Guild Wars 2

Making dungeons soloable has been discussed last year already. However, I have a different take on it.

Currently some dungeons cannot be completed solo or even with a group of four, because some dungeon mechanic needs all five players to fill some designated roles. Two examples are CoF path 1, where four players need to stand in the flame domes to open a door and the fifth one needs to destroy something in the chamber behind it. The other example is Arah path 1, where at least four players are needed to summon the tar boss.

What I’d like to see is, that those mechanics scale down with the number of players in the dungeon. A good example could be seen in the SAB, where all 1-5 members of the party need to stand on the pipe organ thingies to activate them. In CoF you would then just need to activate n-1 domes to open the door and in Arah n tar springs blocked.

What I don’t expect and don’t even want is scaling the enemies down. Neither amount, level, HP nor damage. If this became an option that would be nice, but this is not what I’m after.

And yes, dungeons are considered group activity. I’d just like to have the possibility to try this as a challenge or when I can’t find a full group of friends/guildies. (I dislike random groups.) This is why enemies should not scale, so soloing does not become the better option of running dungeons. It should still be difficult and take longer than in a group, but not mechanically impossible.

The same applies to fractals and possible event dungoens as well.

Massive MULTIplayer Online

I don’t understand this kind of post. MMORPG had MMO in it for a good reason. 3/4 of the content in GW 2 is arlready doable in solo. If you do the same with dungeons, it’s th death of the PvE. Random groups have certains defaults, of course, but it’s the point of an online game, you meet people, some goods, some bads and you deal with it.

There is plenty of awesome solo Rpg, don’t try to kill the essence of a game.

I do not mind the scalability in paths like arah with the tarelemental, or cof p1, having a dc or a leaver it is probably one of the more frustrating experiences, but the mechanics should stay intact, 12 acolytes also with 3 players, 3 balls with 3 players and 2 brazier with 3 players, 3 with 4 and 4 with 5 players.

I do not want to be able to run cof 1 alone, just running in and kill 12 acolytes, then running 1 stone then running into the brazier room ingnoring the spawns ust killing the lock… It will destroy the path mechanics and therefore the dungeon… It will gut the dungeon leaving only the exterior/interior the same a dungeon path without any challenge or mechanic.

It’s my opinion

There are quite a few soloable dungeonpaths anyways. When seeing the buyable paths quite a few are workable. and just LFG and PUG-ing isn’t that bad. at lease not during weekdays. Or join a (new) dungeon guild.

I would really like that. Yes it’s called MMO but I still have many Dungeon paths missing because whenever I try to enter a lfg group and tell them I’m inexperienced with that path they kick me.
Now you could argue that I should try to find a nice guild. That’s what I’ve done but everyone left a year ago due to the lack of content.

I think that’s a horrible idea.

Ensuring that every dungeon (current and future) could be done solo would be a terrible idea. It would severely limit the devs, certain mechanics would become impossible.

No. There is already plenty solo content in GW2, you don’t need to get rid of dedicated group content to create more of it.

“Massive MULTIplayer Online” — you could also turn that argument around and say “MASSIVE multiplayer” and claim dungeons need to scale up to be run with dozens of players.

“It’s the death of PvE” — I disagree. Some paths are already soloable. Yet GW2 still lives.

And I rather (try to) solo the dungeon than buy it. Even if it is less effective.

And my request is not only about soloing. I’d also like the mechanics to scale down, so that groups with 2-4 can theoretically complete all dungeons.

Also, I do NOT want the dungeons to scale down in a way, that makes solo running a good or – worse – ideal option. Do not scale down the number of mobs you need to kill. Do not scale down their HP, level or rank. Neither trash mobs nor boss encounters. I’d just like to see the blockers gone that make it theoretically impossible to solo the dungeon. It SHOULD be hard to do it. It SHOULD ALWAYS be the better option to run with friends.

Also, I have a nice guild. I really like them. But it’s not always easy to recruit a group of guild mates to run a (specific) dungeon. Lacking a fifth player? So no CoF P1 for us today.

And I don’t like LFG tool groups. If I look into it and see “selling”, “exp only”, “ping equip” and so on I just close the window again. Especially for dungons, I’m not famililar with.

Edit:
“It would severely limit the devs” — not necessarily. They don’t need to plan to make it easily soloable. They would just need to find a way to trigger certain events with less than 5 players.

Another edit:
Some mechanics may need a slight rework for soloing. The flame domes (CoF P1) could e.g. work so that you need to stay 30 seconds below one and then the door opens for 30 seconds. Or something like that.

Killerassel.2197:

“It would severely limit the devs” — not necessarily. They don’t need to plan to make it easily soloable. They would just need to find a way to trigger certain events with less than 5 players.

Which would result in either a) a ton of additional work to balance stuff individually for 1,2,3,4 and 5 players or b) the devs being forced to only use mechanics that scale with numbers instead of activities (→ it would limit them).

I simply don’t see how the drawbacks of soloable dungeons could be worth the minor benefit it brings to people that don’t want to search for groups.

Killerassel.2197:

And I rather (try to) solo the dungeon than buy it. Even if it is less effective.

And I don’t like LFG tool groups. If I look into it and see “selling”, “exp only”, “ping equip” and so on I just close the window again. Especially for dungons, I’m not famililar with.

Advert your own party in lfg…you’d be amazed how fast you get a group if you advert in the correct dungeon (not like some who advert in open world to do a dungeon :p)

nachtnebel.9168:

I think that’s a horrible idea.

Ensuring that every dungeon (current and future) could be done solo would be a terrible idea. It would severely limit the devs, certain mechanics would become impossible.

No. There is already plenty solo content in GW2, you don’t need to get rid of dedicated group content to create more of it.

It won’t limit devs as there won’t be any future dungeons. The dungeon team was disbanded ages ago and HoT doesn’t have dungeons.

Varrg.2704:

It won’t limit devs as there won’t be any future dungeons. The dungeon team was disbanded ages ago and HoT doesn’t have dungeons.

True, but, given that all this is based that someone might be reworking the dungeons, aka that there will be another dungeon team (even if only temporarily), that really doesn’t matter.

Granted, their might not be any future dungeons, but that doesn’t mean modifying the current ones wouldn’t consume quite some resources.

@nachtnebel: You may be right, but I can’t think of a mechanic that would be limited. As I keep emphasizing: I’m NOT asking it to be balanced for 1-4 players. The mobs should be exactly as they are for 5 players. If the boss throws 5 fire balls, he shall throw them all five at me (or my minions/illusions/…) instead of scaling down to one.

There are just a few mechanics currently in place that need 3-5 players to trigger. Four flame domes to stand in and a fifth player to destroy an object elsewhere. Four spots to stand on to summon the boss. Things like that. And those I can think of can easily be scaled to trigger with n or n-1 instead of hardcoded n=5 players. In a few cases a replacement mechanic may be needed if that makes the encounter too trivial.

And it is not only for not wanting to search for a group. You can also solo/duo dungeons as a challenge. Or, as mentioned before, we were lacking a fifth player and that limited US in our choice of dungeon. We knew we could not complete CoF P1, even if we were easily able to defeat all encounters in it, we had no way to get to the final boss. (Or we could have picked up a player via LFG tool or asking in map chat, which none of us wanted.)

Opening my own group via LFG tool may be the option I’m ending up with, though, to get my last missing dungeon path…

If everyone was nice (as some people are), I would say no.

Unfortunately, not everyone is; so, yes.

Then people who wanted to run in groups would have to make sure they were pleasant, to make people want to run with them.

Instead of the current situation, where they think they can do and say what they like and people will still need them.

Killerassel.2197:

“Massive MULTIplayer Online” — you could also turn that argument around and say “MASSIVE multiplayer” and claim dungeons need to scale up to be run with dozens of players.

I am missing 8 and 12 man dungeons, I’d even like 20 man dungeons tbh.

“It’s the death of PvE” — I disagree. Some paths are already soloable. Yet GW2 still lives.

I find the fact there are soloable paths already a reason to say: " Just leave it the way it is."

And I rather (try to) solo the dungeon than buy it. Even if it is less effective.

Good for you, I respect the fact you do so, but please also respect the reason I play the game, with others, If you make everything soloable , this will be a Massive Soloplayer Online.

And my request is not only about soloing. I’d also like the mechanics to scale down, so that groups with 2-4 can theoretically complete all dungeons.

I already stated I would love to see this, making some dungeons accesible for 2-4 man groups as long as: MECHANICS ALLOW IT

Also, I do NOT want the dungeons to scale down in a way, that makes solo running a good or – worse – ideal option. Do not scale down the number of mobs you need to kill. Do not scale down their HP, level or rank. Neither trash mobs nor boss encounters. I’d just like to see the blockers gone that make it theoretically impossible to solo the dungeon. It SHOULD be hard to do it. It SHOULD ALWAYS be the better option to run with friends.

If you would scale down bosses to 1 player all people who now solo Lupi will laught at lupi, and dance on his corpse time and time again., The fact people already do solo or 2-,3-,4-(wo)man runs should show the fact most dungeons are very easily conquered.

Also, I have a nice guild. I really like them. But it’s not always easy to recruit a group of guild mates to run a (specific) dungeon. Lacking a fifth player? So no CoF P1 for us today.

1 PUG in the team shouldn’t matter too much, and taking COF 1 as an example shows the lack of faith you have in pugs. You frown upon LFG requests, but want the same, you just do not seem to want to take the step. l80 Zerk, l80 Meta,l80 Exp(ert), l80 speedrun?
And there are quite a lot of players who do know speedruns, or fast runs, and there are quite a few who know what to do, and how to do it in very little time. I personally renst PING and xk AP but that’s my way of playing. I been there too often…

And I don’t like LFG tool groups. If I look into it and see “selling”, “exp only”, “ping equip” and so on I just close the window again. Especially for dungons, I’m not famililar with.

Selling isn’t important ignore them, just run your own: L80 exp, dance when enter or kick? Eternity mandatory? If it’s not green it isn’t mean?

I have 17k+ AP done all dungeons a lot, though I seldom run CM HotW and Arah, I have dungeon gear, dungeon food, and know my builds and tactics. I only PUG, if I’d run with guild members I’d run with ppl with WvW commander builds and shout heal; warriors….

Edit:
“It would severely limit the devs” — not necessarily. They don’t need to plan to make it easily soloable. They would just need to find a way to trigger certain events with less than 5 players.

Do not alter paths. If you change mechanics you destroy the dungeon as is. nor will solo-ers and groups work together… as different meta’s will spawn… this will cause conflicts

Another edit:
Some mechanics may need a slight rework for soloing. The flame domes (CoF P1) could e.g. work so that you need to stay 30 seconds below one and then the door opens for 30 seconds. Or something like that.

I’d be against changing mechanics. This to retain the mechanics of a path, I want to see the same mechanics for solo, 2, 3 , 4 ,5 ppl in any case.

bold is my remarks except for 1 bold note from OP.

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

Massive MULTIplayer Online

The game was also advertised as play the way you want to play. Sometimes some of us just want to play alone. The great thing about MMOs is playing with other people. The bad thing about MMOs is that you are obligated to play with other people

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

Massive MULTIplayer Online

If that’s the case. They shouldn’t make most of the dungeon soloable.

That being said, it’s nice it is soloable. Which means the dungeon is easy enough, you don’t have to worry with bad pug.

The explorable dungeons should not be soloable in my opinion. Making the Story Dungeons 1-5 players like the LS instances would be nice if they have the resources in the future.

Julie Yann.5379:

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

Massive MULTIplayer Online

The game was also advertised as play the way you want to play. Sometimes some of us just want to play alone. The great thing about MMOs is playing with other people. The bad thing about MMOs is that you are obligated to play with other people

Why dont you play single player action rpgs than? There are more than enough of them. Don’t understand the logic of People coming to a MMORPG (multiplayer yes) demanding that everything is a singleplayers game, which they know it isn’t.

Can someone play explain to me why do people come play an MMORPG and then expect everything to be done alone?

I can empathise with the OP but as a someone who enjoys solo dungeon/fractal runs, I couldn’t care less that certain gates/mechanics mean that some paths are “off limits” for solo attempts. At the end of the day it is meant to be group content, just enjoy the ones you can do.

Personally I’d rather the devs spend what limited time and effort they devote to instanced pve in the future (and let’s face it, it is going to be very limited time and effort) to adding new/improved small group challenging content.

you can also just get 5 account.

I’m amazed how my computer can run 5 account with 8 GB ram.

PaxTheGreatOne, I think our opinions are not that different. It seems I haven’t expressed mine clearly enough:

I do NOT want the dungeons to change much. I do NOT want the difficulty level to adapt to the number of players. I do NOT want mob HP or damage to scale with the number of players. I do NOT want to change ALLmechanics generally to adapt to the number of players. I do NOT want dungeons to be the place-to-go for solo play.

So your Lupi example is off. For those who already solo him now nothing would change at all.

What I DO want to change are mechanics that make encounters for 1-4 players theoretically impossible. The example I’ve used before is the need for four players to stand in the flame domes and a fifth to destroy some object. You wrote “as long as: MECHANICS ALLOW IT”. I say: change the mechanics slightly(!) to allow it. And only those that make it impossible. Keep those that make it difficult but not impossible just as they are now.

Lupi is obviously soloable, so there is no mechanic for him to be changed. The tar boss cannot be summoned with less than four players. This I’m asking to be changed.

And please don’t hang too much on the CoF example. This is one well known path with a mechanic that makes it impossible to complete a dungeon in a group with less than 5 players. I’ve done this path before in a LFG tool group and would do so again, if there was an incentive. I just don’t know that many dungeon paths and couldn’t come up with another example. But I do know they exist.

Also you got the comment with the meta the wrong way. My guild plays in a rather relaxed way. This includes dungeons. Not zerker but fun with your build? Great! Why skip when a mob can potentially drop a precursor and is not so hard to kill anyway? So the meta zerker speed runner would not have fun with us. And we would constantly be wondering where (s)he runs off now. ^^

Making mechanics soloable would promote more path selling. That’s no a change dungeons need.

They need:

• More fun and varied encounters.
• Less effectiveness to mindless tactics like ‘stack & spam’.
• Faster runs for skillful play rather for higher stats.
• More and better rewards the more different paths are done. Kind of like with storybooks in GW1, but only rewarding a full set of paths, and using the achievement system instead to give the loot box.

And not more of having some guys rushing to the boss, and some others grinding to pay someone to hit the boss a couple of times to get tokens at the end.

Much like running and rushing missions in GW1, it’s not like they must make changes to make that impossible, but in no way they must keep them as a priority when making changes: If you can do it, suit yourself, if a change prevents it, well, though luck.

In fact, I would not mind if at least one path of each dungeon had a mechanic that requires at least 3 people, so you can’t get Dungeon Master alone.

Now, Story paths, those I agree should be soloable.
And not just that, make them actually part of the personal story, just like with Arah.

Even better, adding an extra path to each dungeon in place of the story path. So all of them have 4 paths, and Dungeon Master does not require stories, but 4 paths per dungeon instead, and any of the 4 paths unlocks the PvP tracks.

-1
The opposite should happen. Each dungeon should have at least 1 spot where 5 players are required to stop people from soloing group content.

Malediktus.9250:

-1
The opposite should happen. Each dungeon should have at least 1 spot where 5 players are required to stop people from soloing group content.

No.

Edit: Why on earth would you enforce that? As long as a dungeon is set up to promote challenging group play, there is zero reason to arbitrarily enforce a specific number of minimum players.

Add in n person requirements/gates when you think they make sense/increase the challenge/fun. For all other times, if someone is capable of soloing group content (or doing it duo or three/four man), why should you whack in gates to prevent that?

Wow, some of you “It’s an MMO stoopid!” sound like a bunch of self-righteous prigs.

I agree with the OP.

So, how does letting me solo something detract from your fun?

btw that’s rhetorical…

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

Massive MULTIplayer Online

Except RANGERS and NECRO’s

MFoy.3284:

Wow, some of you “It’s an MMO stoopid!” sound like a bunch of self-righteous prigs.

I agree with the OP.

So, how does letting me solo something detract from your fun?

btw that’s rhetorical…

The higher individual gold spikes are, the less value gold has for other players. The more players pay for runs for a piece of content, the less likely other players will find actual parties to actually play the content.

Don’t you dare say that isn’t true, because it has happened countless times in other games, including GW1.

MFoy.3284:

Wow, some of you “It’s an MMO stoopid!” sound like a bunch of self-righteous prigs.

I agree with the OP.

So, how does letting me solo something detract from your fun?

btw that’s rhetorical…

I’m all for soloing dungeons in this game, it’s what I enjoy (outside of flipping the TP and stuff like Liadri, it’s all I do really). But from my point of view it’s more a case of “the developers spend the square root of zero time on dungeons, what little time and effort they spend on them should be spent on making challenging small group content, not ensuring that every single path is soloable”.

Fenrir.3609:

Malediktus.9250:

-1
The opposite should happen. Each dungeon should have at least 1 spot where 5 players are required to stop people from soloing group content.

No.

Edit: Why on earth would you enforce that? As long as a dungeon is set up to promote challenging group play, there is zero reason to arbitrarily enforce a specific number of minimum players.

Add in n person requirements/gates when you think they make sense/increase the challenge/fun. For all other times, if someone is capable of soloing group content (or doing it duo or three/four man), why should you whack in gates to prevent that?

Because something that can be soloed can hardly be challenging for a group. See all the speed run records. The dungeons are a joke for any half decent group.

Malediktus.9250:

Because something that can be soloed can hardly be challenging for a group. See all the speed run records. The dungeons are a joke for any half decent group.

That makes no sense following on from your initial post. Why would enforcing n man gates a) make dungeons challenging or b) make any sense?

“Dungeons are a joke”, fine, you don’t make them harder by enforcing arbitrary gates just to stop soloers, you instead make them more challenging (adding in gate mechanics if they make sense, are part of the lore, or are fun for that particular dungeon). Now if someone can solo them after that, all power to them. But your original idea to gate them just to stop soloers is a bit odd.

Akathon.2453:

I don’t understand this kind of post. MMORPG had MMO in it for a good reason. 3/4 of the content in GW 2 is arlready doable in solo. If you do the same with dungeons, it’s th death of the PvE. Random groups have certains defaults, of course, but it’s the point of an online game, you meet people, some goods, some bads and you deal with it.

There is plenty of awesome solo Rpg, don’t try to kill the essence of a game.

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

Massive MULTIplayer Online

Ephemiel.5694:

Can someone play explain to me why do people come play an MMORPG and then expect everything to be done alone?

particlepinata.9865:

Julie Yann.5379:

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

Massive MULTIplayer Online

The game was also advertised as play the way you want to play. Sometimes some of us just want to play alone. The great thing about MMOs is playing with other people. The bad thing about MMOs is that you are obligated to play with other people

Why dont you play single player action rpgs than? There are more than enough of them. Don’t understand the logic of People coming to a MMORPG (multiplayer yes) demanding that everything is a singleplayers game, which they know it isn’t.

I agree with all these posts. There are more than enough single-player RPGs out there for people to experience; this game is not one of them. It is a massively multiplayer online RPG that is designed for group gameplay. Just look at world bosses, dynamic events, WvW, and sPvP as indicators of such.

Dungeons are another aspect of that multiplayer design. Just because players have been able to manipulate certain ones of them to a solo style of play via Ascended gear (something that they were never balanced around) and certain heals Sigils/Runes, does not mean that they’re going to be changed and/or intended for solo play. That is merely a side-effect of the game’s evolution and progression. Increasing their difficulty related to these previously mentioned things would gate far more players out of it than wanting (which is why the developers kept them balance around Exotic and not Ascended gear). To flip the coin, decreasing difficulty or changing mechanics would trivialize the content from it’s originally intended purpose: multiplayer dungeon excursions.

Prob with dungeons is speed runs remove the trash mobs or remove the speed runs
And although some classes can solo them or some of it any way ? i Rather they make the Story solo and add 20 tokens at the end or something

Valky.2574:

Prob with dungeons is speed runs remove the trash mobs or remove the speed runs
And although some classes can solo them or some of it any way ? i Rather they make the Story solo and add 20 tokens at the end or something

yeah story mode could be the soloable content, but since its history reward should be minimal.
About trash mobs.. imo they should be deleted and make people fight for the content not pay gold to leech path.

All development should be done assuming a full group, if people want to learn to solo the instance which is scaled for 5 thats entirely their choice (and part of the fun i’d imagine), but absolutely no thought should go into that when designing the Dungeon.

If you think it wouldn’t hinder creativity you’re wrong and if you think people wouldn’t just take the easiest number of people required to speed run you’d also be wrong.

Group content should be designed with solely that in mind.

particlepinata.9865:

Julie Yann.5379:

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

Massive MULTIplayer Online

The game was also advertised as play the way you want to play. Sometimes some of us just want to play alone. The great thing about MMOs is playing with other people. The bad thing about MMOs is that you are obligated to play with other people

Why dont you play single player action rpgs than? There are more than enough of them. Don’t understand the logic of People coming to a MMORPG (multiplayer yes) demanding that everything is a singleplayers game, which they know it isn’t.

I’m not saying you should be playing GW2 solo all the time. I’m just saying it would be nice to have the option of playing solo when you don’t feel like putting up with other player’s or for extra challenge. Nothing is being taken away from the game, the multi-player aspect remains unchanged and all you little social butterflies could still mingle to your heart’s content.

Yes there are single player rpgs but sometimes we’d like to play GW2 without all the stupid people. It would also allow some of us to actually watch the cutscenes without getting kicked or annoying someone else.

Take a page from Lotro’s yearbook and you will see they have lost more than 50% of their player base by killing off raiding and group play.

From 2012 to 2015 they never released a proper group instance/raid and nearly all the veterans have left the game.

It all started with solo players asking to get the same rewards as raiders from solo play. Next step was to make instances soloable. The next step was to not make any instances at all. They have bled too many players and now they are trying to recover but it’s not possible.

Don’t let the same thing happen to GW2.

choon.6308:

Take a page from Lotro’s yearbook and you will see they have lost more than 50% of their player base by killing off raiding and group play.

From 2012 to 2015 they never released a proper group instance/raid and nearly all the veterans have left the game.

It all started with solo players asking to get the same rewards as raiders from solo play. Next step was to make instances soloable. The next step was to not make any instances at all. They have bled too many players and now they are trying to recover but it’s not possible.

Don’t let the same thing happen to GW2.

You could solo everything in GW1 if you wanted too. It never killed the game.

Julie Yann.5379:

choon.6308:

Take a page from Lotro’s yearbook and you will see they have lost more than 50% of their player base by killing off raiding and group play.

From 2012 to 2015 they never released a proper group instance/raid and nearly all the veterans have left the game.

It all started with solo players asking to get the same rewards as raiders from solo play. Next step was to make instances soloable. The next step was to not make any instances at all. They have bled too many players and now they are trying to recover but it’s not possible.

Don’t let the same thing happen to GW2.

You could solo everything in GW1 if you wanted too. It never killed the game.

So you want GW2 to be focused on solo players? That’s never a good sign for an MMORGP. It’s a snowball effect.

The game might be MMO, but dungeons aren’t anything close to massive or multiplayer; they only hold five people max. Only a few dungeons have mechanics making it difficult for two people to complete them (and most can be easily duo’d), so what’s the philosophical difference in changing the mechanics so that they can be solo’d?

While I support the idea, this would be a costly change; it takes a lot of dev resources to change mechanics, especially to make them conditional on one or more factors. Even when the coding is straightforward, the QA can be a nightmare.

Further, ANet has shown some reluctance (some would say “no interest”) in making substantive changes to dungeons. Without checking the wiki, I can’t remember the last time they added something new. If they are going to take time to work on dungeons, there are lots of other changes that I’d like to see first.

tl;dr Regardless of the philosophy, this is a significant change that caters to a small subset of players. I’d far prefer ANet make other changes to dungeons first.

A while ago, someone new to the game asked here if the game required social engagement to be enjoyed, because he didn’t like it that much.

After being bashed by some close-minded people like we see here, an Anet guy came and explained a lot of the game mechanics to him, and even said that he particularly liked to play solo.

So, some people like to play with others, some like to play solo and most people are between those.

As much as I like playing with friends, sometimes I just wanna stay by myself, enjoying some music, the graphics, or even to challenge myself.

I’d love a system like SAB for the dungeons, yes. But I don’t think it will be implement soon, if ever. That would require quite some changes in the balancing and mechanincs of dungeons, and their rewards.

So, quite some work for a cause Anet hasn’t really showed enough empathy.

choon.6308:

Julie Yann.5379:

choon.6308:

Take a page from Lotro’s yearbook and you will see they have lost more than 50% of their player base by killing off raiding and group play.

From 2012 to 2015 they never released a proper group instance/raid and nearly all the veterans have left the game.

It all started with solo players asking to get the same rewards as raiders from solo play. Next step was to make instances soloable. The next step was to not make any instances at all. They have bled too many players and now they are trying to recover but it’s not possible.

Don’t let the same thing happen to GW2.

You could solo everything in GW1 if you wanted too. It never killed the game.

So you want GW2 to be focused on solo players? That’s never a good sign for an MMORGP. It’s a snowball effect.

That’s not what was posted. Julie Yann said that having all content be able to be soloed did not kill GW1. Therefore saying that because it killed LOTRO it would kill GW2 is a stretch.

Personally, I think one path of each dungeon should not have any mechanics that force you to party with one or more players. Like the laser room in all CoE paths.

choon.6308:

Julie Yann.5379:

choon.6308:

Take a page from Lotro’s yearbook and you will see they have lost more than 50% of their player base by killing off raiding and group play.

From 2012 to 2015 they never released a proper group instance/raid and nearly all the veterans have left the game.

It all started with solo players asking to get the same rewards as raiders from solo play. Next step was to make instances soloable. The next step was to not make any instances at all. They have bled too many players and now they are trying to recover but it’s not possible.

Don’t let the same thing happen to GW2.

You could solo everything in GW1 if you wanted too. It never killed the game.

So you want GW2 to be focused on solo players? That’s never a good sign for an MMORGP. It’s a snowball effect.

Personally, I don’t really care either way. I’m just saying it would be nice to be able to have that option and that if done right, wouldn’t kill the game. At the moment, when I’m feeling anti social I just roam some wvw maps or farm meta events and do stuff that doesn’t require being in a party, it would be awesome if dungeons could be part of that list.

Redesigning current dungeons isn’t really feasible but maybe it is something they can keep in mind when designing future content. Also ensure that there is no advantage to soloing a dungeon, in fact, make it less rewarding than doing it with a party.

Malediktus.9250:

Because something that can be soloed can hardly be challenging for a group. See all the speed run records. The dungeons are a joke for any half decent group.

right but if the only group content is due to mechanics and not difficulty (for example panel or controller) etc…

The only content which havn’t been soloed due to mechanic is high level legendary imbued shaman. It’s the only fight which require 2 people to beat. Every other content have been beaten on youtube.

and thing about hard content is no one do them. Just look at aetherblade path.

To clarify, again, what I meant with my post:

“So you want GW2 to be focused on solo players? " — No! All I’m asking is that artificial barriers in group content are removed. Design dungeon encounters for a full group of five. Balance them for a full group of five. But please invest a few thoughts whether smaller groups of 1-4 are locked out due to some mechanics and how this may be prevented.

A dungeon would and should still be easier for a group of five, since you have five times the damage and five times the support compared to solo. And since loot is personal in GW2 anyway, it’s not like there is the same total loot divided through less players. I.e. you need more time and more effort for the same loot.

Don’t even incentivise soloing. There should be no additional benefit for doing the dungeon with less than five players. Don’t make it the easier option. Just make it possible.

Is my wish likely to be fulfilled soon? Probably not. Dungeon reworks or new dungeons in HoT are not off the table, since nothing ever is, but also not anything to expect soon. But if noone asks for it it is almost certain to never happen.

I don’t really agree with solo, or two, but there needs to be more flexibility than the 5 man only. If I have 4 friends on we are one short, if I have 5 on we have to leave one out. That is a lot of inflexibility by design. There is scaling in the game, why not allow party size to affect that scaling. Add the odd tweak to some dungeon mechanics to cater for different sized parties and that makes a massive difference to the playability of the game for normal players. If you are worried about farming exploits then just adjust the rewards based on party size too, though the normal loot scaling built into dungeons should suffice.

if it is only for challenge, you can ask some friend to help you get pass some points.

I know some arah path 1 sellers just ask friends or people to help them get through tar etc. It can get cumbersome if it is a daily routine though.

If you have a good computer I suggest you just get a few accounts. It is also pretty easy to level alt accounts if you can solo dungeon. Since you can just solo dungeon and all your other accounts gets exp.

Since when did mmo force cooperative play. some people play mmo for the pvp. We all know the AI is crap and the pve content is not challenging. Why imply that everyone has to team up to enjoy the game the way you want.

Akathon.2453:

I don’t understand this kind of post. MMORPG had MMO in it for a good reason. 3/4 of the content in GW 2 is arlready doable in solo. If you do the same with dungeons, it’s th death of the PvE. Random groups have certains defaults, of course, but it’s the point of an online game, you meet people, some goods, some bads and you deal with it.

There is plenty of awesome solo Rpg, don’t try to kill the essence of a game.

MMO never meant forced grouping, or grouping in general. It’s always meant that the environment is to be shared on a massive scale. There have always been instanced and non-instanced content. Neither is exclusive to “MMO”.

I don’t really get why people are arguing about this?

They could just scale dungeons down, so they were soloable with about (I say “about” – wouldn’t have to be exact) the same amount of effort and skill as is required in a full group.

As long as it was a scaling thing, it wouldn’t stop people doing them in groups, if they prefer that.

I think all the unnecessary arguing is, basically, demonstrating the reason why a lot of people prefer to solo in the first place.

The natural thing for humans to want to be is social, but it does not feel social to be forced to group with antisocial people, all the time.

In other words, you can’t force people to be your friends – you have to let them do what they like, so they then hopefully want to be, of their own volition.