Guild Wars 2

This might sound very much against the standard MMO-esque pattern, but I personally believe GW2 could use slightly more single-player or small-group content. What I am picturing is a dungeon that tests the actions of a single player against a variety of mechanics. A dungeon with, perhaps, NPCs that help with healing or aggro. But mostly single player content that should be challenging.

This would help in the following ways:

A.) There is a stigma against the “bads”. The players who show up to Tequatl or Wurm without knowing what to do. The players have been able to get by with the “run with the group” mentality, as that is all that the living story has offered. And it has been fun. But trying to organize a large group of largely ignorant players has been a nightmare, which is why large groups try to secure overflows. With the upcoming changes to overflows, it is absolutely necessary to introduce mechanics to single players. This is where my idea comes in: have a dungeon that offers a taste of mechanics to come. The pugs get used to the mechanics, which means you can up the challenge in the actual living story without having a large complaint, as the option to “train” on these mechanics will exist, without the need to find a group.

B.) The player’s character means nothing. GW1 (excluding Nightfall because Kormir) made the player character feel useful, as it was all instanced. You could be a hero. In GW2, it is non-instanced largely. With the existence of new NPCs at the forefront of importance, as well as the overwhelming presence of Trahearne, the players feel less important to the story as a whole, and thus, cannot connect with it. With a single player dungeon, the opportunity for the players to MEAN something to the living story is presented. And it would be absolutely invaluable.

C.) A chance to explore the issues with classes on their own. If a certain class simply cannot do enough damage, alone, to complete the single-player dungeon, it is an obvious issue that means a lot for class balancing as a whole.

Just a general idea. I am curious what other people think!

tl;dr: Single player content could help teach new players hard boss mechanics, could make the character feel useful, and could show issues with class balancing.

This was why I was actually very happy with the end of the Tower of Nightmares. I ran it quite a few times with my necro solo because it was so much easier not scaled. It also helped me hammer out my build from wells into a more focused damage. If they brought out more updates like that, and maybe even made it so regular dungeons would be soloed, that would be pretty cool. I would still vastly prefer playing with friends, but being able to get through CoE based entirely on my own merits sounds interesting nonetheless.

BigfootArisen.6509:

This was why I was actually very happy with the end of the Tower of Nightmares. I ran it quite a few times with my necro solo because it was so much easier not scaled. It also helped me hammer out my build from wells into a more focused damage. If they brought out more updates like that, and maybe even made it so regular dungeons would be soloed, that would be pretty cool. I would still vastly prefer playing with friends, but being able to get through CoE based entirely on my own merits sounds interesting nonetheless.

Oh, yes most definitely definitely. The single player content should never take away from group content, as I vastly prefer it too.

But just a single example of single player content, like you mentioned, could definitely be good for the community as a whole.

That’s odd, I’ve always thought single player content was this game’s strength.

Classes and relevant game mechanics are setup so players basically rely on themselves, so this by it’s very nature makes grouping less meaningful. This is an MMO where you are, essentially, having a single player experience where you just so happen to see other players. Numbers mean the most in terms of damage absorbed, damage dealt and some odd utility here and there.. that’s about it.

Beyond that, though, the world itself offers a number of areas to explore with various personal instances, events, mini-dungeons and jumping puzzles. I’ve played several MMOs and frankly I don’t know of an equal in terms of single player PvE content.

I guess this thread just goes to show there’s always going to be one guy asking for more of what you’re likely already leading the industry at as a developer. They even prepared a wall of text for you.

This is what I was hoping the later parts of the Story line quest would be. But then it wasn’t…

I’d have no idea that there were even effects in this game that you were supposed to jump over had I not been told specifically that that’s what you do. Introducing players to mechanics in solo settings is always nice as then you aren’t frustrated holding back a group while you try to master something you just saw 30s ago.

I’d be all for even just bringing out some of the dungeon bosses into an arena type situation. That’d be fun. Lupi solo’s without having to get to him in an arah? that’d be just some good fun. It could be largely reused content, hopefully not taking too much dev effort, and giving us something that hone our own skills on.

I like it.

I DO solo a lot, and it’s almost all do-able (dungeons and fractals aside… though some dungeons are an exception if you have the time to learn).

I’ve been in another MMO where like 30-40% of the content was completely un-soloable due to things such as puzzle mechanics, and it’s frustrating not to be able to play such a large portion of the content for which you paid.

GW2 could stand to be tweaked somewhat, but I think they did a good job right out of the box… I’d be afraid too much tweaking could break what we have

OptimistPrime.9283:

This might sound very much against the standard MMO-esque pattern, but I personally believe GW2 could use slightly more single-player or small-group content. What I am picturing is a dungeon that tests the actions of a single player against a variety of mechanics. A dungeon with, perhaps, NPCs that help with healing or aggro. But mostly single player content that should be challenging.

This would help in the following ways:

A.) There is a stigma against the “bads”. The players who show up to Tequatl or Wurm without knowing what to do. The players have been able to get by with the “run with the group” mentality, as that is all that the living story has offered. And it has been fun. But trying to organize a large group of largely ignorant players has been a nightmare, which is why large groups try to secure overflows. With the upcoming changes to overflows, it is absolutely necessary to introduce mechanics to single players. This is where my idea comes in: have a dungeon that offers a taste of mechanics to come. The pugs get used to the mechanics, which means you can up the challenge in the actual living story without having a large complaint, as the option to “train” on these mechanics will exist, without the need to find a group.

B.) The player’s character means nothing. GW1 (excluding Nightfall because Kormir) made the player character feel useful, as it was all instanced. You could be a hero. In GW2, it is non-instanced largely. With the existence of new NPCs at the forefront of importance, as well as the overwhelming presence of Trahearne, the players feel less important to the story as a whole, and thus, cannot connect with it. With a single player dungeon, the opportunity for the players to MEAN something to the living story is presented. And it would be absolutely invaluable.

C.) A chance to explore the issues with classes on their own. If a certain class simply cannot do enough damage, alone, to complete the single-player dungeon, it is an obvious issue that means a lot for class balancing as a whole.

Just a general idea. I am curious what other people think!

tl;dr: Single player content could help teach new players hard boss mechanics, could make the character feel useful, and could show issues with class balancing.

Let me add one additional, potentially off-topic item… but it goes to the decapitated chickens you mentioned for events like Teq or Wurm… MOST new players (or players who’ve not grouped much) don’t know there’s a teamspeak server up, don’t know there are dedicated channels for the various events, etc.

An in-game VOIP app woulda fixed a LOT of this problem. Commanders trying to type instructions is a recipe for disaster in Wurm… I imagine Teq’s just as difficult if the commander’s not standing in the stack.

Either a teamspeak interface OR simply an in-game note directing players to the ts server would fix it as well; but both of those are fraught with corporate issues I’m not certain anet wants to deal with.