All I know for sure is I've hit level 30 with a Guardian Fighter and never felt the need to join a group outside of events. I do partake in Skirmishes, Dungeons, and PVP. They tend to make my single player experience out in the world all the more digestible, and the rewards are a little too tantalising.
But is it possible to go through the whole story alone? I don't see any reason why not thus far.
THis is basically single player games with a LAN party atmosphere, like the original NWN where people could make their own servers.
Once you get into MMO esque population people are going to party up and want dungeons that support grouping and raids.
Although I think people that solo MMO's are doing themselves a huge dis-service by playing alone. Missing the whole point of the genre.
What point? We have to keep doing foundry missions to catch up because XP gain in a four person group is awful. Not to mention that quests don't even scale. XP from instances is even worse.
What point? We have to keep doing foundry missions to catch up because XP gain in a four person group is awful. Not to mention that quests don't even scale. XP from instances is even worse.
Here is the thing in party yes xp per kill per person goes down but you finish the quest super fast.. so xp per hour goes up. the 5 of us leveled 1 to 60 in just a couple days blowing through quests and having a blast talking via voice chat. The thing is to get in a guild with cool like minded people, instead of shutting ones self off to what a MMO is Massive Multi-player. Find a small 10 to 15 person guild that are like minded people and you will enjoy the game much more and be able to do all the content.
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calaminthaMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Yes , I got to 60 walking around soloing all the quest . You do have to group if you want to do dungeons. But you don't have to group with people you know , you just Q and they pop up . Lots of foundry quest say ' solo ' , but they do get a lot harder at 60 . Hopefully people will start writing level 60 solo ones .
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oakie32Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero UsersPosts: 1Arc User
edited May 2013
I am a solo player gamer in a MMO environment. My real life friends do not play MMO's and my MMO friends don't have the best rigs so I end up having no one to play with most of the time. Adding in the fact that I work from home, I have opportunity to play 24-7-365 if I wanted to and therefore I level faster than some people. I have done a few Skirmishes and the first dungeon but the rest of the time its just me and an companion hacking and slashing all day long. There have been times that I have gotten stuck in a sticky spot in Helms Hold where the devil respawn rate was insane and I ended up fighting for like 30 mins straight ( thank to lots of healing potions, I never died) and I really wanted someone to help me get out of the corner before the mobs respawned which finally happened after 30 minutes ( there was treasure piles everywhere let me tell you) but I remained solo.
Until you can't get the next quest because you are 4 levels below it and have to start farming mobs (or foundry) to catch up.
not true at all.... the quest xp you are given is exactly the same... you gain hardly any xp from kills even solo... party by far is more xp per hour and since you are leveling up in a party with friends why not do dungeons and skirmishes and pvp. But we leveld 1 to 60 together and did not have any issue with not being able to get a quest and we were 60 before we hit the underdark.
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calaminthaMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
not true at all.... the quest xp you are given is exactly the same... you gain hardly any xp from kills even solo... party by far is more xp per hour and since you are leveling up in a party with friends why not do dungeons and skirmishes and pvp. But we leveld 1 to 60 together and did not have any issue with not being able to get a quest and we were 60 before we hit the underdark.
If that's true why did we have to stop questing in Vellosk because one of the party members couldn't get the last quest (level 42) because he was only level 38 at the time? We even did some quests twice by sharing them. When I played solo I actually overleveled the quests.
Edit: Same mob, Group kill XP +11, Solo kill XP +30
but when you hit lvl 60 you need party to get access to the end game content.
Endgame? My endgame are the foundry qeusts, and that sart from levl 1 to level 60 and goes on and on forever until foundry authors will run out of ideas.
The endgame that devs wanna force you to do is: farm for days/weeks T2 dungeons only to get T1 gear, then farm for days/weeks T2 dungeons only to get T2 gear and so on. This is not the endgame I like in MMOs, this is only a stupid way to keep you in game farming like an hamster on a well. No thanks.
The ONLY great thing of Neverwinter is the Foundry, and I play only for the foundry. To farm like an hamster there are millions of other MMORPGs...
I'm lvl 55 on my CW and have never bothered with skirmishes, dungeons or PvP. I hate pugging anyway and, let's face it, Neverwinter was never designed to be difficult.
I'll get flamed for my opinion, but I honestly would like to see SOME MMOs where ALL the content (all of it) has a soloable option.
I get so tired of 'sure you can solo, but after a certain point, you have to raid or give up'.
It's not raiding, per se, but what it offers; progressively harder content that offers progressively better rewards. Give me an option in an mMo that has that, and I'll sub for life.
There are some pseudo-MMOs which are like that. Path of Exile is one, being inspired by D2 and TL: end game consists of map drops which you can enchant to tweak the difficulty to your liking, and drops are hugely dependant on said difficulty. Like D2 and TL, it's also entirely possible to solo your way through. Also like D2 and TL, it isn't exactly a true MMO admittedly, but since we're talking about single player, that shouldn't matter.
This is excellent news! I don't want to go anywhere near Astral Diamonds or the Auction House again (for obvious reasons). I'm just worried that I won't be able to find gear good enough to let me tackle the main story on my own if I refuse to use the Auction House.
I leveled my main up completely solo. No dungeons. To warn you quests will pull ahead of you level wise but doing a few foundries fixes this issue. Just read the descript some foundries are not meant to be soloed. Most are however.
Yes you can....... and don't forget the foundry ......... but why would you want to? You would miss out on mixing with the best gamming community out there oh well your loss.
But for now, I guess we just have to make the best of what we have.
I'd like that aswell lol. Sad thing is that you really do go through the hassle of teaming up and do T2 dungeons because it will disable you to do too much stuff in a comfortable fashion if you don't get T2 gear, such as PvP - and the ways to make AD by playing solo is too slow to keep up with the inflation of top tier items. Once you hit level 60, foundry ain't gonna be enough to make you wanna keep playing. Lastly, if you choose to quit at level 60 then the time that you've spent on a Neverwinter title will be considerably lower compared to the other ones. That'd be quite disappointing, don't ya think?
David Valtiere, Lvl 70 TR with perfect Lvl 60 gear which I don't want to replace cause nostalgia yo ;_;
just go for daily foundry, sell all "junk" items to NPC, do profession, ... all race, all class done that single so why not? AD still can be gather through Leadership Profession and daily foundry, FYI, I did that though ...
I'd like that aswell lol. Sad thing is that you really do go through the hassle of teaming up and do T2 dungeons because it will disable you to do too much stuff in a comfortable fashion if you don't get T2 gear, such as PvP - and the ways to make AD by playing solo is too slow to keep up with the inflation of top tier items. Once you hit level 60, foundry ain't gonna be enough to make you wanna keep playing. Lastly, if you choose to quit at level 60 then the time that you've spent on a Neverwinter title will be considerably lower compared to the other ones. That'd be quite disappointing, don't ya think?
But you don't need T2 gear for solo content anyway, so that really isn't an issue. Granted there wouldn't be character progression either. Still, you can still play foundry levels at lv 60, but granted you can play them at every other level anyway..
I'm at level 48 now on my cleric. I did a couple skirmishes on the lower levels, and that was it. Since then I have avoided playing with other people like the plague.
Cryptic already has/had a great game to look back on for an example of a teaming-rich game that also allowed solo players to enjoy themselves plenty too. I think they know what that game is, because they seem to be getting back to those principles in NW. Teaming should be recommendable at worst, optional at best. ALTHOUGH I disagree that an MMO should make ALL content soloable, because that would be an extremely un-fun limitation for some of the mechanics that make teaming up so much fun. (Of course, solo players are generally able to accept that this is the world they live in.)
Bottom line, developers shouldn't force players to play a certain way, they should give them many options to play in the ways that they enjoy most, and recognize that players desired playstyles can shift over the course of a week or even an evening. Giving those options to them keeps them coming back. Plus, diversity makes the world feel larger, adds to a game's replayability and that translates directly into higher retention rates every time.
I love to team, but I also I like how NW allows you to throw yourself to the dogs if you want to, and enter some instances that are suggested for teams. I actually waded through the Cloak Tower at level 18/19. Hey, it only took 5 hours, 40 potions, over 100 health stones and some of the most difficult solo combat of my gaming life; but it was fun and I emerged victorious from something I didn't think I could do.
I enjoy teaming IMMENSELY, especially in tough spots when teamwork and strategizing matter. But solo adventures like my Cloak Tower adventure can be pretty darn memorable.
P.S. My comments about the storyline really deserve their own post, but for now I'll say I'm a big fan of the story here. It's probably safe to say it will be years before anyone tops TSW's story for drama/realism (although I do think you justifiably have room to do this in some corners of the Forgotten Realms, if you wanted to as a dev or Foundry author); but Neverwinter's story manages to do something even more impressive in my opinion, which is a balance of dramatic impact and weight, sprinkled with the fantastical or funny, all with superb, non-cheesy pacing. It's a fun ride, but there are moments when I realize just how far Cryptic has come since Foxbat. I'm impressed (and relieved).
_
[SIGPIC]Captain Electric and the Sapien Spider[/SIGPIC]
Very possible, if you're a not a cleric specc'd for healing (would've taken me forever to get to 60). It also pays to duo with someone. I did that with a GF and my DC. I'm now doing with with a DC on my CW. It's all fun.
It's pretty much how I'm playing it, haven't touched any of the group aspects. Of course, I'm only playing to kill time until something else comes out, and the combat and leveling are pretty fun but the overpriced cash shop, lack of dev interaction and overall design that encourages greed just won't allow me to take it seriously as a long term game.
So yes, it's possible to play as a single player game.
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spikespireMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 14Arc User
edited May 2013
I'm sure when your doing the quest. It can feel a lot like a single-player. Then you see that one guy Kill-Steal one of monsters you needed to finish a quest and that feeling quickly goes away~
This is excellent news! I don't want to go anywhere near Astral Diamonds or the Auction House again (for obvious reasons). I'm just worried that I won't be able to find gear good enough to let me tackle the main story on my own if I refuse to use the Auction House.
Don't short-change yourself - after all you do have those diamonds from dailies and invocations. Use them to buy some good gears from the Auction House - just treat the players selling stuff in Auction House as annoying NPC!
I'm sure when your doing the quest. It can feel a lot like a single-player. Then you see that one guy Kill-Steal one of monsters you needed to finish a quest and that feeling quickly goes away~
I've yet to have anyone KS anything from me. Though I've had a few accuse me of it. Oddly enough things seem to be mostly shared as far as quests go. For example the Tower district quest where you free the prisoners. I was fighting the orcs and someone else runs up and frees the prisoner. I thought it was annoying at first. Then I realized that as long as I am close by I still getting credit.
I'm sure when your doing the quest. It can feel a lot like a single-player. Then you see that one guy Kill-Steal one of monsters you needed to finish a quest and that feeling quickly goes away~
Luckily those quest items quickly replenishes.
Just treat the occasional players as NPC appeared in the game to give you some challenge!
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calaminthaMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
I'm sure when your doing the quest. It can feel a lot like a single-player. Then you see that one guy Kill-Steal one of monsters you needed to finish a quest and that feeling quickly goes away~
The game even includes a loading screen tip that says that quests are balanced for one player and a companion but dungeons and skirmishes require 5 players.
My 2cents: I loved the experience of levelling up my first rogue to 60 through the quests. Immersion people, immersion
I like skirmishes better then random-rolled dungeon-parties, dungeons allow too much time for people to develop into idiots. I really hope those become available on epic levels too, they seem to match the concept of NWO as a casual game better I think.
I think joining a guild takes the worry of auto-queueing somewhat, but I must admit I haven't been looking so much, not untill all the shards are joined.
But yes, It's highly doable to solo to 60, and in fact I would recommend it to any new player. It's a good way to learn to play your class and about the world you're playing in.
I'm at level 48 now on my cleric. I did a couple skirmishes on the lower levels, and that was it. Since then I have avoided playing with other people like the plague.
It's not the game. It's the people.
Quite. The 'community' in NW is a new MMO low for me. From the endless spam, the stupid questions and pointless 'pay attention to me, pay attention to me' babble of chat to the vile, cheating little cretins who make up pugs. I came into this game with high hopes but it ended up just reminding me that hell is indeed, other people.
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kimberixMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited May 2013
It's a shame that a game built on such grouping tradition (Pen-and-paper D&D) should have such poorly implemented mechanics when it comes to grouping;
* outlevelling of dungeons
* dungeon group finder is poor
* all loot BOE
* dungeon XP is woeful
Ironically, had a group for Wolf Den last night who spent a lot of time chatting and waiting for people to finish RL stuff (bio breaks, doorbell) - even though we didn't get much xp, it still made me reminisce of the past when groups of people chatting were the norm; here, in most groups I'm in, I may as well be in with 4 other bots / NPCs as they are just mob-killing, path-following, loot-<font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> individuals.
I'm unsure why this trait is so overpowering in this game. If it's a sign of things to come, then it doesn't bode well for MMORPGs in the future.
Comments
THis is basically single player games with a LAN party atmosphere, like the original NWN where people could make their own servers.
Once you get into MMO esque population people are going to party up and want dungeons that support grouping and raids.
What point? We have to keep doing foundry missions to catch up because XP gain in a four person group is awful. Not to mention that quests don't even scale. XP from instances is even worse.
Here is the thing in party yes xp per kill per person goes down but you finish the quest super fast.. so xp per hour goes up. the 5 of us leveled 1 to 60 in just a couple days blowing through quests and having a blast talking via voice chat. The thing is to get in a guild with cool like minded people, instead of shutting ones self off to what a MMO is Massive Multi-player. Find a small 10 to 15 person guild that are like minded people and you will enjoy the game much more and be able to do all the content.
Until you can't get the next quest because you are 4 levels below it and have to start farming mobs (or foundry) to catch up.
not true at all.... the quest xp you are given is exactly the same... you gain hardly any xp from kills even solo... party by far is more xp per hour and since you are leveling up in a party with friends why not do dungeons and skirmishes and pvp. But we leveld 1 to 60 together and did not have any issue with not being able to get a quest and we were 60 before we hit the underdark.
If that's true why did we have to stop questing in Vellosk because one of the party members couldn't get the last quest (level 42) because he was only level 38 at the time? We even did some quests twice by sharing them. When I played solo I actually overleveled the quests.
Edit: Same mob, Group kill XP +11, Solo kill XP +30
Endgame? My endgame are the foundry qeusts, and that sart from levl 1 to level 60 and goes on and on forever until foundry authors will run out of ideas.
The endgame that devs wanna force you to do is: farm for days/weeks T2 dungeons only to get T1 gear, then farm for days/weeks T2 dungeons only to get T2 gear and so on. This is not the endgame I like in MMOs, this is only a stupid way to keep you in game farming like an hamster on a well. No thanks.
The ONLY great thing of Neverwinter is the Foundry, and I play only for the foundry. To farm like an hamster there are millions of other MMORPGs...
There are some pseudo-MMOs which are like that. Path of Exile is one, being inspired by D2 and TL: end game consists of map drops which you can enchant to tweak the difficulty to your liking, and drops are hugely dependant on said difficulty. Like D2 and TL, it's also entirely possible to solo your way through. Also like D2 and TL, it isn't exactly a true MMO admittedly, but since we're talking about single player, that shouldn't matter.
This is an open beta. Start treating it like one.
I leveled my main up completely solo. No dungeons. To warn you quests will pull ahead of you level wise but doing a few foundries fixes this issue. Just read the descript some foundries are not meant to be soloed. Most are however.
I'd like that aswell lol. Sad thing is that you really do go through the hassle of teaming up and do T2 dungeons because it will disable you to do too much stuff in a comfortable fashion if you don't get T2 gear, such as PvP - and the ways to make AD by playing solo is too slow to keep up with the inflation of top tier items. Once you hit level 60, foundry ain't gonna be enough to make you wanna keep playing. Lastly, if you choose to quit at level 60 then the time that you've spent on a Neverwinter title will be considerably lower compared to the other ones. That'd be quite disappointing, don't ya think?
But you don't need T2 gear for solo content anyway, so that really isn't an issue. Granted there wouldn't be character progression either. Still, you can still play foundry levels at lv 60, but granted you can play them at every other level anyway..
This is an open beta. Start treating it like one.
It's not the game. It's the people.
Bottom line, developers shouldn't force players to play a certain way, they should give them many options to play in the ways that they enjoy most, and recognize that players desired playstyles can shift over the course of a week or even an evening. Giving those options to them keeps them coming back. Plus, diversity makes the world feel larger, adds to a game's replayability and that translates directly into higher retention rates every time.
I love to team, but I also I like how NW allows you to throw yourself to the dogs if you want to, and enter some instances that are suggested for teams. I actually waded through the Cloak Tower at level 18/19. Hey, it only took 5 hours, 40 potions, over 100 health stones and some of the most difficult solo combat of my gaming life; but it was fun and I emerged victorious from something I didn't think I could do.
I enjoy teaming IMMENSELY, especially in tough spots when teamwork and strategizing matter. But solo adventures like my Cloak Tower adventure can be pretty darn memorable.
P.S. My comments about the storyline really deserve their own post, but for now I'll say I'm a big fan of the story here. It's probably safe to say it will be years before anyone tops TSW's story for drama/realism (although I do think you justifiably have room to do this in some corners of the Forgotten Realms, if you wanted to as a dev or Foundry author); but Neverwinter's story manages to do something even more impressive in my opinion, which is a balance of dramatic impact and weight, sprinkled with the fantastical or funny, all with superb, non-cheesy pacing. It's a fun ride, but there are moments when I realize just how far Cryptic has come since Foxbat. I'm impressed (and relieved).
[SIGPIC]Captain Electric and the Sapien Spider[/SIGPIC]
"YES, PLEASE"
Vote YES for the Foundry in Champions Online.
@Captain-Electric | CoH/Virtue veteran | Proud new Champion
So yes, it's possible to play as a single player game.
"You know you wanna fondle my dragons."
Don't short-change yourself - after all you do have those diamonds from dailies and invocations. Use them to buy some good gears from the Auction House - just treat the players selling stuff in Auction House as annoying NPC!
I've yet to have anyone KS anything from me. Though I've had a few accuse me of it. Oddly enough things seem to be mostly shared as far as quests go. For example the Tower district quest where you free the prisoners. I was fighting the orcs and someone else runs up and frees the prisoner. I thought it was annoying at first. Then I realized that as long as I am close by I still getting credit.
Luckily those quest items quickly replenishes.
Just treat the occasional players as NPC appeared in the game to give you some challenge!
The game even includes a loading screen tip that says that quests are balanced for one player and a companion but dungeons and skirmishes require 5 players.
I like skirmishes better then random-rolled dungeon-parties, dungeons allow too much time for people to develop into idiots. I really hope those become available on epic levels too, they seem to match the concept of NWO as a casual game better I think.
I think joining a guild takes the worry of auto-queueing somewhat, but I must admit I haven't been looking so much, not untill all the shards are joined.
But yes, It's highly doable to solo to 60, and in fact I would recommend it to any new player. It's a good way to learn to play your class and about the world you're playing in.
Quite. The 'community' in NW is a new MMO low for me. From the endless spam, the stupid questions and pointless 'pay attention to me, pay attention to me' babble of chat to the vile, cheating little cretins who make up pugs. I came into this game with high hopes but it ended up just reminding me that hell is indeed, other people.
* outlevelling of dungeons
* dungeon group finder is poor
* all loot BOE
* dungeon XP is woeful
Ironically, had a group for Wolf Den last night who spent a lot of time chatting and waiting for people to finish RL stuff (bio breaks, doorbell) - even though we didn't get much xp, it still made me reminisce of the past when groups of people chatting were the norm; here, in most groups I'm in, I may as well be in with 4 other bots / NPCs as they are just mob-killing, path-following, loot-<font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> individuals.
I'm unsure why this trait is so overpowering in this game. If it's a sign of things to come, then it doesn't bode well for MMORPGs in the future.