why is there no solo end-game content?

[Sobx.1758]

4 hours ago, CrashTestAuto.9108 said:

These are good points to consider, but I'm not sure why they aren't solved by simply pitching the difficulty at roughly the level of existing Strike missions (NM and CM), and adjusting the rewards to either be the same, or slightly reduced.  By nature of the current rewards being primarily daily/weekly, you can't spend all day in them farmingm and anyone who would be affected by the difficulty curve would be equally affected by group content (ignoring the effect of carrying).

Because cooperation between the players is part of the difficulty, if you want "the same but solo", you're not here for a harder content, but for faster/easier rewards. If you want a strictly single player game, play single player games you've already brought up by yourself as examples. Otherwise, use solo modes to improve until you're comfortable with playing multiplayer game like a multiplayer game. There's not much sense in claiming you find everything so easy, while at the same time you don't want to play group content because you're scared of wiping a group.

4 hours ago, CrashTestAuto.9108 said:

Moreover, I actually view this as a "Soft" DPS meter, which is another difficult issue that is discussed.  A lot of players simply don't know where they fall on the skill curve, so giving a set of solo challenges offers a stress-free environment to get up to a certain standard.  Obviously there are issues with non-DPS roles, and group composition to consider beyond this, but it's a start.

Is dps golem hard to access for you for some reason? You don't need "soft dps meter" (which, as was also mentioned, is already kind of a thing considering you keep saying stuff takes too long for you) when you can slap a golem and actually check what dps you have, something that was specifically changed to be easier accessed right from LA without a [even a "fake", solo player]squad. Don't try using other hypothetical players as a springboard to get you faster/easier rewards. If those hypothetical players want a way to improve, helpful tools to do it already exist. If you're not sure how to improve, ask the players for help, there's literally a "players helping players" subforum here too.

Edited January 9, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[Bladestrom.6425]

So to try and quantify the rather vague requirements here:

Current State - Anet designed Strikes based on single player bosses.

-Strikes are designed to be 'something you can tackle alongside both close friends and new allies pitting you and nine others against jazzed-up, remixed versions of epic, exciting bosses from the Living World and expansions' .

New Content proposed here - a 3rd variation for these bosses. This time a type of solo Strike boss based on a strike boss (eek, circular reference)

- This solo boss will therefore be more exciting than the existing story bosses that the strikes were based on as this does not fit the bill currently.

- Poster wants it MORE accessible than the original replayable living world and expansion bosses.

- Poster wants content to scale, more than strikes, but less that the original repayable single player story bosses.  This ofc implies it should automatically auto tune to individual players current and gradually improving skill levels to support this (otherwise it will turn into a broken farm ofc)  Anet may well need to develop an advanced AI based process along with long term performance stats storage for every player to track this.  This will be somehow be extremely cheap despite the complexity.

 

- it would assumedly scale so the fight time is along the lines of the originating Strike , so 8-20 mins (assuming advanced scaling as above).  Players will not get bored of this.

 

- Poster wants it to be rewarding,  which will somehow automagically have the some reward rate of return as any other content,  See point above over advanced scaling to solve this point

 

- Poster also wants the content to be geared for training while playing solo..to train for the strikes designed for coordination between a squad of people with group based mechanics.  

 

- Poster wants to train for dps checks, but does not want to use the free test dummy designed for this purpose. Instead he wishes to use the new Solo strike boss.  There cannot be an option to alter buffs/debuffs like the test dummy designed for this purpose as this would skew fight scaling obviously.

 

 

Edited January 9, 2023 by vesica tempestas.1563

[CrashTestAuto.9108]

Just to edit out the odd strawmanning, because otherwise that was actually pretty good.

 

I'm proposing solo Strike missions with the following description:

 

1) More engaging that the Story Mode versions (through mechanics and difficulty)

2) Faster to access and get to the fight

3) Scaled so single player DPS leads to similar fight length to group version

4) Rewards similar to or slightly less than group version (recoloured Living Water skins would be nice)

 

(In summary, basically the same benefits that group strikes have over Story Mode, but scaled to solo DPS, so that solo players can also enjoy those benefits)

 

As noted, this would have additional benefit of allowing people to practice in a low (zero) pressure environment, and indicate when DPS is low in lieu of a DPS meter.

[Bladestrom.6425]

16 minutes ago, CrashTestAuto.9108 said:

Just to edit out the odd strawmanning, because otherwise that was actually pretty good.

 

I'm proposing solo Strike missions with the following description:

 

1) More engaging that the Story Mode versions (through mechanics and difficulty)

2) Faster to access and get to the fight

3) Scaled so single player DPS leads to similar fight length to group version

4) Rewards similar to or slightly less than group version (recoloured Living Water skins would be nice)

 

(In summary, basically the same benefits that group strikes have over Story Mode, but scaled to solo DPS, so that solo players can also enjoy those benefits)

 

As noted, this would have additional benefit of allowing people to practice in a low (zero) pressure environment, and indicate when DPS is low in lieu of a DPS meter.

ok fair enough, this is at least something concrete.  Unfortunately for this to happen you would have to write some pretty complex code versus payoff so it will never happen (for the scaling/maintaining 3 version of the same boss) 

 

setting that aside however you are not practicing for a fight that exists outside of the practice arena, and you would not have strike conditions (i.e buffs/debuffs/movement/limited boss mechanics) so what would you be practicing?

Edited January 9, 2023 by vesica tempestas.1563

[Sobx.1758]

15 hours ago, CrashTestAuto.9108 said:

1) More engaging that the Story Mode versions (through mechanics and difficulty)

This too vague to actually mean anything, but it seems "be as vague as you can be so you can dismiss anyt response you get with pretty much random 'not engaging/hard/profitable enough' " IS the name of the game here.

15 hours ago, CrashTestAuto.9108 said:

2) Faster to access and get to the fight

Current content -incluiding replaying the story- is fast to access. So again faster than what? Faster how?

15 hours ago, CrashTestAuto.9108 said:

3) Scaled so single player DPS leads to similar fight length to group version

Which single player? The one that wants to learn? The one that already can and aims for hard content (at which point ,again, why would they be scared of wiping the group?)? Because you seem to be listing all kinds of players in your posts.

15 hours ago, CrashTestAuto.9108 said:

(In summary, basically the same benefits that group strikes have over Story Mode, but scaled to solo DPS, so that solo players can also enjoy those benefits)

Or... stop trying to turn group content into solo content. I mean it was already pointed out in the last thread about it where you've tried to hide your reasoning behind "it would just be practice for group content" as well:

This whole resurrected thread is a repost.

15 hours ago, CrashTestAuto.9108 said:

As noted, this would have additional benefit of allowing people to practice in a low (zero) pressure environment, and indicate when DPS is low in lieu of a DPS meter.

The game already has options for players to practice and improve, including the story versions leading up to group strike missions. Again: as already was explained to you.

Edited January 10, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[CrashTestAuto.9108]

16 minutes ago, vesica tempestas.1563 said:

ok fair enough, this is at least something concrete.  Unfortunately for this to happen you would have to write some pretty complex code versus payoff so it will never happen (for the scaling/maintaining 3 version of the same boss) 

 

setting that aside however you are not practicing for a fight that exists outside of the practice arena, and you would not have strike conditions (i.e buffs/debuffs/movement/limited boss mechanics) so what would you be practicing?

I'm not sure how complex you're picturing here (or what is actually required behind the scenes to make different changes), but a minimum viable product would literally just involve changing the health on the boss.  I do realise they'd want to do a bit more than that, but there've already been three versions of these bosses made, so I would hope that they made them not too out of spaghetti code.

 

On the practicing point.  A few things.  Basic game mechanics obviously, then specific boss mechanics (e.g. the expanding rings you need to jump over, which is pretty important in AH CM), and then rotations in a variety of actual gameplay conditions.  Extra bonus on the dummy is that players would be able to practice whilst passively earning rewards.

 

Yes you can practice some of these elsewhere, but not in too many places where that would give you information about how you specifically are doing.  An important point being that this is a standardised fight that player would come across naturally, without googling or reading external sites, meaning that the game itself would be telling players "Your DPS isn't good enough", rather than them having to happen upon a benchmarking video (or worse, get yelled at by a pug and never join again).

[Sobx.1758]

9 minutes ago, CrashTestAuto.9108 said:

Yes you can practice some of these elsewhere, but not in too many places where that would give you information about how you specifically are doing.  An important point being that this is a standardised fight that player would come across naturally, without googling or reading external sites, meaning that the game itself would be telling players "Your DPS isn't good enough", rather than them having to happen upon a benchmarking video (or worse, get yelled at by a pug and never join again).

What dps is supposed to be considered "good enough" in your version of encounter?

Also fight that player would come across naturally so like... eod story bosses -> strike missions -> sm cm?

Edited January 9, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[Silent.6137]

11 hours ago, CrashTestAuto.9108 said:

In summary, basically the same benefits that group strikes have over Story Mode, but scaled to solo DPS, so that solo players can also enjoy those benefits

In summary, brand new Instanced modes even if it's just a reworking of existing Strikes.

And scaled to whose DPS? Someone who are very familiar with their character's skill rotations? Or the average players? And what about the more casual players? Will it have to take into account all the different classes' roles and abilities in regards to DPS? Introduce new mechanics so it's more engaging but will not apply to group encounters? And by difficulties, increase the HP pool of bosses in relations to Story Mode?

10 hours ago, CrashTestAuto.9108 said:

a minimum viable product would literally just involve changing the health on the boss.

If you find that's acceptable, then why not just do Story Mode bosses and gear down. It will serve the same purpose. But I'm sure that wouldn't satisfy you because you want better rewards and changes in some of the mechanics.

You're essentially asking for practice golems in Strikes setting with good rewards. With various changes to accomodate solo players which will hardly be applicable to group Strikes. Group Strikes are heavily dependent upon boon supports that such solo mode will not have. How do you address it or it should just be ignored?

And do it for all Strikes?

It may sound easy to implement on paper but if you delve into all the intricacies that's required, it will be a full-blown project. It'll be a new mode that will require as much care in the integrations to the overall game as much as the other game modes. And worst of all, it'll be very niche, moreso than the group Instanced contents. Some such as yourself may like it but we already know majority of the playerbase are not into Instanced contents. Or min-max minded. They'll be bored of it after a couple of tries. Few even knows what CC is and when to apply it, as an example. And CC is not new or a big secret.

Edited January 10, 2023 by Silent.6137

[Bladestrom.6425]

49 minutes ago, CrashTestAuto.9108 said:

I'm not sure how complex you're picturing here (or what is actually required behind the scenes to make different changes), but a minimum viable product would literally just involve changing the health on the boss.  I do realise they'd want to do a bit more than that, but there've already been three versions of these bosses made, so I would hope that they made them not too out of spaghetti code.

 

On the practicing point.  A few things.  Basic game mechanics obviously, then specific boss mechanics (e.g. the expanding rings you need to jump over, which is pretty important in AH CM), and then rotations in a variety of actual gameplay conditions.  Extra bonus on the dummy is that players would be able to practice whilst passively earning rewards.

 

Yes you can practice some of these elsewhere, but not in too many places where that would give you information about how you specifically are doing.  An important point being that this is a standardised fight that player would come across naturally, without googling or reading external sites, meaning that the game itself would be telling players "Your DPS isn't good enough", rather than them having to happen upon a benchmarking video (or worse, get yelled at by a pug and never join again).

 

sounds like you have had a bad experience with a dps meter monkey.  Ive only ever pugged Strikes, I do a paltry 17kish probably and every strike (I only pug) i've been on we have destroyed the boss.  Just like good old fashioned RPGs I learnt while playing, no need for special rooms or damage meter wars. 

So order of learning for me :

general play/ open world bounties ->

test dummy for dps rotation training >

Story encounter with strike boss ->

Pug  group strike no hard mode ->

finally, hard mode once ive played normal mode enough times to have rote memorised all attack patterns.. 

 

 I really don't need yet another layer here, do you really?

Edited January 9, 2023 by vesica tempestas.1563

[AliamRationem.5172]

1 minute ago, CrashTestAuto.9108 said:

I'm not sure how complex you're picturing here (or what is actually required behind the scenes to make different changes), but a minimum viable product would literally just involve changing the health on the boss.  I do realise they'd want to do a bit more than that, but there've already been three versions of these bosses made, so I would hope that they made them not too out of spaghetti code.

 

On the practicing point.  A few things.  Basic game mechanics obviously, then specific boss mechanics (e.g. the expanding rings you need to jump over, which is pretty important in AH CM), and then rotations in a variety of actual gameplay conditions.  Extra bonus on the dummy is that players would be able to practice whilst passively earning rewards.

 

Yes you can practice some of these elsewhere, but not in too many places where that would give you information about how you specifically are doing.  An important point being that this is a standardised fight that player would come across naturally, without googling or reading external sites, meaning that the game itself would be telling players "Your DPS isn't good enough", rather than them having to happen upon a benchmarking video (or worse, get yelled at by a pug and never join again).

I think this would be a nightmare to balance.  The issue is that solo play performance is highly variable.  Classes are not balanced around solo play and obviously player ability varies widely as well.  But there's also the fact that the impact of DPS on encounter completion time is not linear.

For example, if two builds have a golem test output of 30k and 15k respectively, does the 30k build always complete an encounter in half the time?  No.  In actual gameplay it will complete the encounter in less than half the time because it will be forced to deal with fewer mechanics or even skip mechanics entirely potentially while focusing purely on DPS with no need to worry about defense.

This is not necessarily a big deal when you're talking about something like an HoT champion with 600k health where the difference might be between 30-40 seconds and 60-120 seconds between the high end and the average.  But if you apply this to a 10+ minute multi-phase encounter like HT, completion times can start to get ridiculous.

[Bladestrom.6425]

24 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

I think this would be a nightmare to balance.  The issue is that solo play performance is highly variable.  Classes are not balanced around solo play and obviously player ability varies widely as well.  But there's also the fact that the impact of DPS on encounter completion time is not linear.

For example, if two builds have a golem test output of 30k and 15k respectively, does the 30k build always complete an encounter in half the time?  No.  In actual gameplay it will complete the encounter in less than half the time because it will be forced to deal with fewer mechanics or even skip mechanics entirely potentially while focusing purely on DPS with no need to worry about defense.

This is not necessarily a big deal when you're talking about something like an HoT champion with 600k health where the difference might be between 30-40 seconds and 60-120 seconds between the high end and the average.  But if you apply this to a 10+ minute multi-phase encounter like HT, completion times can start to get ridiculous.

yeah its not feasible in a mmorpg beyond what we have in the story version of the bosses without a massively complex system in place to track individual players far beyond anything we have seen in any mmprpg to date.  Anet devs know what they are doing.

 

Poster refer to MVP, well the MVP would classically be a simple mode for 1 player, then a more advanced group version, then perhaps a highly tuned version, and guess what, we have that.  a 4th version with scaling more complex than anything built to date aint mvp, especially when its targeting a niche (at best)  mvp is all about getting max bang for the buck, needs before wants etc etc.

Edited January 9, 2023 by vesica tempestas.1563

[Ashen.2907]

Just popping to deliver a periodic reminder that there is solo endgame content available. Not liking, or not being sufficiently skilled to master, existing solo endgame content does not mean that it doesnt exist.

[mungozen.2379]

4 hours ago, CrashTestAuto.9108 said:

Just to edit out the odd strawmanning, because otherwise that was actually pretty good.

 

I'm proposing solo Strike missions with the following description:

 

1) More engaging that the Story Mode versions (through mechanics and difficulty)

2) Faster to access and get to the fight

3) Scaled so single player DPS leads to similar fight length to group version

4) Rewards similar to or slightly less than group version (recoloured Living Water skins would be nice)

 

(In summary, basically the same benefits that group strikes have over Story Mode, but scaled to solo DPS, so that solo players can also enjoy those benefits)

 

As noted, this would have additional benefit of allowing people to practice in a low (zero) pressure environment, and indicate when DPS is low in lieu of a DPS meter.

Eh, the rewards need to be appropriate for a single player, not equivalent to 10 man content.

If I can bypass group content and get comparable rewards, then why would I ever bother with group content?  It sounds like you want a faster and very rewarding experience without coordinating with other players.   Yet being able to coordinate with other players is part of the skill requirement for completing strikes.  The mechanics of strikes are built around a group environment, and being able to negotiate those mechanics as a group deserves a higher reward.

Have you ever tried fighting Champ or Legendary bounties solo?  This is likely comparable to the level of difficulty you are asking for.  Why would a solo instance for these types of bosses be deserving of Strike level rewards?

 

[CrashTestAuto.9108]

10 hours ago, vesica tempestas.1563 said:

 

sounds like you have had a bad experience with a dps meter monkey. 

Okay, you're far from the worst offender on this, but could you please not try to infer beyond what I've actually said?  Bad pug experiences happen, let's keep the discussion focussed on the game and the playerbase rather than individuals.

 

 

10 hours ago, vesica tempestas.1563 said:

Ive only ever pugged Strikes, I do a paltry 17kish probably and every strike (I only pug) i've been on we have destroyed the boss.  Just like good old fashioned RPGs I learnt while playing, no need for special rooms or damage meter wars. 

So order of learning for me :

general play/ open world bounties ->

test dummy for dps rotation training >

Story encounter with strike boss ->

Pug  group strike no hard mode ->

finally, hard mode once ive played normal mode enough times to have rote memorised all attack patterns.. 

 

 I really don't need yet another layer here, do you really?

Okay so this is a good breakdown, that highlights the actual in game problems.  You've painted an ideal picture of learning, but let's go through:

 

1) General play/Open World bounties.

Open world, absolutely definitely.  However, this teaches close to nothing.  I believe there was a player fairly recently who if memory served managed to complete the game with no gear, and if I remember right, literally no skills.  Nothing is required in terms of build, rotation, gear, composition etc.

Bounties/Champs/Bosses are a little better, but at this stage I would have to guess that most players either just die to them, or zer them.  I don't think there's a lot of people figuring out how the game works at this stage.

 

2) Test dummy for dps rotation

Absolutely not.  The dummy is close to hidden, and has the word "raid" in the instance name, which is going to put a lot of people off.  The way to set it up also isn't hugely intuitive even once you're in there.  Don't get me wrong, I like the dummy, but there's not way this falls here on the average player curve.

 

3) Story encounter with strike boss.

Okay, this is going to vary heavily by player, but I'm really not sure this teaches much more than Open World.  Maybe once you get to EoD there's a little bit of learning required as they put a lot of effort in to introduce players to mechanics like breakbars etc.  We actually have pretty good evidence that this wasn't effective though as so many people got to Dragon's End and then complained about difficulty.

 

4) Pug group strike no hard mode

Okay, there are a few directions this can go-

i) You get completely carried and learn nothing

ii) You learn the mechanics but learn nothing about your contribution

iii) Someone draws attention to your contribution

 

The absolute best case scenario is (3), and that's only if the player is nice.  Otherwise this might actually be the end of the experiment with pugging.

 

5) finally, hard mode once ive played normal mode enough times to have rote memorised all attack patterns.. 

Picture this as if you've gone through the above curve, rather than the curve which also included you looking up builds/videos online, or installing a DPS meter, or at least speaking to guildies/friends.  When in the above curve did you learn how the game works?  Or that your contribution wasn't up to scratch?

 

This is a big issue with GW2, and a reason people keep asking for an in-game DPS meter.  The game pretty much never tells you "You aren't good enough for this content" up until either Raid or CM mode (maybe HT), and that kind of relies on either your entire group wiping and you going out and researching, or you somehow getting the information that you're the weak link (it's entirely possible to just get carried without anyone ever mentioning it).

[CrashTestAuto.9108]

10 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

I think this would be a nightmare to balance.  The issue is that solo play performance is highly variable.  Classes are not balanced around solo play and obviously player ability varies widely as well.  But there's also the fact that the impact of DPS on encounter completion time is not linear.

For example, if two builds have a golem test output of 30k and 15k respectively, does the 30k build always complete an encounter in half the time?  No.  In actual gameplay it will complete the encounter in less than half the time because it will be forced to deal with fewer mechanics or even skip mechanics entirely potentially while focusing purely on DPS with no need to worry about defense.

This is not necessarily a big deal when you're talking about something like an HoT champion with 600k health where the difference might be between 30-40 seconds and 60-120 seconds between the high end and the average.  But if you apply this to a 10+ minute multi-phase encounter like HT, completion times can start to get ridiculous.

Yes, but this is part of why NM and CM exist, right?  Heck you could even add a really low reward "Story Mode" version that is literally just a portal to the Story Boss with the cutscenes and other bits removed.

 

Additional complexity is that the benchmarks against the dummy are hugely impacted by the boss, either due to need for range or condi versus power.

 

As I've said before, I think balancing is an issue I think is a pretty strong argument, but I'm not convinced is as big an issue as people are suggesting as the content is already flexible to this (groups would hit exactly the same issue).  Speaking incredibly causally for the sake of giving an example set up.  Current minimum DPS is what 15-17k to be "good enough", and the benchmarks are up in the 30s?  So set NM mode to take the normal time of a group strike at about 50% benchmark, and CM to take normal time at about 70%. (Obviously those numbers are plucked out of pretty thin air, the actual design team will have better ideas in mind on what the target should be).

 

But as I said in the post above.  Part of the benefit of solo content is you get to see "wait, this is ridiculous" if you're taking ages to kill a boss.  Especially if you were previously being carried in the same content in a group.

 

Obviously the speedrunners mean you need to balance the rewards to prevent farming (daily/weekly rewards do this pretty well I think, and are already the design in game).

[CrashTestAuto.9108]

7 hours ago, Mungo Zen.9364 said:

Eh, the rewards need to be appropriate for a single player, not equivalent to 10 man content.

If I can bypass group content and get comparable rewards, then why would I ever bother with group content?  It sounds like you want a faster and very rewarding experience without coordinating with other players.   Yet being able to coordinate with other players is part of the skill requirement for completing strikes.  The mechanics of strikes are built around a group environment, and being able to negotiate those mechanics as a group deserves a higher reward.

Have you ever tried fighting Champ or Legendary bounties solo?  This is likely comparable to the level of difficulty you are asking for.  Why would a solo instance for these types of bosses be deserving of Strike level rewards?

 

The repeated argument I've seen in this thread is that solo content is really boring.  So the idea that you're "bypassing" the fun content to play the boring content wouldn't make sense.

 

I of course don't agree that solo content is boring.  So I'd take the position of, if you feel like you're only doing the group content because there isn't a solo option, then that doesn't sound much fun.

 

You've added "faster and very rewarding".  I don't believe I've ever said either of those things.  I'm happy for the fights to take slightly more time, for slightly less reward.  Yes they'd be faster because you don't have to LFG, wait for people, or find slots with friends/guildies (which is great), but not in terms of the actual gameplay time.

[Cyninja.2954]

1 hour ago, CrashTestAuto.9108 said:

The repeated argument I've seen in this thread is that solo content is really boring.  So the idea that you're "bypassing" the fun content to play the boring content wouldn't make sense.

A lot of players go for the more rewarding content, even if it is less fun. That is literally all that needs to be said here.

Many players will actively burn themselves out on bad content if given the chance only because it might reward them with XYZ more loot. It's most often the developers job to prevent this and save players from themselves.

1 hour ago, CrashTestAuto.9108 said:

I of course don't agree that solo content is boring.  So I'd take the position of, if you feel like you're only doing the group content because there isn't a solo option, then that doesn't sound much fun.

That's not what was said. What was said was: developing the solo content is not worth the resources at reasonable reward structures and at higher than reasonable rewards, it would infringe on group content.

That's not the same as: I only group because there is no solo option.

Most players will chose soloing content, if possible, over grouping not because it is more fun, but because it is less effort to organize (paired with less risky and more control over the outcome).

Best example is Forging Steel, why group for this strike when it scales perfectly down to solo levels, both ensuring that one succeeds while removing all the risk of grouping with bad players? The rewards are pretty much equal between both approaches with a good group being faster than soloing, while a bad group will take ages longer. This strike perfectly demonstrates how the grouping aspect for it can be made obsolete.

1 hour ago, CrashTestAuto.9108 said:

You've added "faster and very rewarding".  I don't believe I've ever said either of those things.  I'm happy for the fights to take slightly more time, for slightly less reward.  Yes they'd be faster because you don't have to LFG, wait for people, or find slots with friends/guildies (which is great), but not in terms of the actual gameplay time.

"Slightly less reward" is a very subjective statement. Given all the factors, and if one really wanted to make sure the content does not infringe to much on other content, this "slightly" would very likely be far beyond what you are actually considering worthwhile. After all, there is tons of solo content in game (instanced solo content) which sees little to no play because quite frankly the rewards in other content which is highly similar (say open world metas, events, etc.) are far better.

Which leaves out the bigger picture:

EoD and even IBS leading up to it saw a ton of work from the developers to try to motivate players to engage in group content (while streamlining it's development to reduce development resources but still be able to provide group content). That's what all the strikes and DRMs and tutorials, etc. where about.

It is very unreasonable to believe that they will now do a 180 and offer MORE content which might work counterproductive to these design goals. The way solo content is handled in this game is most often NOT solo instances besides story.

Edited January 10, 2023 by Cyninja.2954

[CrashTestAuto.9108]

1 hour ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

Most players will chose soloing content, if possible, over grouping not because it is more fun, but because it is less effort to organize (paired with less risky and more control over the outcome).

This was a good post, so apologies for only focussing on this sentence, but it's a really key point.

 

Yes, solo content removes effort to organise, is less risky, and you have more control over the outcome.  This is absolutely perfect for the specific use case of busy gamers who have limited and unpredictable time in their day, but want to log in and do something fun/rewarding.  The alternative (in a worst, but not I think uncommon scenario) is either they log in, maybe farm their home instance while hovering over LFG and log out, or just don't log in at all.

 

Limiting the rewards to daily/weekly means this is not a farmable piece of content, but for players who only have a bit of time to game, and who don't want that time wasted on organisation and wiping through the fault of others, this would be a really great option.

[The Boz.2038]

1 minute ago, CrashTestAuto.9108 said:

This was a good post, so apologies for only focussing on this sentence, but it's a really key point.

 

Yes, solo content removes effort to organise, is less risky, and you have more control over the outcome.  This is absolutely perfect for the specific use case of busy gamers who have limited and unpredictable time in their day, but want to log in and do something fun/rewarding.  The alternative (in a worst, but not I think uncommon scenario) is either they log in, maybe farm their home instance while hovering over LFG and log out, or just don't log in at all.

 

Limiting the rewards to daily/weekly means this is not a farmable piece of content, but for players who only have a bit of time to game, and who don't want that time wasted on organisation and wiping through the fault of others, this would be a really great option.

You are ignoring the obvious:
Organize and look forward to your agreed upon schedule, or just "do whenever in solo".
What do you think will form social bonds and result in better outcomes for a multiplayer game?

[vares.8457]

4 minutes ago, CrashTestAuto.9108 said:

This is absolutely perfect for the specific use case of busy gamers who have limited and unpredictable time in their day, but want to log in and do something fun/rewarding.  The alternative (in a worst, but not I think uncommon scenario) is either they log in, maybe farm their home instance while hovering over LFG and log out, or just don't log in at all.

Or they find a group in LFG and join or maybe they have a guild and find easy and fast enough players to do a strike mission. 
Strike missions don’t take long and are not difficult to organize. They are perfect for players with limited time. 

[Sobx.1758]

3 hours ago, CrashTestAuto.9108 said:

Bounties/Champs/Bosses are a little better, but at this stage I would have to guess that most players either just die to them, or zer them.  I don't think there's a lot of people figuring out how the game works at this stage.

Doesn't matter who fails or zergs them, you wanted to solo champions and you can do exactly that with these.

 

The rest of your list of "reasoning against current content" in that post stays exactly the same for what you want to have implemented, so... 🤔  Apparently the only solution for "improving" here is some between-the-zones mini-instance consisting of a room with a golem that you need to defeat in a set time in order to go into the next map. At this point, just set an optional timer on story bosses and there's your "way to let people know if they deal enough damage" (but then again, you still didn't share what "enough damage" is supposed to mean).

 

3 hours ago, CrashTestAuto.9108 said:

Yes, but this is part of why NM and CM exist, right?  Heck you could even add a really low reward "Story Mode" version that is literally just a portal to the Story Boss with the cutscenes and other bits removed.

...and now "really low reward" is ok, while "story mode bosses" suddenly aren't "too easy" again. All over the place.

 

35 minutes ago, vares.8457 said:

Or they find a group in LFG and join or maybe they have a guild and find easy and fast enough players to do a strike mission. 
Strike missions don’t take long and are not difficult to organize. They are perfect for players with limited time. 

Yup, true.

Edited January 10, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[Bladestrom.6425]

4 hours ago, CrashTestAuto.9108 said:

snip

 

This is a big issue with GW2, and a reason people keep asking for an in-game DPS meter.  The game pretty much never tells you "You aren't good enough for this content" up until either Raid or CM mode (maybe HT), and that kind of relies on either your entire group wiping and you going out and researching, or you somehow getting the information that you're the weak link (it's entirely possible to just get carried without anyone ever mentioning it).

 

ok i spent 10k hours hardcore raiding in WOW on silvermoon at almost the cost of my marriage 🙂  I know what's involved, i even contributed to a code module once for RAWR.  To be good in a raid/tuned boss you need 2 things:

 

1: mastery of you rotation, and maximisation of spell up time and click speed.  You learn this on dummies and theory craft optimal builds.  Good players spend hours every week simply practicing rotations.   

 

2. you learn the attack patterns via boss fight repetition to burn in the muscle memory via rote play.  Raid leader will use a video as a starting point, everyone must look at this to start.  Alongside this you tune you rotations for the given fight to minimise movement and spell downtime.

 

in GW2 1 is the test dummy.  2 is normal/hard mode.  1 is also less relevant in GW2 (or should be ) because hybrid builds are plenty good enough for everything bar high tuned fights)

 

As for DPS meters, its a poison chalice, it drives the wrong behaviours, I know from experience, and wow now is an absolute cess pit of nasty behaviours as a result of them and the gear chase.  That however is a very different conversation that should not bleed into this thread, it Enough to say they are not needed for normal mode strikes.  if you do roughly X dps on a test dummy you are good for everything bar high tuned fights from a rotation perspective. what remains is rote memorisation of movements for the strike, which is exactly what ive done and I can happily do any strike and have maybe seen a handful of failures in all my time in Gw2.

 

Edited January 10, 2023 by vesica tempestas.1563

[The Boz.2038]

1 minute ago, vesica tempestas.1563 said:

if you do roughly X dps on a test dummy you are good for everything from a rotation perspective

o_O

[CrashTestAuto.9108]

58 minutes ago, The Boz.2038 said:

You are ignoring the obvious:
Organize and look forward to your agreed upon schedule, or just "do whenever in solo".
What do you think will form social bonds and result in better outcomes for a multiplayer game?

Variety.

[Bladestrom.6425]

1 minute ago, The Boz.2038 said:

o_O

edit qualified - bar high tuned fights.