Strongholds to end Solo players ?

danolim · July 2015

As I look to the horizon and see a new expansion that appears to be a guild grind it makes me wonder if the direction of the game is going to forget about people who choose to play solo. Yes, I have a guild, But It was people I played with in previous games and they are not coming back.
I don't wish to get in a bigger guild, I like playing alone.
Is the game done for me and players like me who want to play solo and still have access to solid gear and events?
I've really been on the fence about staying in game since the greater dragon hoard enchantments got nerfed. It was a true slap that we didn't receive any notice and no compensation for them and I'm not over it.
I've been sticking around to see what happens but things look questionable.
I went from spending $60 a month to practically nothing.
So, tell me oh wise ones, what exciting news can you tell me that will make me wanna stick it out.

kreatyve · July 2015

They haven't really released much more information about it yet, but I hope that you at least try to stick it out and see what's on the horizon. At least until they release a lot more information.

gom8 · July 2015

maybe they will allow people to "merc" in to fight (if you wanted too), i am personally hoping for the old dungeons to come back, along with the difficulty and xp to be fixed (and not slapped around randomly

)

but i can't deny it does look like this is VERY guild oriented (first real mod to do that..), but fun/social guilds are one of the things that keep people playing games for years sometimes, so i am not the least bit surprised to see something catering to that..

oldbaldyone · July 2015

While I'm in the same boat (only group when I need to), these are massively multiplayer games and therefore catering to group content is always going to be a higher priority than solo content.

To that end, being in a low pop guild, I have little hope. The amount of resources necessary in this game previously has been actually reasonable for a solo/small group of friends. You can get a guild back relatively reasonably...and....well, I guess that's about the only guild thing there is. Strongholds...if they make it the same level of "reasonable" as that, people will have tier 5 Starbases...I mean Strongholds, on day 2 (that will probably happen anyways without a HUGE requirement for resources...like, 1000000 times what a normal person could carry and even then...)

I like the concept, and I understand it. But they did take a casual friendly, alt somewhat friendly, solo friendly game, and removed the casual part, removed the alt friendly part, and now are going after the solo part ad squashing them.

Those of us in small guilds I'm betting will be able to make very little actual progress. Larger guilds will farm out their alts...allowing smaller guilds to progress while allowing larger ones to still get their marks for gear. Larger guilds will also sell guild spots so that people can get the gear they need, then leave (the gear usually doesn't have a guild level requirement, so you can get it and leave.)

We shall see though. Whatever they do, I just hope they add some fun. At least make the first few levels reasonable. I don't expect a castle...but a nice keep for a small guild would be nice

sangrine · July 2015

I've been in a dead guild for almost two years.

Lately, been spending time on the guild recruitment forum to see which guilds are available.
Unless you are rich and/or play often, small guilds won't be able to afford or have time to completely upgrade their stronghold. In future modules, I expect there will be even more stronghold upgrades.

Get in a wealthy guild now, or entirely skip all the boons/gear/etc in strongholds, or later, try to get in a fully upgraded stronghold (may not be easy).

rghbrghbj · July 2015

If PVP is not consensual, Strongholds may be DOA. Many have asked for guild housing and I hope this fulfills that request. Although I am in a large guild, I hope small guilds can find some fun in this new module. Will definitely take longer than being in a larger guild though.

nehemiah217 · July 2015

rghbrghbj wrote: »

If PVP is not consensual, Strongholds may be DOA. Many have asked for guild housing and I hope this fulfills that request. Although I am in a large guild, I hope small guilds can find some fun in this new module. Will definitely take longer than being in a larger guild though.

I doubt there would be non-consentual PvP. Cryptic has never been known to "force" players into PvP, not even with CoH/CoV, and that was kinda the point with those games.

Honestly, Cryptic just doesn't know how to "do" PvP enough to make something non-consentual or FFA even work in a remotely viable fashion. I mean look at the PvP in NW already... They are both utter failures.

angrysprite · July 2015

Here what happened in Star Trek Online (because Strongholds system is based entirely on the STO Fleet system):

Solo play will continue as always and the Strongholds thing isn't going to affect that very much. However, once a Guild unlocks gear, items, and mount vendors that is where the best stuff will be found. And when I say best I do mean best: even better than the stuff you can buy for real money in the Zen Market.

At the least: this is what happened in STO: $30 Starships (think Mount) aren't even as good stats-wise as their Fleet versions that you can only buy from your Fleet vendor (and unlike the Zen Market stuff the Guild vendor versions are not account-bound.) And as for small guilds versus large guilds: yes the Larger the guild the more advantage they will have at constructing their Strongholds, no matter how hard the Devs try to balance that out.

The good news is that for players who contribute stuff to earn Marks: even if leaving one guild and joining another guild all Stronghold Marks you've earned you keep (I'll be shocked if this is not that case in Neverwinter; it always was the case in STO). So if you earn just shy of enough marks to buy that gear you wanted and change guilds: you should be able to pick-up where you left off and continue.

fatguns · July 2015

It's a grind with a fancy name "Strongholds"

reddevilbs · July 2015

As far it seem just like STO

angrysprite wrote: »

Here what happened in Star Trek Online (because Strongholds system is based entirely on the STO Fleet system):
-snip-

As far I can seen you are totally right. If you want to have the best items, you have to take advantage to join bigger guild and gain that marks. So I think and what i know from STO - you can linger as solo player or in a small guild, or join in some of the biggest guilds.

generaldiomedes · July 2015

On the flip side, prior to Strongholds you could say 'as a guild oriented PvP player, there is nothing for me in this game, I want to quit'.

Sounds to me like they are trying to cater to both. In fact they are going back to PvE content after Strongholds with the announced Underdark update.

Personally, I like both and am currently researching guilds as my guild with 1 active player (me) just isn't going to cut it.

silverkelt · July 2015

Many of joined guilds for one reason... to run GG, back in the day..

then most of those guilds died, because literally, you didnt need one, in fact most of everything I have ever run has been in legit anyways.

Sadly, this does seem to hurt the legit channel and any other specialty channel out there.. with legit I would've left the game before anyways.

drkbodhi · July 2015

Stop making assumptions. God there are so many people that are willing to believe that the game is going to alienate their delicate reality.

The only thing it does, when we choose to speculate on what the future holds, is cause undo stress.

zickyjacks · July 2015

So the way it seems, strongholds is going to be for some BiS players who have marks, Merc for hire. If they have the marks to contribute, then they can be let into a big guild and take advantage of said guild?

daggon87 · July 2015

I've been in guilds in prior mmorpgs (in more than 15 years playing the genre), but I did not join any in almost 2 years of NWO, I indeed never felt the need or urge to. And I must say I enjoy the freedom of solo play. I've been thinking about looking for a guild in preparation for M7, but I'm not convinced I will make the effort in the end.
I can only hope they will have options for solo players to try some things in the module, and that we will have ways to get the bis gear they may introduce.

daggon87 · July 2015

I have no intention to go for a solo guild. M7 seems to aim at average or big guilds. No way any solo player could compete.
I was thinking about some mercenary system (PvP and/or PvE) or having the possibility to temporarily work for a guild or pay them to get boons or some (BiS) gear from their market.

kreatyve · July 2015

daggon87 wrote: »

I have no intention to go for a solo guild. M7 seems to aim at average or big guilds. No way any solo player could compete.
I was thinking about some mercenary system (PvP and/or PvE) or having the possibility to temporarily work for a guild or pay them to get boons or some (BiS) gear from their market.

In the guild cap announcement on the official blog, they stated that they wanted to be able to small, medium, and large guilds. This is the reason behind the guild cap.

While they haven't yet mentioned in the blog how they plan to let solo players participate, I do like your idea for the mercenary system and hope they can implement something like that.

suxip01111 · July 2015

Players who join guilds are (on average) more likely to keep playing than those who go it alone, this is because for those players it is their guild friends who keep them coming back to the game, even after they've "burnt-out" and no longer find the game content satisfying.

Catering to those who are most likely to keep playing the game, and therefore most likely to keep spending, is a good business decision.

I do hope that this mod offers content for solo players though, even if all they have to do is create a solo guild.

kabinoles · July 2015

most ppl play this game because you could solo most things(past),and I know the % is high in every mmo that ppl like to play solo and from time to time in group.when you kill the solo play you kill your game

kvet · July 2015

daggon87 wrote: »

I've been in guilds in prior mmorpgs (in more than 15 years playing the genre), but I did not join any in almost 2 years of NWO, I indeed never felt the need or urge to. And I must say I enjoy the freedom of solo play. I've been thinking about looking for a guild in preparation for M7, but I'm not convinced I will make the effort in the end.
I can only hope they will have options for solo players to try some things in the module, and that we will have ways to get the bis gear they may introduce.

You could always find a casual guild (like Greycloaks) who will leave you alone to play solo and do whatever you want while also giving you the option to partake of the guild when/if you feel so inclined. Not all guilds have requirements and are an imposition on their members.

kvet · July 2015

kreatyve wrote: »

In the guild cap announcement on the official blog, they stated that they wanted to be able to small, medium, and large guilds. This is the reason behind the guild cap.

As implemented, it will not even remotely accomplish that. [Edited by mod due to possible exploitation.]

If they're not going to sell expansions to the account limit, I would also like to see them remove, or massively increase the character limit (by at least an order of magnitude to 5000) there's no real good reason to limit the characters per guild if the accounts are limited unless that 500 limit is some sort of platform limitation. Would love to know if it is so we can stop asking about it.

ironzerg79 · July 2015

kvet wrote: »

You could always find a casual guild (like Unrepentant Gaming ) who will leave you alone to play solo and do whatever you want while also giving you the option to partake of the guild when/if you feel so inclined. Not all guilds have requirements and are an imposition on their members.

Agreed. One of the basic tenets of the Unrepentant Philosophy is "Freedom to play games the way you want to play, when you want to play them." The only thing we require of our members is to be good people. That's it.

So you can do group quests to help earn resources for our Stronghold. Or solo. Or neither. Or run some dungeons. Or PvP. Or whatever. Who cares?

But don't write off an entire module's worth of content because of what you think a guild is, or because of a bad experience in a previous guild. And I can guarantee you there will be a lot of butthattery and shenanigans when Stronghold launches by guilds striving to "be the best" by requiring their members to exploit every single opportunity they can, and work the game like a second job.

And then there will be the rest of us. We're not in this to construct a monument to our own epeens. We're just here to have a good time.

daggon87 · July 2015

Whatever casual guilds might say, when someone joins, they are expected to be part of a community. You can't expect them to do nothing for the guild. And if the players joining are people you want to have in your communities, they will put efforts in helping those welcoming them anyway.
Solo players joining a guild are not solo players anymore.

(Well, I still noted the name of your guilds for when I will have made up my mind

).

daggon87 · July 2015

When I started playing mmorpg, back in the stoneage where they first appeared, I was a guild player. Even if fancy things like housing and the like did not exist yet, it was the only way to organize meaningful things with servers having only a few hundreds players.
But now, almost a generation later, I've had my share of community drama, and I like to enjoy my game at my own pace. Because, let's face it, you can very well have your T2 solo, even the elemental versions, you can have your transcendent enchants solo (even without joining any specific channel).
But indeed not if you suppose the game ends at the last level. The grinding levels of modern games are really really reasonable compared to what was the norm 15-20 years ago.

Everybody has it's own way of enjoying the game. I hope mod7 will not be the end of too many of them.

ghosty2a · July 2015

Yes, solo play is getting a bit more difficult, but it is not dieing by any means. As someone has already pointed out, they have already announced mod8, The Underdark, which sounds like it will be more of the "normal" game expansion. As for solo players and guilded players, yes it will always be easyer on a player in a guild. As the old saying goes, The more the merrier and the more shoulders to carry the load, the lighter the load on each. And as Magenubbie has pointed out, there are a lot of casula guilds out there that prety much let you do what you want as long as you do not cause drama. We at Tyrs Paladium , are one of those guilds that do not require much other than to have fun playing the game and cause no drama. So do not be afraid of joining a guild, just take your time and research them before asking to join one.

But one thing I would like to repeat and clairify is what both Kreatyve and Kvet have said, and that there is now a guild cap limit on the number of @handels, or accounts, a guild can have. That means there will be no "large" guilds per se. Yes, all of us who are over that 150 account limit are already makeing new guild chapters to deal with that, but each new chapter is still limted to a max of 150 accounts. And from what I have seen on the Dev Blogs, I am not sure that the "sister guilds" will be able to help each other out much. What all that means is that the current "large" guilds will still be here, but split up. And that means more headache and work for us Guild Leaders and Officers, while the rest of the guildys get to sit back, relaxe and actualy have time to play and enjoy the game.

Strongholds to end Solo players ?

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