why is there no solo end-game content?

[AliamRationem.5172]

4 hours ago, Vilin.8056 said:

To support this claim, in GW2 efficiency

over 30% of its player database has defeated Vale Guardian in raid:

https://gw2efficiency.com/account/unlock-statistics?filter.search=Vale

10% in Dhuum, which remains one of the most challenging raid boss: 

https://gw2efficiency.com/account/unlock-statistics?filter.search=What's Death May Never Die

Yet only less than 3% has ever defeated Liadri in the last 9 years

https://gw2efficiency.com/account/unlock-statistics?filter.search=Light Up the Darkness

"Light Up the Darkness" is the achievement for 8 orb Liadri.  The number for the normal 3 orb fight is likely significantly higher.  It's also worth noting that this is festival content which is only available for a few weeks each year, whereas raids are available any time.

[AliamRationem.5172]

5 hours ago, CrashTestAuto.9108 said:

Indeed.  But look at how long it takes even Lord Hizen, and see that this isn't really going to be engaging for a lot of people.

 

I can see the appeal of "I completed content designed for 10 people", but generally speaking bullet sponge enemies aren't fun, which is what an unscaled boss basically is.

So why does it need to be 10-man content?  Is there something wrong with HoT champs, bandit champs, bounties, DRMs, etc.?  All of these represent a solo challenge that can be completed in minutes or even seconds (except DRMs which require more like 15-20 minutes due to pre-events). 

A lot of players enjoy that sort of thing, so I certainly wouldn't be opposed to more of it.  Something along the lines of a Queen's Gauntlet-style event year-round would be great to have, in my opinion.  I just don't see the value in modifying 10-man content for single players.  It isn't just the health scaling at issue.  They'd have to redesign the entire fight to remove mechanics designed for 10 players.

[Bakeneko.5826]

On 9/25/2022 at 11:46 PM, RagiNagi.1802 said:

Hi,

 

Pretty much as the title says. I would like to play my toons and learn their mechanics, however, only place to reliably do so solo is golem 😄

It is a bit odd to me that all the end game content - Fracs, Raids, Strikes requires you to get the party of 5-10 people. And when you do, you mostly stack and don't even see your character and such.

Raids have a high entry barrier due to high skill floor and everyone wants experienced people. Way around this is getting a guild or friends that do this with  you, but that also requires time committent from everyone.

Fractals have high entry barrier in gear. If you want to play high tier fractals you need to have ascended gear with agonies. That costs money and time to acquire. How the heck should I decide whether I want to gear up my a new prof or not.

Open world is fine, but it is always so much zergining that it's doesn't feel like you need to express much skill as you can mostly afk with autoattacks.

 

Only thing which is pretty much plug and play is PvP. And that is cool, but rewards seem to be on the lower tier 😄

 

Is it only me who sees some opportunities here for new content. Or are you all fine with what end-game content you have available?

 

Cheers.

 

 

Skyrim has end game content focused on solo

[SlayerXX.7138]

8 hours ago, Vilin.8056 said:

Yet only less than 3% has ever defeated Liadri in the last 9 years

https://gw2efficiency.com/account/unlock-statistics?filter.search=Light Up the Darkness

Well its to kill her a special way. The actual number of kills is probably higher. I also don't understand the fixation on Liadri, tier 3 in general has a 13% completion rate. I loved the solo challenges, but didn't make it to Liadri because I only learned of it on the tail end of 4 winds. And even then maybe I would have been to bad? Its not like Vale Guardian where you can be mediocre and 9 other people carry you. I remember having to wait for queen gauntlets on all platforms because it was so popular.

[CrashTestAuto.9108]

5 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

So why does it need to be 10-man content?  Is there something wrong with HoT champs, bandit champs, bounties, DRMs, etc.?  All of these represent a solo challenge that can be completed in minutes or even seconds (except DRMs which require more like 15-20 minutes due to pre-events). 

A lot of players enjoy that sort of thing, so I certainly wouldn't be opposed to more of it.  Something along the lines of a Queen's Gauntlet-style event year-round would be great to have, in my opinion.  I just don't see the value in modifying 10-man content for single players.  It isn't just the health scaling at issue.  They'd have to redesign the entire fight to remove mechanics designed for 10 players.

Oh it doesn't have to be 10 man content.  I'm just suggesting that because the assets and design work already exists.  Strikes specifically are already designed with at least some 1-player mechanics in mind due to the story instance version, and they're designed with scaling mechanics in mind due to Challenge Modes.  They also have a built in and scalable reward system.

 

For contrast, I'm not suggesting solo raids because the mechanics there legitimately wouldn't work solo in most cases without a redesign.

 

I absolutely would take a ground up solo endgame (I love the Queen's Gauntlet), it just seemed like more work/resources.

[CrashTestAuto.9108]

9 hours ago, Kulvar.1239 said:

Soloer find it fun.

If you want fun for you solo challenge, play a solo game designed to your taste.

 

I do.  But I don't understand why you'd want that.  Players logging out of GW2 to player other games isn't in your interest - especially in this situation where they are explicitly doing something completely unrelated to you.

 

I like GW2, and given the choice I'd rather play difficult solo content there (and get rewards I can use in GW2) than go and play a different game.  That's in my interests, and it's in the game's interest, and it doesn't affect you.

 

You could make an argument that it would cost resources, but that is why I'm suggesting adapting existing content where most of the work is already done.  It seems like a very small tradeoff to attract a potentially large contingent of gamers, and worth at least trialling.

[CrashTestAuto.9108]

9 hours ago, Vilin.8056 said:

In that logic the same condition applies to Winter's Day Raid, which has over 20% completion rate, that's over 7 times higher than Liadri:

https://gw2efficiency.com/account/unlock-statistics?filter.search=Wintersday's Guardian

Actually Liadri is 12.5% completion rate,  so over half the popularity of a seasonal raid.  In addition, Freezie is much better advertised (and easier to find, and doesn't require working up to, and doesn't cost tickets to try) and also has an entire weapon set associated with it.

 

If anything the Liadri completion rate shows that there is demand for this.

[Asum.4960]

On 9/26/2022 at 11:23 AM, CrashTestAuto.9108 said:

The problem with things like "Go solo fractals and dungeons (and CRMs)" is that this gets fairly dull quite quickly because the health pools aren't designed for it.  It's like in a single player game when the hard mode just turns enemies into bullet sponges.  Moreover, because gold per hour is a thing, you have the nagging feeling that you're wasting your time as you slowly chip down enemy health that isn't designed for one player.

Probably an unpopular opinion, but imo T1 Fractals and DRM CM's (which actually do actively scale to amount of players) are better balanced for solo play than Story and OW, where mobs generally sheer instantly evaporate when you as much as look at them (safe for scaled up metas where they become massive sponges).

In that content solo you actually get to see, learn and build around mechanics, after all it's not a shooter with the expectation of 1-3 tapping enemies. 

It's just that this content, unlike OW and especially Story, actually gives you feedback on if your build is bad or not. Builds with no sustain will actually fail, and builds with ~3k DPS will take ages to get through the content. Those are build issues though, and there are plenty builds that can zoom through T1-3 solo faster than most T1-3  five player PuG's will.

 

I will also say that Fractals like Mai Trin, which you can solo in <5 minutes, actually are quite good gold - especially with Fractal titles adding a lot to T1 rewards, you can make a good 30g/h there solo.

Edited September 27, 2022 by Asum.4960

[CrashTestAuto.9108]

8 minutes ago, Asum.4960 said:

Probably an unpopular opinion, but imo T1 Fractals and DRM CM's (which actually do actively scale to amount of players) are better balanced for solo play than Story and OW, where mobs generally sheer instantly evaporate when you as much as look at them (safe for scaled up metas where they become massive sponges).

In that content solo you actually get to see, learn and build around mechanics, after all it's not a shooter with the expectation of 1-3 tapping enemies. 

It's just that this content, unlike OW and especially Story, actually gives you feedback on if your build is bad or not. Builds with no sustain will actually fail, and builds with ~3k DPS will take ages to get through the content. Those are build issues though, and there are plenty builds that can zoom through T1-3 solo faster than most T1-3  five player PuG's will.

 

I will also say that Fractals like Mai Trin, which you can solo in <5 minutes, actually are quite good gold - especially with Fractal titles adding a lot to T1 rewards, you can make a good 30g/h there solo.

I agree on the Fractals to an extent, and I'd love to just see that leaned into a bit more.  DRMs would also be good (not hugely engaging, but good) if they'd just remove half the repetitive build up events.

 

I definitely wouldn't deny that solo options exist.  They could just use a bit of expansion/tuning.  Like I said, I think a strong reason this should be implemented is because it actually wouldn't take a lot of work to give the game a really solid solo endgame.

[Asum.4960]

27 minutes ago, CrashTestAuto.9108 said:

I agree on the Fractals to an extent, and I'd love to just see that leaned into a bit more.  DRMs would also be good (not hugely engaging, but good) if they'd just remove half the repetitive build up events.

 

I definitely wouldn't deny that solo options exist.  They could just use a bit of expansion/tuning.  Like I said, I think a strong reason this should be implemented is because it actually wouldn't take a lot of work to give the game a really solid solo endgame.

Completely agree on the DRM pre-events. They really sour that whole format for me, which otherwise actually feels very much so like short&simple GW1 story missions - especially in how they could also deliver proper multiplayer story experiences. If they had stuck with and iterated on that format more, I think that would be fantastic for the game. 

 

And yea, stuff like Raid solo'ing, where you spent hours in prep and high effort play for some 2g reward will never be broadly appealing, especially for frequent repetition/player retention, even to some of the most hardcore solo-challenge players like me.

 

In my ideal world Anet would both diversify OW more to include really challenging solo and small scale group content/areas/map sections, as well as provide more player scaling instanced content, like DRM CM's, without the pre-events.

 

I don't think this current divide of (pretty much) only extremely casual OW content and only fairly exclusive almost entirely group based instanced content is healthy for the game with how much it split the community. 

Anything that can create some cross-pollination there is a win in my book.

Edited September 27, 2022 by Asum.4960

[Vilin.8056]

3 hours ago, CrashTestAuto.9108 said:

Actually Liadri is 12.5% completion rate,  so over half the popularity of a seasonal raid.  In addition, Freezie is much better advertised (and easier to find, and doesn't require working up to, and doesn't cost tickets to try) and also has an entire weapon set associated with it.

 

If anything the Liadri completion rate shows that there is demand for this.

A minimal demand if any, even if you want to include the easier mode in Liadri, the demand is still far lower than instanced grouped contents.

Winter's Day Raid is a prove of this, despite needing a Commander to go through the LFG with a requirement of a raid healer, people still prefer it over Queen's Gauntlet because they can be backed by experienced players.

OP made a major error assuming that having challenging end-game contents in single player mode can eliminate time commitment, in reality it's the opposite. In Raid and Strikes, players of lower skill level can ease the burden by taking the easier roles and assign mechanics to skilled players, then observe how it is done in the action. In single player mode, that player will have no choice but to repeatedly fail until he mastered every single mechanic on his own or ultimately give up, with the alternative options of sharing his account password onto another skilled player to play it for him (which happened in Queen's Gauntlet).

Edited September 27, 2022 by Vilin.8056

[Rasimir.6239]

12 hours ago, CrashTestAuto.9108 said:

Liadri [...] (3) doesn't offer particularly good rewards for your time.

That's the problem: you can't create challenging, skripted content that offers "particularly good rewards for your time" repeatedly. Sooner or later you'll learn the encounter mechanic and put it on farm, at which point the challenge is gone and the encounter is only valued by its "loot per time" ratio. Ultimately repeating a pve encounter gets tedious, and encounters will only be played repeatedly if their material gain per time invested is thought to be competitive with if not better than what other encounters in the game have to offer.

 

We're talking about a multiplayer game here, and a big draw for many players, no matter if "high-end" or mediocre, is playing with other people and encountering others in the game world. Somehow I can't think of a scenario that would make solo encounters in this setting competitive for players' time, since it would automatically draw from the pool of available players to encounter in-game and lure them away into their seperate instance (since leaving "solo" challenges in open world would likely just lead to frustration when other players passing by mess with "your" challenge).

 

If you want high-end, repeatable solo challenges, the activities can never be competitive material-wise since that works directly against the idea of a "living" gameworld with everyone interacting and cooperating with each other. Especially scripted pve challenges are just not something that is endless, but rather will eventually loose the "challenge" aspect once you've learned how to conquer them, in which case they fail as a source of repeatable high-end rewards, too. As mentioned by others in this thread, there's plenty of activities you can try solo if what you're looking for is challenge, but you'll be hard-pressed to find a lot of it that's top-end both challenge and reward wise in pve, because pve challenge isn't something infinite.

[CrashTestAuto.9108]

22 minutes ago, Rasimir.6239 said:

That's the problem: you can't create challenging, skripted content that offers "particularly good rewards for your time" repeatedly. Sooner or later you'll learn the encounter mechanic and put it on farm, at which point the challenge is gone and the encounter is only valued by its "loot per time" ratio. Ultimately repeating a pve encounter gets tedious, and encounters will only be played repeatedly if their material gain per time invested is thought to be competitive with if not better than what other encounters in the game have to offer.

 

We're talking about a multiplayer game here, and a big draw for many players, no matter if "high-end" or mediocre, is playing with other people and encountering others in the game world. Somehow I can't think of a scenario that would make solo encounters in this setting competitive for players' time, since it would automatically draw from the pool of available players to encounter in-game and lure them away into their seperate instance (since leaving "solo" challenges in open world would likely just lead to frustration when other players passing by mess with "your" challenge).

 

If you want high-end, repeatable solo challenges, the activities can never be competitive material-wise since that works directly against the idea of a "living" gameworld with everyone interacting and cooperating with each other. Especially scripted pve challenges are just not something that is endless, but rather will eventually loose the "challenge" aspect once you've learned how to conquer them, in which case they fail as a source of repeatable high-end rewards, too. As mentioned by others in this thread, there's plenty of activities you can try solo if what you're looking for is challenge, but you'll be hard-pressed to find a lot of it that's top-end both challenge and reward wise in pve, because pve challenge isn't something infinite.

Assuming that is the design principle (which I think is a reasonable assumption), then just make the rewards 60-75% of the group content.  Enough to feel rewarding for the time, but not competitive enough to detract from the modes you want to promote.

[CrashTestAuto.9108]

43 minutes ago, Vilin.8056 said:

A minimal demand if any, even if you want to include the easier mode in Liadri, the demand is still far lower than instanced grouped contents.

Winter's Day Raid is a prove of this, despite needing a Commander to go through the LFG with a requirement of a raid healer, people still prefer it over Queen's Gauntlet because they can be backed by experienced players.

OP made a major error assuming that having challenging end-game contents in single player mode can eliminate time commitment, in reality it's the opposite. In Raid and Strikes, players of lower skill level can ease the burden by taking the easier roles and assign mechanics to skilled players, then observe how it is done in the action. In single player mode, that player will have no choice but to repeatedly fail until he mastered every single mechanic on his own or ultimately give up, with the alternative options of sharing his account password onto another skilled player to play it for him (which happened in Queen's Gauntlet).

I think the "time commitment" isn't quite what you interpret it as when it comes to group versus solo.

 

Let's take fractals.  Most LFGs are "T4s + dailies".  But say I only have 20 minutes.  I can either jump in the group and do one or two T4s, then leave them with an awkward LFG spot to fill.  Or, I can miss the whole thing.

 

By allowing solo options I can jump in to what I have time for, as soon as I have time for it, and as long as I have time for it.

 

Raids are even worse.  There you need to commit to a specific time, with a specific group, for a specific duration (and need to find a group that happens to have the spot you take up).  Especially as an inexperienced player, it can be really difficult to actually organise an opportunity to even try them around other things.

[Cyninja.2954]

All this back and forth, let me ask this question to clarify what is exactly talked about:

 

Are we talking about solo content as in:"the content is solo-able yet challenging" (we have tons of solo content which isn't already so I am unsure how the qualification of there being a lack of solo content would apply)?

 

Or are we talking about:"I want this content which is perfectly suited to my liking and the difficulty level I desire"?

 

It seems a lot of the arguments revolve around the second idea, which suffice to say, is impossible to full-fill by the developers and might not even be as long lived as needed.

 

As is right now, the vast majority of this games content can be soloed, most often by design, in some cases by outperforming the low expectations set forth at a group. The few times solo content was designed to be soloed AND made semi difficult, it saw nearly no play (and if I had to guess, the players completing this content are most likely those which enjoy challenging content overall even in a group setting).

 

Even some of the "group" content was designed with scaling to player numbers, the dragon response missions, and that content was nearly dead on arrival.

 

My guess is we will see more of a move into the latest given direction: similar content scaled to multiple difficulty levels in pve, with story and occasional open world content to frame it. Take it or leave it, I doubt there is resources left for anything else.

Edited September 27, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[CrashTestAuto.9108]

11 minutes ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

All this back and forth, let me ask this question to clarify what is exactly talked about:

 

Are we talking about solo content as in:"the content is solo-able yet challenging" (we have tons of solo content which isn't already so I am unsure how the qualification of there being a lack of solo content would apply)?

 

Or are we talking about:"I want this content which is perfectly suited to my liking and the difficulty level I desire"?

 

It seems a lot of the arguments revolve around the second idea, which suffice to say, is impossible to full-fill by the developers and might not even be as long lived as needed.

This feels like loaded phrasing.  "Perfectly suited" is a very strong wording.

 

Endgame group content exists in the form of Fractals, Raids and Strikes.  This isn't "perfectly suited" to particular player desires, but it provides a fairly reasonable benchmark for the sort of thing that people would be looking for.

[Ashen.2907]

6 minutes ago, CrashTestAuto.9108 said:

This feels like loaded phrasing.  "Perfectly suited" is a very strong wording.

Yes it is strong wording, but then, when it was pointed out that solo and soloable endgame content already exists, the response has been that it doesnt suit you.

[Vilin.8056]

51 minutes ago, CrashTestAuto.9108 said:

I think the "time commitment" isn't quite what you interpret it as when it comes to group versus solo.

 

Let's take fractals.  Most LFGs are "T4s + dailies".  But say I only have 20 minutes.  I can either jump in the group and do one or two T4s, then leave them with an awkward LFG spot to fill.  Or, I can miss the whole thing.

 

By allowing solo options I can jump in to what I have time for, as soon as I have time for it, and as long as I have time for it.

 

Raids are even worse.  There you need to commit to a specific time, with a specific group, for a specific duration (and need to find a group that happens to have the spot you take up).  Especially as an inexperienced player, it can be really difficult to actually organise an opportunity to even try them around other things.

You need to read his post again, he's neither properly geared nor certain of his participating class role, that makes entry of T4 and raid completely out of the question. It's a skill gap issue, not a solo vs group issue. What he really need is a proper Step-Up content to teach him the basics, in which he mistakenly assumed the highest tier End-Game contents as the solution.

Edited September 27, 2022 by Vilin.8056

[CrashTestAuto.9108]

26 minutes ago, Vilin.8056 said:

You need to read his post again, he's neither properly geared nor certain of his participating class role, that makes entry of T4 and raid completely out of the question. It's a skill gap issue, not a solo vs group issue. What he really need is a proper Step-Up content to teach him the basics, in which he mistakenly assumed the highest tier End-Game contents as the solution.

I'm not sure I agree.  Going into a group situation with a bad class and no gear is almost certainly going to end badly.  Going into a solo mode and repeatedly dying until you learn the fight is a pretty standard curve for Souls-likes (an extremely popular genre).

 

Most training raids/strikes list "Know mechanics" in the LFG.  So you basically have to read a guide in order to even try a fight.  Tis is a fairly dull approach to gameplay for a lot of people who would like to actually figure out mechanics themselves (in an environment where they won't annoy 9 other people and then get kicked).

[MarkoGold.7126]

better question is why is there no skimpy and sexy outfits in game.

[Zok.4956]

On 9/25/2022 at 10:46 PM, RagiNagi.1802 said:

It is a bit odd to me that all the end game content - Fracs, Raids, Strikes requires you to get the party of 5-10 people. And when you do, you mostly stack and don't even see your character and such.

Yes, there is challenging repeatable endgame instanced content designed for 5-players and 10-players (and 50 players) in the game, but there is no challenging repeatable endgame instanced content (outside of festivals) that is designed for single players like it is  in other MMOs.

Only Anet can answer your question "why ...?". The players here in the forum really don't know why Anet did not add that to the game.

However, there is repeatable instanced content designed for single players in the game. It is in the personal story. And the expansions story and the stories of the living world seasons. But this is seen mostly as "easy" or "entry level challenging" and not "endgame challenging" and it's difficulty level is really not consistent.

[Vilin.8056]

1 hour ago, CrashTestAuto.9108 said:

I'm not sure I agree.  Going into a group situation with a bad class and no gear is almost certainly going to end badly.  Going into a solo mode and repeatedly dying until you learn the fight is a pretty standard curve for Souls-likes (an extremely popular genre).

 

Most training raids/strikes list "Know mechanics" in the LFG.  So you basically have to read a guide in order to even try a fight.  Tis is a fairly dull approach to gameplay for a lot of people who would like to actually figure out mechanics themselves (in an environment where they won't annoy 9 other people and then get kicked).

Therefore step-up contents matters more for these people rather than end-game contents. It's strange that you assume it is normal for players to reach end-game with bad class, low skill and no gear.

It's even hilarious to assume people who reached end-game this way would suddenly want to play GW2 like Dark Souls, or that Souls players never read guides (in fact it has one of the most detailed battle wiki available speaks otherwise)

Edited September 27, 2022 by Vilin.8056

[Ashen.2907]

1 hour ago, CrashTestAuto.9108 said:

Most training raids/strikes list "Know mechanics" in the LFG

I wont speak to Raids, but this is inaccurate as regards to training strikes. It is inaccurate for PUG strikes in general in my experience (many hundreds of PUGed strikes).

[Kulvar.1239]

2 hours ago, CrashTestAuto.9108 said:

I think the "time commitment" isn't quite what you interpret it as when it comes to group versus solo.

 

Let's take fractals.  Most LFGs are "T4s + dailies".  But say I only have 20 minutes.  I can either jump in the group and do one or two T4s, then leave them with an awkward LFG spot to fill.  Or, I can miss the whole thing.

 

By allowing solo options I can jump in to what I have time for, as soon as I have time for it, and as long as I have time for it.

 

Raids are even worse.  There you need to commit to a specific time, with a specific group, for a specific duration (and need to find a group that happens to have the spot you take up).  Especially as an inexperienced player, it can be really difficult to actually organise an opportunity to even try them around other things.

If you can do something solo as easily as you would with a party because of scaling, nobody would run them with a party and it would kill the multiplayer aspect. Your convenience is not worth killing every multiplayer game mode.

[zeyeti.8347]

You are welcome. Yes it's 28 minutes not 20 minutes , sorry .

Edited September 27, 2022 by zeyeti.8347