Lack of Solo End-Game

Henry.5713 · March 15, 2019

@Graymalkyn.8076 said:I agree with the OP, but for different reasons. I am in a not unknown, but relatively rare, position of being a full-time caretaker for my wife's parents. I can easily sit and play for several hours, or be called away at a moment's notice. I love the game, but this really restricts my ability to do things like raids, PvP, fractals, etc. I can do PvE at my pace (just restart an instance if I get called away), or WvW where I can come and go as needed. So having more solo stuff would be nice. Although, lately a lot of the story stuff takes 30-60 minutes to complete as well, so I frequently have to restart those. Shorter personal story instances would be my first request.
That being said, I know I'm in the minority, and don't expect the game to change for me, but thought this would be a good place to throw in my 2 cents.

Open World content is pretty much designed for people with similar time restrictions. HoT and PoF meta events allow you to come and go as you please. You may even leave your keyboard for a while without any issues. There is no need to restart instances or fights as they continue well enough without you while you are away.The best part is that you are not required to enter any instances (solo or otherwise) for gear reasons in this game.

On the actual topic at hand, I am not much of a solo player myself. Anything that doesn't include interaction with other players during my actual gameplay won't keep me busy for more than an hour or two. The only solo content that I very much enjoy is solo roaming in WvW. But that at least includes fights against other players.That said and as I already mentioned above, there is Open World content. Content which allows you to interact as much or as little with other players as you wish. You are free to just watch and play by yourself, never say a single word and pretty much do as you like or to group up with a selected few or even to join a massive squad of 50.I think it mostly depends on what kind of solo experience we are talking about here. The game does not have many solo challanges outside of community created solo dungeons and other seosonal content like SAB but it is far from a bad game for solo lovers. Content like a permanent version of the Queen's Gaunlet might help but they probably have a good reason for not focusing on such content.

trev.1045 · March 15, 2019

@Fundor.2098 said:
@Adul.1520 said:Adding a solo mode to raids (with reduced/different rewards) would be a good way to add high-quality, repeatable, rewarding soloable end-game content.
And the great thing about it is that they wouldn't need to develop it from scratch, since they could reuse maps, story, lore, voice acting, art assets, etc. from the 10-man versions.

This would also help people who are afraid of failing the group to learn the mechanics on their own, which in turn would encourage more people to join raiding in squads later.

@Raknar.4735 said:
@"Blur.3465" said:In any case, I support OP and I truly hope we do get some content that can be done solo or with a group depending on our choice.

Joining in on this sentiment, I'd also add that the content should be repeatable with meaningful rewards (doesn't have to be gold, unique skins preferred).

I've also always wondered why some people are "against" the idea of solo-content in a MMORPG, citing the "massively", yet they defend instanced content like dungeons / fractals / raids. 5-10 man groups aren't something i'd describe as "massively", it's more or less something i'd expect in a lobby-based game, like PoE, GW1 and even shooters like CSGO, Battlefield and Overwatch.

I've always thought the game really needs farmable locations for specific rare (unbound) skins and other rewards. Sure some people might find it a boring grind, but there's a lot of people who actually like it too. I found it enjoyable in GW1 after exhausting days at work, when I just wanted to play my favourite game but just didn't have the energy to do

anything

social. There aren't many things like that in GW2 besides story content, which in turn doesn't offer any rewards after the first time.

I think they could do that quite easily with reputation vendors?....They could make it a huge grind if they wished...people wouldnt have to do it of course!

If the living seasons are as good as the personal story however i have months and months of story game play before i will even look at other stuff....i think GW2 is better than most for those who dont raid etc...

Shiyo.3578 · April 9, 2019

This game has far too much solo content that's vastly inferior to a $10 indie games solo experience. We need LESS solo content and more MMO content. If I wanted to solo, I'd turn on my switch/PS4 and play actual good solo games.

Khisanth.2948 · April 10, 2019

@Graymalkyn.8076 said:I agree with the OP, but for different reasons. I am in a not unknown, but relatively rare, position of being a full-time caretaker for my wife's parents. I can easily sit and play for several hours, or be called away at a moment's notice. I love the game, but this really restricts my ability to do things like raids, PvP, fractals, etc. I can do PvE at my pace (just restart an instance if I get called away), or WvW where I can come and go as needed. So having more solo stuff would be nice. Although, lately a lot of the story stuff takes 30-60 minutes to complete as well, so I frequently have to restart those. Shorter personal story instances would be my first request.
That being said, I know I'm in the minority, and don't expect the game to change for me, but thought this would be a good place to throw in my 2 cents.

You can also just leave the game running unless in the instance unless whatever is pulling away also requires you to shut down the computer.

The checkpoints system that already exist but for some reason they decided to stop using would also accomplish the same thing while retaining the flexibility to make instances how ever long they need to be.

Renkku.7451 · February 7, 2020

I think the problem with solo content in the game at the moment is that it's too easy. People whine if the story is too hard so they made it easier. And the open world metas and bosses are fun, but you don't really know how well you're contributing to the end result. I think some Queen's Gauntlet style single player challenge mode would be a fun thing to put in the game. It could be solo versions of raids, fractals or strikes. As long as it's designed for one player and genuinely challenging and rewarding.

MoriMoriMori.5349 · February 7, 2020

@Renkku.7451 said:I think the problem with solo content in the game at the moment is that it's too easy. People whine if the story is too hard so they made it easier. And the open world metas and bosses are fun, but you don't really know how well you're contributing to the end result. I think some Queen's Gauntlet style single player challenge mode would be a fun thing to put in the game. It could be solo versions of raids, fractals or strikes. As long as it's designed for one player and genuinely challenging and rewarding.

Just solo content is too easy, lol? I was able to beat many group events in PoF locations signle-handedly - and I'm not a very good player, and my build was quite sub-optimal too. It's so easy it's utterly boring, most of the time - especially the core Tyria maps. In core Tyria only some boss mobs of Elite or Legendary grade are worth your time if you wish for a good, intense fight that make you feel like you actually playing a game, at last. You need to deliberately handicap yourself by wearing trash-tier gear and using for-fun crappy builds to enjoy the game in the most of OpenWorld. And I consider it a huge problem, actually.

That would be great if there would be a special instance of each map for hardcore players in the game, where you can only get when you set some checkbox in settings, or something. Where all mobs would be much aggressive, faster, had more hp, hard and soft CC and better AI that would allow them to cooperate between themselves and counteract your skills. It should also have some new mechanics encouraging team play and grouping, like ambushes where you are suddenly attacked by team of NPCs when you don't even expect this, similar to what you can see in WvW environment. Also with better rewards for everything, and some unique currencies and drops only available there.

That would be also something that would provide a stepping stone for these interested in PvP and WvW but discouraged by steep learning curve.

DoRi Silvia.4159 · February 7, 2020

Old post and not sure if op is still here but....

May I suggest trying out witcher 3 ?

GW2 is definitely a mmo and open world focused meaning there ain't too much a solo content lover could do in game except chase achievements at endgame.

Witcher on the other hand is a very very very single player game where you can enjoy hundreds of hours ALONE

Amaranthe.3578 · February 8, 2020

If you're looking for good single player experiences I'd suggest looking for single player games.

Raknar.4735 · February 8, 2020

@Amaranthe.3578 said:If you're looking for good single player experiences I'd suggest looking for single player games.

Same goes for lobby based instanced content ;)

Kruhljak.2705 · February 15, 2020

For those of you that genuinely find this topic's question of interest may I suggest the following YouTube video:

.

It's a talk given at GDC 2011 by Damion Schubert (then of Bioware Austin) which I think should prove insightful to both those who are the loners in the title and those who think those loners just don't get what "multiplayer" means. I think this may be most enlightening to the latter since the former already know why they prefer soloing in a multiplayer game. The talk covers both the, I suppose you'd say, psychology of the MMO loner and various business aspects of the topic.

Eloc Freidon.5692 · February 17, 2020

If only we were powerful enough to take on T2 or T3 Fractals solo without it taking hours of our lives away.

Julischka Bean.7491 · February 17, 2020

@Graymalkyn.8076 said:I agree with the OP, but for different reasons. I am in a not unknown, but relatively rare, position of being a full-time caretaker for my wife's parents. I can easily sit and play for several hours, or be called away at a moment's notice. I love the game, but this really restricts my ability to do things like raids, PvP, fractals, etc. I can do PvE at my pace (just restart an instance if I get called away), or WvW where I can come and go as needed. So having more solo stuff would be nice. Although, lately a lot of the story stuff takes 30-60 minutes to complete as well, so I frequently have to restart those. Shorter personal story instances would be my first request.
That being said, I know I'm in the minority, and don't expect the game to change for me, but thought this would be a good place to throw in my 2 cents.

I am a full-time caretaker for my mom who has Dementia. I know exactly where you are coming from.

Julischka Bean.7491 · February 17, 2020

@Amaranthe.3578 said:If you're looking for good single player experiences I'd suggest looking for single player games.

Hmm..are there any computer single player games? If so, which would you suggest?

Julischka Bean.7491 · February 17, 2020

@"Kruhljak.2705" said:For those of you that genuinely find this topic's question of interest may I suggest the following YouTube video:

.
It's a talk given at GDC 2011 by Damion Schubert (then of Bioware Austin) which I think should prove insightful to both those who are the loners in the title and those who think those loners just don't get what "multiplayer" means. I think this may be most enlightening to the latter since the former already know why they prefer soloing in a multiplayer game. The talk covers both the, I suppose you'd say, the psychology of the MMO loner and various business aspects of the topic.

WOW!!!!!! This is long but worth listening to...too long matter of fact. However, what I listened to, was so good I plan to listen to the entirety sometime today.

Thank you for this.

Cyninja.2954 · February 17, 2020

@"Kruhljak.2705" said:For those of you that genuinely find this topic's question of interest may I suggest the following YouTube video:

.
It's a talk given at GDC 2011 by Damion Schubert (then of Bioware Austin) which I think should prove insightful to both those who are the loners in the title and those who think those loners just don't get what "multiplayer" means. I think this may be most enlightening to the latter since the former already know why they prefer soloing in a multiplayer game. The talk covers both the, I suppose you'd say, psychology of the MMO loner and various business aspects of the topic.

This talk sheds a very clear light on current issues which GW2 is facing, both in terms of how the developers are currently implementing rewards as well as how much content needs to devoted to which type of player.

His conclusion starts at 38:40 (right after the speaker explains 10 different types of why solo players, he calls them lone players, exist).

Excellent recommendation.

Amaranthe.3578 · February 17, 2020

@Julischka Bean.7491 said:
@Amaranthe.3578 said:If you're looking for good single player experiences I'd suggest looking for single player games.

Hmm..are there any computer single player games? If so, which would you suggest?

Oh yeah, there are many single players games for the PC LoL

Amaranthe.3578 · February 17, 2020

@Raknar.4735 said:
@Amaranthe.3578 said:If you're looking for good single player experiences I'd suggest looking for single player games.

Same goes for lobby based instanced content ;)

Oh you can play those on a SP game? Interesting.

Raknar.4735 · February 17, 2020

@Amaranthe.3578 said:
@Raknar.4735 said:
@Amaranthe.3578 said:If you're looking for good single player experiences I'd suggest looking for single player games.

Same goes for lobby based instanced content ;)

Oh you can play those on a SP game? Interesting.

Ah sorry, guess you didn't understand my statement that was based on yours. I'll elaborate: If you're looking for good lobby based experiences, I'd suggest looking for lobby coop games.

Amaranthe.3578 · February 17, 2020

@Raknar.4735 said:
@Amaranthe.3578 said:
@Raknar.4735 said:
@Amaranthe.3578 said:If you're looking for good single player experiences I'd suggest looking for single player games.

Same goes for lobby based instanced content ;)

Oh you can play those on a SP game? Interesting.

Ah sorry, guess you didn't understand my statement that was based on yours. I'll elaborate: If you're looking for good lobby based experiences, I'd suggest looking for lobby coop games.

But I'm not. Are you alright? Your statement makes no sense.MMORPGs offer multiplayer gameplay in an open world and in instances, they provide a world, not just a lobby. A MMORPG can never provide a top notch SP experience like a true SP game(Like Skyrim for example) due to the fact that the world is designed around the fact that THERE ARE OTHER PLAYERS

Raknar.4735 · February 17, 2020

@Amaranthe.3578 said:
@Raknar.4735 said:
@Amaranthe.3578 said:
@Raknar.4735 said:
@Amaranthe.3578 said:If you're looking for good single player experiences I'd suggest looking for single player games.

Same goes for lobby based instanced content ;)

Oh you can play those on a SP game? Interesting.

Ah sorry, guess you didn't understand my statement that was based on yours. I'll elaborate: If you're looking for good lobby based experiences, I'd suggest looking for lobby coop games.

But I'm not. Are you alright? Your statement makes no sense.

If my sentence makes no sense, then I guess your initial sentence also doesn't. The OP wasn't looking for a different game, but for more solo opportunities in GW2. Are you ok? You however do seem to look for more instanced content, as shown by some of the polls you create.

Gehenna.3625 · February 17, 2020

@kharmin.7683 said:
@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:
@kharmin.7683 said:
@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:
People want challenging content designed and intended to be done solo. Not group content that they do solo as a bonus challenge.This is not GW2. If players are looking for this type of content, then they should look to other games that focus on it.

Who says that "this is not GW2"? We already have a bunch of solo content, mainly

the main story

. We also have, as I mentioned in my first post, things like Queen's Gauntlet and SAB which are both designed with solo gameplay in mind (Queen's Gauntlet being only solo'able).

Solo content exists in GW2, yet solo content is "not GW2"?

My point was that my understanding was that GW2 was not designed to be so heavily invested in solo content, because it is a MMO. Yes, there is content that can be solo run, as you've clearly shown, but such content is not the norm. Personal story is a way to progress into the MMO areas of the map. I don't believe that it was intended to be replayable for being solo content otherwise the game would be marketed as such.The irony of your post is that you are wrong actually about your claims. When this game released it hardly had any content that was specifically group content. There were only a handful of dungeons and that's pretty much it for PvE. Fractals, more dungeons came later. Raids came later. Strike Missions came later.

What this game offered was a new type of "group" content that I prefer to call zerg-content. You know, world bosses and powerful champions and later also map meta's like HoT maps do. Just join in, no need to group up and just pew pew.

So really this game was very much made with a mindset that didn't provide for real group content in the traditional sense. MMO is a fluid term as it is. Zerg-content surely qualifies more than 10 man raids do... but most of that requires little to no coordination. Sure there are a few exceptions but generally the vast majority of this game is solo and zerg content. But you if you play PvE and look at the map and then compare it to the handful of raids and dungeons then clearly most content is soloable and has always been. ArenaNet had a different approach and that's both its strength and its weakness at the same time.

In more traditional MMOs the focus is more on the endgame with raiding and dungeons but MMOs aren't attracting the same type of players anymore compared to 15 years ago. It's much more casual and as ArenaNet said themselves only a small group of players do raids here. This game can be played very much solo and this has always been the case. Between story, map completion and zerg bosses (which you can join as a solo player without joining an actual group) playing solo is a huge part of GW2.

There are a few things that of course have been added for the sake of players who wanted more, but to be honest, it's not that much and as not that many people do this content I think it only confuses things more than anything. Maybe you believe that this is more of a group oriented game because it has a persistent world, but I think that's just an illusion that you wish to uphold. If you really look at it, there's very little content in this game that actually requires you to group up. That's why it's important to make a difference between group and zerg content. Zerg content just non-committal group content at best.

And every attempt to raise the bar and get people to group together tends to fail. HoT failed at that. It was too complicated and people didn't want to group up for skill points. So PoF was more successful by making skill points soloable. Of course the tougher map meta's failed there but casual players don't care about that too much.

In short, I think you've got things backwards when it comes to GW2...most of the content allows you to play solo. That's always been the case and any attempt to change that has pretty much failed.

Amaranthe.3578 · February 17, 2020

@Raknar.4735 said:
@Amaranthe.3578 said:
@Raknar.4735 said:
@Amaranthe.3578 said:
@Raknar.4735 said:
@Amaranthe.3578 said:
@Raknar.4735 said:
@Amaranthe.3578 said:
@Raknar.4735 said:
@Amaranthe.3578 said:
@Raknar.4735 said:
@Amaranthe.3578 said:If you're looking for good single player experiences I'd suggest looking for single player games.

Same goes for lobby based instanced content ;)

Oh you can play those on a SP game? Interesting.

Ah sorry, guess you didn't understand my statement that was based on yours. I'll elaborate: If you're looking for good lobby based experiences, I'd suggest looking for lobby coop games.

But I'm not. Are you alright? Your statement makes no sense.

If my sentence makes no sense, then I guess your initial sentence also doesn't. The OP wasn't looking for a different game, but for more solo opportunities in GW2. Are you ok? You however do seem to look for more instanced content, as shown by some of the polls you create.MMORPGs offer multiplayer gameplay in an open world and in instances, they provide a world, not just a lobby. A MMORPG can never provide a top notch SP experience like a true SP game(Like Skyrim for example) due to the fact that the world is designed around the fact that THERE ARE OTHER PLAYERSIve seen some impaired people here but you take the cake, Jesus Christ

Ah, resorting to personal attacks and derailings the thread.OP wasn't asking for single player games, he's asking for more single player content in GW2. The same way GW2, as an MMORPG, has massive open world content and lobby based content like instances.

Again, your stupidity boggles my mind. A MMORPG is NOT the place to to look for GOOD solo content. It just doesn't work.

And more personal attacks, nice going. There's plenty of good solo content in many MMORPGs. GW2 also has good solo content via the story. Queen's Gauntlet was excellent solo content and OP is just suggesting to Anet to add more of that.

Look, telling a stupid person that they are stupid is something that just needs to be done. GW2 can never give a quality solo experience like a SP title can. If the OP is interested in a good quality solo experience he should look for other games. I can't be more clearer than this. You can the story good solo content? Give me a break, any half decent build rofl stomps all the solo content in GW2.

Challenging = good is not always the case. There are also other aspects like storytelling. The OP is interested in more end-game solo content in GW2 first and foremost.

Which is not going to happen because GW2 is primarily a MP game. NOT the place to look for a solo experience.Btw, Zero challange (like gw2 story) = boring, in all cases. In a SP game you can tune the difficulty to your liking, can't do that here.

Raknar.4735 · February 17, 2020

@Amaranthe.3578 said:
@Raknar.4735 said:
@Amaranthe.3578 said:
@Raknar.4735 said:
@Amaranthe.3578 said:
@Raknar.4735 said:
@Amaranthe.3578 said:
@Raknar.4735 said:
@Amaranthe.3578 said:
@Raknar.4735 said:
@Amaranthe.3578 said:
@Raknar.4735 said:
@Amaranthe.3578 said:If you're looking for good single player experiences I'd suggest looking for single player games.