the chance is fairly small). This means more and more heroic encounters. Either 100 of the major ones which spawn occasionally, or on the order of like 1000 of the others.

Heroic Encounters are just ... wandering monsters.

This is supposed to be Dungeons and Dragons ... enough with the heroic encounters! We should be getting out gear from dungeons, not from repeatedly slaughtering the same wandering monsters over and over and over again. A dungeon has a group dynamic to it. There is a challenge to it. Five players and you have to work together. Heroic encounters are almost always zerg fests where there is no need for anything but "moar DPS". No strategy, no challenge. Even the new Demonic HEs are basically just DPS zerg fests. How can they be otherwise as there is never a guarantee a healer or tank will be around for one?

So I know this is a lot of build up. What is it I am asking for here? It's simple ...

WE DO NOT WANT ANY MORE HEROIC ENCOUNTERS FOR ADVANCEMENT. We want to get our gear by running dungeons. This is supposed to be Dungeons and Dragons!

kemi1984

Well written sir.

More HE's less DD's this is the direction this game is going.
At the moment I can't even force myself to do those for the guild, I'm really tired of all the grind.

Think Fallout 4 will ease the pain for some time.

GG on grinding those motes, I will never do these He's to get these items, God forbid, never.

sabre10

Wholly agree with the OP here, and I'm imagining much of the community feels the same. So far I haven't seen a single post asking for more HE's. Quite the opposite.
Additionally, after the initial splerg of players grinding to get their elemental weapons interest in doing the HEs is going to fall back to its usual low. Sooo, not good for players wanting these weapons following the initial rush.
Ultimately, I can't see longevity in either adding more HE's or tagging an equipment grind to them.
Dungeons on the other hand....!

wylonus

it feel like no longer as "Dungeons & Dragons", it more like Dev's Dreams & Disillusionals.
LOL, what!?! one mote per 15 players Heroic Encounters??? i assumed it was more of random drops from mobs, and i heard some didnt get a mote for few tries, it like a bad RNG to players and it becoming very nasty.

what did you do? devs? were you suppose to make the game ease to play instead of having a hardcore grind which players dont like.
today, i was shocked, no one doing zerging in Icewind's HEs, and most of black ice nodes not spawning for hours. to finish Icewind Boons are getting impossible to complete.
later, i was in Well of Dragons, not many players, and saw only 4 zone copies, it used to have 12-15 zone copies.
newer skirmish are very boring and too much clickfest, and didnt like inability to use combat skills when players want to burn down mobs faster.

rexfire91

sabre10 said:

Additionally, after the initial splerg of players grinding to get their elemental weapons interest in doing the HEs is going to fall back to its usual low. Sooo, not good for players wanting these weapons following the initial rush.
Ultimately, I can't see longevity in either adding more HE's or tagging an equipment grind to them.
Dungeons on the other hand....!

I honestly don't know why they didn't have the elemental motes added to the epic dungeon/skirmish rewards instead of the HEs. Do a T1, get some motes. Do a T2, get even more. Bingo, no more scampering around maps and constantly switching instances. Grinding is annoying enough as it is without having to do that.

subnocte

I can't disagree with any of this.

Obviously though, creating a dungeon with all its mechanics, new models, new maps and textures, interesting story that works into the overall plot, it all needs a decent amount of development. Stick a random run around in circles fight killing the same boring spawning mobs on existing maps with no story, pretty much no development.

dufisto

subnocte said:

I can't disagree with any of this.

Obviously though, creating a dungeon with all its mechanics, new models, new maps and textures, interesting story that works into the overall plot, it all needs a decent amount of development. Stick a random run around in circles fight killing the same boring spawning mobs on existing maps with no story, pretty much no development.

the sad part is there are 9 dungeons they could have brought back in with very little time investment.

this whole expansion feels like they spent a week on it. skirmishes are located in sections of previous maps, and just have an he pasted into them. he's are cut and paste and dropped around the map.

I'll be frank. i completed the water weapon already. it was boring. sit on rock, watch movie, every 10 minutes kill crab. watch more of movie, kill crab. such a completely unimaginative mindnumbingly boring exercise. and this is what the devs intended? seriously? i'd love to hear from the dev that implemented this as to exactly how he thinks this is any fun. or did he honestly think people would wander back to drowned shores ever day for a few minutes and kill the crab then leave? ZERO thought was put into this. and it shows. there is no reason that each of the vigilance quests couldnt give a mote. theres no reason that small he's couldnt drop a mote, that mediums drop 2 -3 and larges drop 4-5. other than some poor attempt to make it appear that there is actually content in this expansion.

i wholeheartedly agree. enough of the he's. they should be something we encounter along our travels not the destination.

cryptic please start listening to what is left of your pc player base. your "vision" and what players want are obviously different. keep following the existing path and soon you wont have to worry about players complaining about the lack of real content.

if i were r.a. salvatore i'd be embarrassed to have my name associated with this drivel.

summary

xgrandz02

kiraskytower said:

Enough is enough ...
WE DO NOT WANT ANY MORE HEROIC ENCOUNTERS FOR ADVANCEMENT. We want to get our gear by running dungeons. This is supposed to be Dungeons and Dragons!

DO not use the word "WE".

I like the Heroic's and want to see more of them!, it's really pug friendly,
No worries about been kicked! (like from dungeons) or no finding partys for low level Gears-
cuz ppl only want 3k for dungeons lol, for example-

dufisto

xgrandz02 said:

kiraskytower said:

Enough is enough ...
WE DO NOT WANT ANY MORE HEROIC ENCOUNTERS FOR ADVANCEMENT. We want to get our gear by running dungeons. This is supposed to be Dungeons and Dragons!

DO not use the word "WE".

I like the Heroic's and want to see more of them!, it's really pug friendly,
No worries about been kicked! (like from dungeons) or no finding partys for low level Gears-
cuz ppl only want 3k for dungeons lol, for example-

PUG. Pick up group. except theres nothing group about this. its a zerg fest. no teamwork required. no thinking involved.. 5 minutes and done.

whoopeeeeeee.

if you are routinely getting kicked from groups ( under the new its really hard to kick someone rules) perhaps theres something other than your IL thats the problem.

pherrow

xgrandz02 said:

kiraskytower said:

Enough is enough ...
WE DO NOT WANT ANY MORE HEROIC ENCOUNTERS FOR ADVANCEMENT. We want to get our gear by running dungeons. This is supposed to be Dungeons and Dragons!

DO not use the word "WE".

I like the Heroic's and want to see more of them!, it's really pug friendly,
No worries about been kicked! (like from dungeons) or no finding partys for low level Gears-
cuz ppl only want 3k for dungeons lol, for example-

Are you in a guild bro?


And on topic, I agree with the OP. I have logged on everyday since the launch of mod 8, only thing I have done was the storyline (which I did find enjoyable). I am having trouble just simply getting started on the new grind. I have no desire to wander the landscape doing HE's. I havnt tried the skirmishes yet or the Gorgon fight but of course I will. I imagine that will get boring quick, however. Funny thing is, I should be excited to do what the new mod offers but I am not. The QoL changes were nice but to me it doesn't matter since I barely care to log in now.

aimeesellers

xgrandz02 said:

kiraskytower said:

Enough is enough ...
WE DO NOT WANT ANY MORE HEROIC ENCOUNTERS FOR ADVANCEMENT. We want to get our gear by running dungeons. This is supposed to be Dungeons and Dragons!

DO not use the word "WE".

I like the Heroic's and want to see more of them!, it's really pug friendly,
No worries about been kicked! (like from dungeons) or no finding partys for low level Gears-
cuz ppl only want 3k for dungeons lol, for example-

And here we have the mentality and maturity level that the developers are apparently interested in catering to.

I totally agree with Kira (Winter). She is totally accurate using the term "WE" here... and I will add... AGAIN... that the developers are "Missing the Mark". There is no content currently in the game that will support the available gear and boons (especially from the Stronghold) to make things challenging. Every dungeon we have can now be steamrolled with ease... by characters with iLevels under 4K. And unless something changes, it is only going to get worse. None of the guilds have unlocked the boons at absurd level yet... (+8000 power, +32000 hit points) . But when we do... what then?

There are characters... and a LOT of them... with legendary and mythic gear. That number grows every day. We need legendary and mythic content to support it! I... and many others with me... ARE BORED OUT OF OUR SKULLS with this game. We have devoted countless hours developing our characters... making them the best we can with what we have, only to end up with nothing that is a challenge to do. And now you want us to do more mindless grinding? I literally FALL ASLEEP during this garbage.

Heroic Encounters are not content. We have said this over and over and over again. The 3 ONE ROOM skirmishes (Yes... Demogorgon is a skirmish... just a 10 person one) that this so called "Module" brought to us do not cut it. And while I do think that some of the changes are a move in the right direction... the lack of content, the addition of even more HE's to do, no new adventure area or real dungeon... is totally the wrong direction.

subnocte

It's a major problem with the game. There is no real end game progression. The T1 dungeons are far too difficult for new 70s, the gear they drop is the gear you need in the first place to do them. So the game provides cash shop short cuts to get it, or a ton of boring HEs/dailies.

After that, once you've done enough grinding to be able to do the T2s, there's nothing else. It's just grinding to get better gear for the sake of grinding. You don't need it. I mean, people can solo the T2 dungeons. Most MMO developers would be in a panic about that to make it right. We, instead, get more HEs.

This mod should have introduced T3 dungeons. With the lack of raids, there needs to be a tier of dungeons that require precise coordination, that reward you with the best gear in the game. Just more grinding to do in the form of mobs spawning over and over until you kill them or log off in boredom is not going to keep people playing.

Let's face it. If the game had launched in this state, it would have shut down pretty quickly.

ironzerg79

Just a thought here. Heroic Encounters in Module 8 are completely optional. If you don't like doing them, don't do them.

But I do want to point out one thing. The last two modules, people have been extremely vocal about Cryptic forgetting the solo player, and gearing all the content towards groups and guilds. People have been literally screaming about the lack of solo progression for months.

And that feedback was listened to by incorporating an avenue for solo players to earn iLevel 135 and 140 gear (Drowcraft) and BiS weapons (Elemental) through was amounts to very solo-friendly play through Heroic Events. You don't need a guild. You don't need a group. You don't need to queue.

Yes, you still need a group of people, but the dynamics are very solo, low-social friendly. Jump into a highly populated zone, jump into encounters, do your thing and earn your rewards. They're not mean to be hard, or complex, nor are they meant to require anything beyond the most basic level of "kill this" cooperation.

You personally might not like it, that's fine. And I agree with the points that we need more dungeon content, too. But you need a variety of content and encounter types to cater to different playstyles.

And even to that point, Well of Dragons and the Elemental Zones are all packed with people doing HE events. So people are taking advantage of this avenue to advance their toons, and some people might actually be enjoying it.

So just be careful when you loudly declare what the playerbase wants, and argue that an entire playstyle should be cut out. You may want to earn your gear by doing 5-man dungeons, but there's a large percentage of the playerbase that prefers non-group, solo friendly avenues to advancing, as well.

kiraskytower

ironzerg79 said:

Just a thought here. Heroic Encounters in Module 8 are completely optional. If you don't like doing them, don't do them.

But I do want to point out one thing. The last two modules, people have been extremely vocal about Cryptic forgetting the solo player, and gearing all the content towards groups and guilds. People have been literally screaming about the lack of solo progression for months.

And that feedback was listened to by incorporating an avenue for solo players to earn iLevel 135 and 140 gear (Drowcraft) and BiS weapons (Elemental) through was amounts to very solo-friendly play through Heroic Events. You don't need a guild. You don't need a group. You don't need to queue.

Yes, you still need a group of people, but the dynamics are very solo, low-social friendly. Jump into a highly populated zone, jump into encounters, do your thing and earn your rewards. They're not mean to be hard, or complex, nor are they meant to require anything beyond the most basic level of "kill this" cooperation.

You personally might not like it, that's fine. And I agree with the points that we need more dungeon content, too. But you need a variety of content and encounter types to cater to different playstyles.

And even to that point, Well of Dragons and the Elemental Zones are all packed with people doing HE events. So people are taking advantage of this avenue to advance their toons, and some people might actually be enjoying it.

So just be careful when you loudly declare what the playerbase wants, and argue that an entire playstyle should be cut out. You may want to earn your gear by doing 5-man dungeons, but there's a large percentage of the playerbase that prefers non-group, solo friendly avenues to advancing, as well.

While I agree that we should have a variety of play styles, the last dungeon was added to the game back in Mod 4. Since then there have been no new dungeons and NO variety, only HEs. I understand that solo players want some content, but HEs are a terrible way to do it even for solo players. At the beginning of Mod 3 everyone was running HEs in icewind pass for the Black Ice gloves. By mod 5, nobody was running those anymore. The chance of getting enough people to do the Remorhaz has been zero for a year now. The same thing will happen with all the new heroic encounters and quests. So 3 months from now when everyone has their new weapons, how will a solo player ever fine people to run the major HEs in the elemental zones 100 times for that weapon? Dungeons however have shown more staying power. Go to Protector's Enclave and see how many people want to run Epic Temple of the Spider, a 2+ year old dungeon.


Mod 8's HEs are more optional than Mod 7's ... but not if you want one of the new weapons.

Unknown

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fantasycharacter

sabre10 said:

Additionally, after the initial splerg of players grinding to get their elemental weapons interest in doing the HEs is going to fall back to its usual low. Sooo, not good for players wanting these weapons following the initial rush.

This is what I don't get. It's already a proven fact that this happens, and can even point to areas where this happens in this very game, right now!

Why gate the equipment like this? Everyone not in the initial rush or without 12 hours a day to play gets screwede over.

urabask

kiraskytower said:

ironzerg79 said:

Just a thought here. Heroic Encounters in Module 8 are completely optional. If you don't like doing them, don't do them.

But I do want to point out one thing. The last two modules, people have been extremely vocal about Cryptic forgetting the solo player, and gearing all the content towards groups and guilds. People have been literally screaming about the lack of solo progression for months.

And that feedback was listened to by incorporating an avenue for solo players to earn iLevel 135 and 140 gear (Drowcraft) and BiS weapons (Elemental) through was amounts to very solo-friendly play through Heroic Events. You don't need a guild. You don't need a group. You don't need to queue.

Yes, you still need a group of people, but the dynamics are very solo, low-social friendly. Jump into a highly populated zone, jump into encounters, do your thing and earn your rewards. They're not mean to be hard, or complex, nor are they meant to require anything beyond the most basic level of "kill this" cooperation.

You personally might not like it, that's fine. And I agree with the points that we need more dungeon content, too. But you need a variety of content and encounter types to cater to different playstyles.

And even to that point, Well of Dragons and the Elemental Zones are all packed with people doing HE events. So people are taking advantage of this avenue to advance their toons, and some people might actually be enjoying it.

So just be careful when you loudly declare what the playerbase wants, and argue that an entire playstyle should be cut out. You may want to earn your gear by doing 5-man dungeons, but there's a large percentage of the playerbase that prefers non-group, solo friendly avenues to advancing, as well.

While I agree that we should have a variety of play styles, the last dungeon was added to the game back in Mod 4. Since then there have been no new dungeons and NO variety, only HEs. I understand that solo players want some content, but HEs are a terrible way to do it even for solo players. At the beginning of Mod 3 everyone was running HEs in icewind pass for the Black Ice gloves. By mod 5, nobody was running those anymore. The chance of getting enough people to do the Remorhaz has been zero for a year now. The same thing will happen with all the new heroic encounters and quests. So 3 months from now when everyone has their new weapons, how will a solo player ever fine people to run the major HEs in the elemental zones 100 times for that weapon? Dungeons however have shown more staying power. Go to Protector's Enclave and see how many people want to run Epic Temple of the Spider, a 2+ year old dungeon.


Mod 8's HEs are more optional than Mod 7's ... but not if you want one of the new weapons.

The only reason why anything ever has staying power is if it has relevant rewards. People run eToS because it's the easiest way to get the protector's cache for the day. If they put it in an easier skirmish no one would run eToS.

By the time you can't get enough people to run HEs for elemental weapons you won't need them because there will be a better alternative. Just like the HEs, by the time you can't easily get 9 people together for demonic HEs it'll be because no one needs the gear they drop. Considering the drop rate on legendary rings that is going to take a long time.

Also technically you don't have to run any of the mod 8 HEs for weapons.

vinceent1

its all about reward. heroic encounter which dont offer reward interesting for majority of players are abandoned, heroic encounters that provide reward usefull for majority of players are occupied. pvp is low populated, because it has low reward in comparison to other and dungeons are more populated because its the best way to get AD currently. easy as that.

let elemental heroic encounter drop something usefull besides for new weapons set and many more will doing them helping their guildies to get materials for them

definition of fun content is very tricky, fun is in many times get reward you want despite what you do in this game in my opinion, if you still play this game after so many disasters

despite what cryptic claim in blogs, population is very AD starved (or additional reward), these crabs should drop guaranteed aquamarine for example

silverkelt

They couldve LEFT everything in place (well except bugs (no ad in thrones) motes difficulty might need a change.. but the rest was ok..

BUT, BUT if they added DV back, with a saleable legendary ring drop.. omg. You guys wouldve had fans and FANS and fans and happy posts upon happy posts.

See.. DV is already there right? retool it.. re-release it, ITS so underdark, its so right!

GIVE us some good news! Tell us this is happening!

ghoulz66

Not to mention, you can't get ADs if you're busy grinding all this HAMSTER non-stop.

mrvincent1959

Even the new Skirmishes and Demo feel like HE's. I think it's just easier to program this kind of thing.

I played the new skirmishes and demo once, and that was enough. Our classes were designed for dungeons, not running around clearing Madness from ourselves.

That new Underdark area is so cool looking. I was expecting a huge campaign in that area with reworked old dungeons as a part of it.

ironzerg79

silverkelt said:

They couldve LEFT everything in place (well except bugs (no ad in thrones) motes difficulty might need a change.. but the rest was ok..

BUT, BUT if they added DV back, with a saleable legendary ring drop.. omg. You guys wouldve had fans and FANS and fans and happy posts upon happy posts.

See.. DV is already there right? retool it.. re-release it, ITS so underdark, its so right!

GIVE us some good news! Tell us this is happening!

Dungeons will be back in Module 9, according to the last Reddit AMA.

Another quote here.

urabask

mrvincent1959 said:

Even the new Skirmishes and Demo feel like HE's. I think it's just easier to program this kind of thing.

I played the new skirmishes and demo once, and that was enough. Our classes were designed for dungeons, not running around clearing Madness from ourselves.

That new Underdark area is so cool looking. I was expecting a huge campaign in that area with reworked old dungeons as a part of it.

Demo feels like a dungeon without the walking and trash mobs between bosses.

subnocte

ironzerg79 said:

silverkelt said:

They couldve LEFT everything in place (well except bugs (no ad in thrones) motes difficulty might need a change.. but the rest was ok..

BUT, BUT if they added DV back, with a saleable legendary ring drop.. omg. You guys wouldve had fans and FANS and fans and happy posts upon happy posts.

See.. DV is already there right? retool it.. re-release it, ITS so underdark, its so right!

GIVE us some good news! Tell us this is happening!

Dungeons will be back in Module 9, according to the last Reddit AMA.

Another quote here.

That's a rather liberal interpretation of a vague "work is in progress" to a very specific "they'll be back in mod 9".

ironzerg79

subnocte said:

ironzerg79 said:

silverkelt said:

They couldve LEFT everything in place (well except bugs (no ad in thrones) motes difficulty might need a change.. but the rest was ok..

BUT, BUT if they added DV back, with a saleable legendary ring drop.. omg. You guys wouldve had fans and FANS and fans and happy posts upon happy posts.

See.. DV is already there right? retool it.. re-release it, ITS so underdark, its so right!

GIVE us some good news! Tell us this is happening!

Dungeons will be back in Module 9, according to the last Reddit AMA.

Another quote here.

That's a rather liberal interpretation of a vague "work is in progress" to a very specific "they'll be back in mod 9".

Did you read that second quote. He says specifically:

"We have a number of dungeon reworks in process. More information will come out after the launch of Underdark on Tuesday (during the development of our next expansion)"

Emphasis is mine.

subnocte

ironzerg79 said:

subnocte said:

ironzerg79 said:

silverkelt said:

They couldve LEFT everything in place (well except bugs (no ad in thrones) motes difficulty might need a change.. but the rest was ok..

BUT, BUT if they added DV back, with a saleable legendary ring drop.. omg. You guys wouldve had fans and FANS and fans and happy posts upon happy posts.

See.. DV is already there right? retool it.. re-release it, ITS so underdark, its so right!

GIVE us some good news! Tell us this is happening!

Dungeons will be back in Module 9, according to the last Reddit AMA.

Another quote here.

That's a rather liberal interpretation of a vague "work is in progress" to a very specific "they'll be back in mod 9".

Did you read that second quote. He says specifically:

"We have a number of dungeon reworks in process. More information will come out after the launch of Underdark on Tuesday (during the development of our next expansion)"

Emphasis is mine.

More information coming out =/= the dungeons are coming back in mod 9.

ironzerg79

It's clear what he means.

subnocte

ironzerg79 said:

It's clear what he means.

Well, "we're bringing back all the dungeons in the next expansion" would be clear, this is not. If you know for sure otherwise, then I'd suggest asking them to tell us that. But this is getting off topic.

urabask

subnocte said:

ironzerg79 said:

It's clear what he means.

Well, "we're bringing back all the dungeons in the next expansion" would be clear, this is not. If you know for sure otherwise, then I'd suggest asking them to tell us that. But this is getting off topic.

That must be one crazy awesome tinfoil hat you have.

Unknown

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dufisto

ironzerg79 said:

Dungeons will be back in Module 9, according to the last Reddit AMA.

Another quote here.

It's clear what he means.

no its not. it just means they have someone who is tasked with reworking dungeons. it does not mean any dungeons are scheduled to be released or when.

so sometime in feb/march we can hopefully see the content that they REMOVED 6 months ago.
only probably watered down snoozefests like the current ones have been cut down to. we've been told they want to bring dungeons back ever since they were removed. if they wanted them back they'd be back already. but now they can release them as NEW content since most of the folks that have played them have left the game.


as for the solo friendly nonsense, he's arent what people want as solo friendly, quests, places to explore that is solo friendly content. he's are just mindless grind.