Guild Wars 2

I have been playing guild wars since the first game came off the line. The one thing I always love about the game was the ability to play solo. The problem I have with what anet has been doing lately is that they seem to have forgotten that some people do not have any interest in dungeons or raids or pvp. that’s seems to be all they are concentrating on in heart of thorns. I mean us solo players paid the same price for our game and we don’t seem to be getting the same game experience for our money. If I’m wrong please anet tell me where I’m wrong.

It’s your own choice to play solo, therefore it’s your own choice to not experience content, no sympathy.

I’m not sure this is correct. Many parts about the story and its length have not been unveiled.

Also just because certain types of content draw a lot of attention does not mean they are the dominant part of the expansion. The main focus of HoT will be:

- the 4 new HoT maps. Expect most of the new pve activities and achievements to be rooted here
- the change of the reward system in the old world to encourage more maps to get played besides silver wastes and dry top. Maps where you can run around solo and complete events (old events but still)
- full new set of living story with Season 3 comming out at a later point
- new mastery system to progress on

I’d wait and see how thigns pan out. The buzz currently about raiding is only due to its link to legendary armor crafting. If that aspect wasn’t unique to raiding (and no one says it will remain that way) people would care way less.

johnsheldon.4592:

I have been playing guild wars since the first game came off the line. The one thing I always love about the game was the ability to play solo. The problem I have with what anet has been doing lately is that they seem to have forgotten that some people do not have any interest in dungeons or raids or pvp. that’s seems to be all they are concentrating on in heart of thorns. I mean us solo players paid the same price for our game and we don’t seem to be getting the same game experience for our money. If I’m wrong please anet tell me where I’m wrong.

Have you:

Solo Arah p2? (and sell for 6g a spot, 24g + 3g = 27g if you’re in it for the reward instead of just the challenge)
Solo Fractal 50? (and sell for 20g a spot, 80g for the run if you’re in it for the reward instead of just the challenge)
Solo CM?
Solo AC story?
Solo Lupi with just your mouse, don’t use your keyboard?
Solo….. yeah

You are playing an MMORPG, if you choose to shun other people that is a valid choice, but you need to understand that means you will be locked out of a lot of content. Because the genre itself is defined as one where you are required to interact with other people.

The story will very likely be soloable, the advertures are made to be solo only and the zones themselves are soloable in the way that Orr and the Silverwastes are. There’ll be other players but you don’t have to party with them to play.

I’m not sure why you think one raid and Fractals, which were already there, is a major change in the game’s direction.

You paid 60 bucks for a game you played 3 years, and if you don’t wanna do the content they provide its your choice. IMO levelling solo and doing the personal story for all classes and races already warrants the 60 bucks. It’s an mmorpg gw2 is meant to be played with other players.

@Zach you have no idea how much someone has paid unless you are them, don’t assume anything unless you want to look like a jerk, using silly “you got your moneys worth arguments” especially if you don’t know anything about them. (base game at launch 60-150 dollars potentially+HoT 60-100 dollars potentially)

Your opinion isn’t a fact sure it’s an mmorpg but several people bought gw2 because of guildwars 1 where they could, infact solo everything with their heros/henchmen. (yes im aware they didn’t exist right away)

@ OP

There will surely be content you can solo as well as roaming around the new maps, i am sure they’re aware players find only certain aspects of the game appealing, but you in this instance are not the target audience.

Instanced group content has been so mediocre in the game for so long this is, in all likely-hood Anets way of giving those players their time to shine while still providing for the other groups as well.

MMORPGs by nature are not going to give you Witcher 3 RPG experiences, where you are the sole focus of everything that will go on in the world.

You are by the very nature of MMOs expected to play with others at some point and should adjust your expectations, or look to the RPG genre for your gaming experience/needs.

It is not uncommon to have players who like seeing people in their world knowing they are real people but not wanting to interact with them, However they are not usually the majority of a developers focus efforts.

Don’t forget you will have games like Fallout 4 on the horizon as something to play as well should you find that HoT is not up to par. I also would not be shocked if we saw Living world reappear at some point after HoT is out so keep all those things in mind.

Stinja.9612:

@Zach you have no idea how much someone has paid unless you are them, don’t assume anything unless you want to look like a jerk, using silly “you got your moneys worth arguments” especially if you don’t know anything about them. (base game at launch 60-150 dollars potentially+HoT 60-100 dollars potentially)

Your opinion isn’t a fact sure it’s an mmorpg but several people bought gw2 because of guildwars 1 where they could, infact solo everything with their heros/henchmen. (yes im aware they didn’t exist right away)

@ OP

There will surely be content you can solo as well as roaming around the new maps, i am sure they’re aware players find only certain aspects of the game appealing, but you in this instance are not the target audience.

Instanced group content has been so mediocre in the game for so long this is, in all likely-hood Anets way of giving those players their time to shine while still providing for the other groups as well.

MMORPGs by nature are not going to give you Witcher 3 RPG experiences, where you are the sole focus of everything that will go on in the world.

You are by the very nature of MMOs expected to play with others at some point and should adjust your expectations, or look to the RPG genre for your gaming experience/needs.

It is not uncommon to have players who like seeing people in their world knowing they are real people but not wanting to interact with them, However they are not usually the majority of a developers focus efforts.

Don’t forget you will have games like Fallout 4 on the horizon as something to play as well should you find that HoT is not up to par. I also would not be shocked if we saw Living world reappear at some point after HoT is out so keep all those things in mind.

Technically the you got your money’s worth argument is quite apt here, I mean you only paid 60 or according to you maybe 60 – 150 dollars for the game since launch which has been 3 years. That’s like paying ~ .15 cents a day, in my country that amount of money doesn’t even exist. In the 1st place if you can afford to buy a 150 dollar game (which is a luxury good) than you have actually ‘got your money’s worth’ in my book. If after 3 years you find yourself not enjoying the game or that it is lacking in content than no one is stopping you from taking a break. Take me for example I took a 2 year break and recently came back for hot. The moment the game felt boring or uninteresting I just took a break. I paid 60 bucks for it and played it for 1 year and to me that’s well worth my money. Also I can’t see how you can link me as being a jerk just by pointing out to op that he wasn’t treated unfairly as a guy who bought the game at the same price as the rest of us. I was just pointing out that he got his money’s worth and didn’t lose anything monetarily.

johnsheldon.4592:

I have been playing guild wars since the first game came off the line. The one thing I always love about the game was the ability to play solo. The problem I have with what anet has been doing lately is that they seem to have forgotten that some people do not have any interest in dungeons or raids or pvp. that’s seems to be all they are concentrating on in heart of thorns. I mean us solo players paid the same price for our game and we don’t seem to be getting the same game experience for our money. If I’m wrong please anet tell me where I’m wrong.

Yup I play solo as well, have done from the start.

I also feel we, as solo players will be excluded from some of the new content.

There are of course the typical " tough you play solo, it’s a multiplayer game, make friends, go play something else" yada yada yada.

Maybe I should start a “solo” players guild.

Solid Gold.9310:

johnsheldon.4592:

I have been playing guild wars since the first game came off the line. The one thing I always love about the game was the ability to play solo. The problem I have with what anet has been doing lately is that they seem to have forgotten that some people do not have any interest in dungeons or raids or pvp. that’s seems to be all they are concentrating on in heart of thorns. I mean us solo players paid the same price for our game and we don’t seem to be getting the same game experience for our money. If I’m wrong please anet tell me where I’m wrong.

Yup I play solo as well, have done from the start.

I also feel we, as solo players will be excluded from some of the new content.

There are of course the typical " tough you play solo, it’s a multiplayer game, make friends" yada yada yada.

Maybe I should start a “solo” players guild.

But if you start a ‘solo’ players guild it wouldn’t be very solo anymore lol unless ofc your guild doesn’t do anything besides act as a name rosterXD

Zach.2618:

Solid Gold.9310:

johnsheldon.4592:

I have been playing guild wars since the first game came off the line. The one thing I always love about the game was the ability to play solo. The problem I have with what anet has been doing lately is that they seem to have forgotten that some people do not have any interest in dungeons or raids or pvp. that’s seems to be all they are concentrating on in heart of thorns. I mean us solo players paid the same price for our game and we don’t seem to be getting the same game experience for our money. If I’m wrong please anet tell me where I’m wrong.

Yup I play solo as well, have done from the start.

I also feel we, as solo players will be excluded from some of the new content.

There are of course the typical " tough you play solo, it’s a multiplayer game, make friends" yada yada yada.

Maybe I should start a “solo” players guild.

But if you start a ‘solo’ players guild it wouldn’t be very solo anymore lol unless ofc your guild doesn’t do anything besides act as a name rosterXD

You caught me out, didn’t think of that, honestly. “Smile”

Zach.2618:

You paid 60 bucks for a game you played 3 years, and if you don’t wanna do the content they provide its your choice. IMO levelling solo and doing the personal story for all classes and races already warrants the 60 bucks. It’s an mmorpg gw2 is meant to be played with other players.

The problem with that is people just look at the price of the box. Once you count the gem store it would be less expensive for me to use a subscription game.

Most of the time I am wandering around solo. Sure, I am not completely solo: other people are at events and hero challenges, I sometimes mentor in new people areas, plus I always have my guild and a few friends to talk to. Just for most of the brand x open world stuff I do not see a great need to have someone else there beyond whoever else shows up.

I also do a lot of roaming around the maps as well. However I am in a medium sized guild which I’ve been in since the first week of launch. As others have stated, being an MMORPG, there are certain things your going to have to get over if you want to play solo. Being soft locked out of organized group content is one of them. I usually go through the same thing whenever i’m playing a Korean MMO, but mostly because of a language barrier. I live with it.

Also remember the name “Guild” Wars. that oughtta give you an idea at the kinda content they were eventually gonna shoot for. (You stay out of this GvG advocates :P)

who exactly is hot designed for? i’m not interested in raids and i don’t want to grind for a legendary (very disappointing to hear they wasted so much time and energy designing the new weapons…for what 1% of the population).

i’m in a small guild (me) so no guild halls. what’s left? 4 maps that may or may not be good-i don’t like verdant brink..so the other three need to be really good. possible living story season 3 at some point in the near to distant future?

HoT masteries have lots of solo pve player tasks, which is the progression direction this game is heading.

How do you even play solo?

What do you do once you’ve completed the map and the story?

“I want to play solo in a MMO” > wtf did I just read…
So many troll thread recently…

BTW: personal story 1, LS1, LS2 are design to be done alone. personal story 2, LS3+ will be design the same way… your argument is invalid.

Have to agree with other, there is plenty of soloable content, if you choose to not group up for the group content, that’s on you.

Masteries and the new maps and the LS are there for solo players. But since this is an MMO and people have been asking for raids, they’re also focusing on group content this time around. Guild content is something else people have been asking for, so it’s big right now, too. But there is a lot for solo players, too.

johnsheldon.4592:

I mean us solo players paid the same price for our game and we don’t seem to be getting the same game experience for our money.

If you buy a Massively Multiplayer game and are disappointed in the quantity of solo content, that’s entirely your own kittening fault. Do you also go to Chinese food restaurants and complain that they aren’t offering enough Italian on the menu?

Isarii.2804:

johnsheldon.4592:

I mean us solo players paid the same price for our game and we don’t seem to be getting the same game experience for our money.

If you buy a Massively Multiplayer game and are disappointed in the quantity of solo content, that’s entirely your own kittening fault. Do you also go to Chinese food restaurants and complain that they aren’t offering enough Italian on the menu?

One of the best things in this game that you can play it solo.
And i count pugging dungeons/fractals as solo too, cause you don’t need to talk much with people. Just do you job.
We need the same ability for raids too.

johnsheldon.4592:

I have been playing guild wars since the first game came off the line. The one thing I always love about the game was the ability to play solo. The problem I have with what anet has been doing lately is that they seem to have forgotten that some people do not have any interest in dungeons or raids or pvp. that’s seems to be all they are concentrating on in heart of thorns. I mean us solo players paid the same price for our game and we don’t seem to be getting the same game experience for our money. If I’m wrong please anet tell me where I’m wrong.

What do you call adventures? What about the open world maps? What about the Living Story? What solo content is it that you want that you haven’t received? It’s all there, and in fact there’s more solo content than any other MMO I know of. The nature of playing an MMO is that more of the content will be catered to people not playing solo anyway. Of course they’re not gonna just make everything demand a party, but don’t be surprised if all of the content added isn’t made for solo players. Don’t even be surprised if the vast majority isn’t solo content, because it IS an MMO. If you want all the content to be solo, go play Fallout or Elder Scrolls – those games are catered to what you want.

Selkirk.4218:

who exactly is hot designed for?

The slightly above average, average player. The lower average will think everything is group content and zerging is required due to the increase in general difficulty.

HoT’s advertising has been focused on group related content because solo players are the majority. They don’t need to advertise what you’d expect, such as the continuation of the living story. GW2’s original launch failed for the players that were looking for a traditional endgame. Exotics were far too easy to acquire and all the dungeons were completed within a week. Fractals, along with ascended, was meant to be the solution, but it was far too late. The addition of raiding is an obvious attempt to pull those players back in, however I doubt it’ll last long if it only offer cosmetics.

HoT will feature its own personal story which is the continuation of season 2. The regular living story releases will continue some time after launch.

xadine.7069:

“I want to play solo in a MMO”

An MMO is simply a virtual world with other people. Instanced content like dungeons is not an MMO, it’s simply cheaper to produce.

I don’t have the time or inclination to organize/manage/wait for/find/or babysit a group each time I play a game. I want to like GW2 more but the lack of meaningful solo/casual content means I’m turning on a different game and playing it instead.

I like GW2 but all the group only/time gated crud in it just makes me look for something else, something that makes me feel my time was well spent, not filling the time gate crud and logging off to wait for the time gate to open. It feels more like a job then an interactive entertainment experience.

So yeah, OP I understand what you mean. There doesn’t feel like any meaningful things you can accomplish solo in this game most of the time.

It actually sounds like a guild zerg farmfest not challenging content to mr. I mean honestly the idea of grinding for a legendary is a total turnoff. I mainly play pvp and pve w/friends (not large guild).

You didn’t honestly think that the new legendaries would be given out like candy did you? it’s always been a grind and always will be

Ghost Bear.5280:

I don’t have the time or inclination to organize/manage/wait for/find/or babysit a group each time I play a game. I want to like GW2 more but the lack of meaningful solo/casual content means I’m turning on a different game and playing it instead.

I like GW2 but all the group only/time gated crud in it just makes me look for something else, something that makes me feel my time was well spent, not filling the time gate crud and logging off to wait for the time gate to open. It feels more like a job then an interactive entertainment experience.

So yeah, OP I understand what you mean. There doesn’t feel like any meaningful things you can accomplish solo in this game most of the time.

It sounds like you don’t like MMOs. I don’t know why you bought one.

You do know you’re getting a whole new story arc and 4 maps to play in, right? Its your own choice what you play and what you don’t, HoT has a variety of things and its really unreasonable to say you aren’t getting enough when you choose to exclude yourself.

Every time someone brings this up, I love how people get so completely offended that someone in the world doesn’t want to play with them and automatically start insulting and degrading them for not being social.

There are plenty of reasons for someone to want to do some solo content in an MMO and most games recognize and support it. Even GW2 does, because Anet understands that. But it has a couple of issues:

• Most things you can do without a group are either not engaging, or not rewarding (or both.)
• The exception to this, going solo in content designed for groups, is is not something most people can do, it is tedious because of the large hp pools, and you’re locked out of many paths because of group check mechanics.

Guys grinding for a legendary is the definition of solo play-the worst possible kind of solo play but solo play nonetheless.

and who can know the calculation at work here? maybe people pursuing legendaries buy the most gems/grind for the most gold? it’s the only possible explanation i can think of for devoting this much time and energy towards marginal (meaning most players will not get or even pursue a legendary) cosmetics.

I’m pretty sure ArenaNet has not, nor will, concentrate on dungeons in Heart of Thorns. Or anywhere else, for that matter.

Isarii.2804:

It sounds like you don’t like MMOs. I don’t know why you bought one.

The first GW was very friendly to competitive and casual players. There were no time gates (Until they introduced dailies late into the game’s life) or group gates (Henchmen and later heroes allowed you to flesh out a group if you didn’t have enough people/time to wait for others to show up. They weren’t awesome, people were usually better, but they gave you an option when time was a factor) to stymie you when you wanted to play/get something done. I spent countless hours playing GW1, because it allowed for so many meaningful and diverse ways to play. I didn’t feel like I’d wasted my time or was just getting things out of the way before they reset.

Alliance Battles are and were a great game mode. WvW on the other hand feels a bit less streamlined and more clunky. Perhaps it’s the balance issues/lack of meaningful contributions. In AB the teams facing each other were balanced, at least in numbers. In WvW most of the time you’re outnumbered or greatly outnumber your foes. In AB, a group of 4 could almost carry a team by being smart/strategic. In WvW a Group of 4 -might- be able to take a tower if they are fast enough to do it before a zerg shows up.

If you didn’t have time/want to gather a group of 4 for AB you could always jump into an instance of Jade Quarry or Fort Aspenwood by yourself grouped with a random selection of strangers and fight it out against another group of randomly selected strangers. If the balance was bad for whatever reason at least the match didn’t last a week before resetting.

PvP was different as well, offering several different game modes. Groups grabbed from random queued people, teams you made yourself, selective skills mode, and highly competitive mini tournaments to name a few. Don’t forget the occasional costume brawl battles either.

PvP in GW2 is fairly limited in comparison.

Maybe I’m just spoiled for wanting at least as much quality from Guild Wars 2 as the first Guild Wars offered?

I have never understood why people go out of their way to solo in MMOs. There are far more gratifying single player experiences in the form of single player games, largely because most single player games don’t need to balance your time and reward acquisition against a massive economy filled with other players, make story concessions to ensure you completing a task doesn’t interfere with another player doing so, and a number of other reasons.

Designing around soloing as a “primary play” type rather than a supplementary activity people can do before they make friends or during off hours is just silly.

They learned from that mistake with Nightfall’s heroes. As soon as “filler” npcs were as good as actualy players… nobody played the multiplayer game together any more.

I’d just be happy that the personal story (which is getting a massive amount of new content with HoT) is still soloable and personal. I don’t really see a point to enabling solo players past that.

Why would you play a game solo when you can play much better single player games solo with less grind, less exterior market fluctuations, and more personal impact on the game?

johnsheldon.4592:

I have been playing guild wars since the first game came off the line. The one thing I always love about the game was the ability to play solo. The problem I have with what anet has been doing lately is that they seem to have forgotten that some people do not have any interest in dungeons or raids or pvp. that’s seems to be all they are concentrating on in heart of thorns. I mean us solo players paid the same price for our game and we don’t seem to be getting the same game experience for our money. If I’m wrong please anet tell me where I’m wrong.

I could be mistaken but aren’t you getting a whole new expansion? More story, maps etc? Seems like plenty of solo content to me.

Also just a fyi, since gw2 encourages group behavior/rewards, things like mob tagging and not needing to party up to kill a champ or events, a lot of your “solo” play is actually group play, even if temporary.

ps: If you want an amazing game with a ton of solo content and 3 expansions worth of additional content, let me reccomend Guild Wars, Factions, Nightfall and EoTN. You can solo all you want, enjoy the gw lore, and not have to party up b/c of the hero system. You also have the added benefit of hundreds of skills and dual professions.

PopeUrban.2578:

I have never understood why people go out of their way to solo in MMOs. There are far more gratifying single player experiences in the form of single player games, largely because most single player games don’t need to balance your time and reward acquisition against a massive economy filled with other players, make story concessions to ensure you completing a task doesn’t interfere with another player doing so, and a number of other reasons.

Have you ever hung out at the mall? Gone into a coffee shop to work on your laptop? Walked through a park?

It’s kind of like that.

Single-player games are good, but you are well and truly alone while playing them. I mean, why do you think companions are such a popular design choice in RPGs? Because without them, you’d constantly be reminded of how alone you are while playing.

Human beings are social creatures and even those of us who need a lot of alone time often enjoy the sense of being in the vicinity of other human beings. When I was growing up, I had a lot of brothers and few games, so when we played single-player games, it was often with someone else watching.

I enjoy MMOs as multi-player games too, but for reasons that I’m not going to go into, I don’t want to play them as multi-player right now, unless it’s a situation where I can bow out as needed, without owing anyone my presence.

Does that make sense?

MMORPG
noun
noun: MMORPG; plural noun: MMORPGs

an online role-playing video game in which a very large number of people participate simultaneously.

No where is it stated that its a RGMMORPG (required group massive multiplayer online role playing game) just because someone doesn’t like to group doesn’t mean they don’t want to play this game. Just because someone doesn’t want to play with the simultaneously playing other players doesn’t mean they don’t like the game itself. GW2 has a lot of solo content, and people in the beginning, starting with the Beta stated that was something unique and great with the game.

I see a lot of solo content that is played by massive amount of simultaneous players that are in fact playing solo. Just because large amounts of people can access a game at the same time doesn’t mean they all have to play together. However, if you like grouping you can, if you don’t you don’t have to and this game was once the answer to both. It was even advertised that way, “play your way”. I’ll keep playing, my way, solo. And if there comes a time when I can’t or feel I have no content to do, I’ll stop playing. Simple as that. But the MMORPG argument against solo players has been worn out.

People have been soloing on MMORPGs for years now. In enormous numbers. Most games even cater to them by providing plenty of solo content. So, the “omg, it’s an MMO so you can’t possibly play it alone or you’re doing it wrong!” sentiment is completely out of left field and makes no sense whatsoever.

Ghost Bear.5280:

Isarii.2804:

It sounds like you don’t like MMOs. I don’t know why you bought one.

The first GW was very friendly to competitive and casual players. There were no time gates (Until they introduced dailies late into the game’s life) or group gates (Henchmen and later heroes allowed you to flesh out a group if you didn’t have enough people/time to wait for others to show up. They weren’t awesome, people were usually better, but they gave you an option when time was a factor) to stymie you when you wanted to play/get something done. I spent countless hours playing GW1, because it allowed for so many meaningful and diverse ways to play. I didn’t feel like I’d wasted my time or was just getting things out of the way before they reset.

I agree, BUT GW1 was NOT an MMO…

“I only play Jumping Puzzles because they give no rewards…,” stops talking and blinks like Verin Mathwin just remembering where she is.

I think I’m going to agree with the OP on this one. The other day I realized, “Hey, I sort of need some Emypreal Stars for some ascended weapons. I guess I’ll go do dungeons…”

We blazed through Aetherblade stuff, then lost a person. We gained were some AP Gazillion elitest who proceeded to die to just about everything. We kicked them, got a newbie and did fine. The group splits up, I find a new dungeon. They’re doing Path 3 of this or that, but no other. The group does alright, splits up, and there’s another group I’m in. Same thing, path 1, but not the others. …Repeat this store enough times and I’ve spent most of what time I have playing twirling my thumbs waiting for a chance to do all the dungeons today. Why? Empyreal Fragments, of course.

Then I think to myself… “Oh, heck with this. I logged in to play, not be treated to watching text on a badly made group finder.”

I think, “I know. Jumping Puzzles! They’re fun. I’ll go do those.” I blaze through a few of those… and after five maps… I have 17 Empyreal Fragmetns. The breaks in my head began to squeal at that point. “Why am I doing this?” This was the first thought I had. Why does Anet continue to kick us in the teeth every time we try to get anything out of playing? We can’t farm mats, we can’t do dungeons unless you’re in the meta, and you can’t progress unless you do either of the former. Wonderful…

So, ya. It’s about time they work on the open world and solo content a little bit. Bacteria would starve in this desert.

Laurie.1698:

MMORPG
noun
noun: MMORPG; plural noun: MMORPGs

an online role-playing video game in which a very large number of people participate simultaneously.

No where is it stated that its a RGMMORPG (required group massive multiplayer online role playing game) just because someone doesn’t like to group doesn’t mean they don’t want to play this game. Just because someone doesn’t want to play with the simultaneously playing other players doesn’t mean they don’t like the game itself. GW2 has a lot of solo content, and people in the beginning, starting with the Beta stated that was something unique and great with the game.

I see a lot of solo content that is played by massive amount of simultaneous players that are in fact playing solo. Just because large amounts of people can access a game at the same time doesn’t mean they all have to play together. However, if you like grouping you can, if you don’t you don’t have to and this game was once the answer to both. It was even advertised that way, “play your way”. I’ll keep playing, my way, solo. And if there comes a time when I can’t or feel I have no content to do, I’ll stop playing. Simple as that. But the MMORPG argument against solo players has been worn out.

Thank you, I’m glad other people are getting tired of these morons spouting that out of their gobs. I play with other people quite often but I love my solo activities as well and a lot of MMOs support these players with content (Blade and Soul, WoW, GW2, and a few others). When I first saw what an MMO was and could be 20+ years ago the description was “share a world with other players and perhaps help each other out, betray them, or sell and trade items”

I never saw required grouping, still don’t today outside of raids and dungeons. People just love making stuff up it seems to support their social butterfly needs.

Whatever makes them feel good I guess but they’ll always be wrong and in the minority. /shrug

You can’t expect everything to be soloable, I’d wager the majority of players enjoy playing with others so how do you justify that their content should be easier so you can solo it ? How do you justify asking Anet to make 2 or more versions of everything so solo players can do group intended content ?

There is plenty of things you can do solo, it’s getting a bit ridiculous what people are asking for. Next you’re going to be complaining that you can’t solo raid content and how it’s unfair.

Get over it, you are choosing to play solo, accept the consequences that come with that decision. You are the one that is blocking yourself from the rest of the content. It’s not like groups or guilds are hard to come by.

Hot-joinable group content is the only group content I can tolerate.

I wish they would just go ahead and add traditional quests.
They’ve already moved more towards traditional MMO elements, so it’d be nice to see them add one of the few tenets that’s actually enjoyable.

I agree with the OP, one of the things that I loved doing besides vanquishing hard mode zones, was doing hard mode missions in GW1.

There isn’t really anything like that in GW2, the personal story started adding a “hard mode” to them, but it’s nothing like the challenge that hard mode missions in GW1 were.

Here’s to hoping the the personal story and living world can give us some real challenges.

meh, i don’t see the problem…..soloing certain dungeon paths/open world champs (if you can find a lonely open world champ) works if you want challenging solo content……otherwise personal story and living story episodes are there if you want instanced solo content.

the entire open world…instanced story missions….and certain “group content” is totally solo-able. for an MMO, its pretty decent in terms of catering to solo players.

Eirdyne.9843:

“I only play Jumping Puzzles because they give no rewards…,” stops talking and blinks like Verin Mathwin just remembering where she is.

I think I’m going to agree with the OP on this one. The other day I realized, “Hey, I sort of need some Emypreal Stars for some ascended weapons. I guess I’ll go do dungeons…”

We blazed through Aetherblade stuff, then lost a person. We gained were some AP Gazillion elitest who proceeded to die to just about everything. We kicked them, got a newbie and did fine. The group splits up, I find a new dungeon. They’re doing Path 3 of this or that, but no other. The group does alright, splits up, and there’s another group I’m in. Same thing, path 1, but not the others. …Repeat this store enough times and I’ve spent most of what time I have playing twirling my thumbs waiting for a chance to do all the dungeons today. Why? Empyreal Fragments, of course.

Then I think to myself… “Oh, heck with this. I logged in to play, not be treated to watching text on a badly made group finder.”

I think, “I know. Jumping Puzzles! They’re fun. I’ll go do those.” I blaze through a few of those… and after five maps… I have 17 Empyreal Fragmetns. The breaks in my head began to squeal at that point. “Why am I doing this?” This was the first thought I had. Why does Anet continue to kick us in the teeth every time we try to get anything out of playing? We can’t farm mats, we can’t do dungeons unless you’re in the meta, and you can’t progress unless you do either of the former. Wonderful…

So, ya. It’s about time they work on the open world and solo content a little bit. Bacteria would starve in this desert.

Word of advice: Unless I’m having a senior moment at a young age, you can get Empyreal Fragments from EotM chests. Which is pretty efficient if you have a good commander. I don’t know why I’m not seeing it on the Wiki. Wikifail.

I’ve also been getting a few doing SW event runs. Not totally sure where I’m getting them from. Probably from the champ bags.

I think I was doing it the puzzle way in the beginning, until I realized I could do EotM, and then I never looked back.

In GW1, new campaign made the old one solo friendly. I suspect the same is true for GW2. That could be one of the reasons to nerf dungeon gold drop.

xadine.7069:

I agree, BUT GW1 was NOT an MMO…

Yes it was. It was non traditional, but definitely a Massively Multiplayer Online game.

There is a reason MMO player bases are referred to as communities. We are a gathering of individuals. United by a common thread of some sort. In this instance, playing GW2. Think of the real world community you find yourself living in, whether the heart of a massive metropolis or the middle of nowhere or something in between. Your community may span a few houses or may encompass miles. Regardless of the amount of space or number of people in your community you almost certainly don’t want to spend every moment with others in your community. And for the sake of debate, suppose you are the lone exception, wanting to spend every single moment with someone else; do they feel the same way?

I do enjoy some of the group content in this game. Just not all of the time. As a member of this community, I have the right, as you do, to voice my desire for greater solo content, a change of pace, a way to mix things up, and still feel like I am having fun. Of all the words that “MMORPG” represent, to me the most important one the is last one; GAME. Games are meant to be fun. That is what I, the original poster and many others are asking for: Fun.

I have never successfully finished a Triple Trouble Wurm event. I have been involved in several attempts. From full maps to desolate ones. The first time I had no idea what I was doing and didn’t contribute as well as I could have, the others times I was of a singular purpose, contributing well and truly. The results were always the same. Failure. My efforts, best or worst had the same exact outcome. I have to rely on countless others to do well to succeed, and have yet to find success. I’ve been informed that there is/was(?) a guild that ran the event at least once a week, successfully, their time schedule did not mesh up with my own, so I am left without the opportunity to join them.
I’ve defeated pretty much every other world boss in the game and each time, I was just a cog in a machine. One of countless others slinging things at the giant wall of health until it died. Being part of a large group united in purpose and achieving something none could have on their own is great.
Sometimes I want to feel like my efforts matter more.

Soloing maps isn’t really soloing maps, there is always someone roaming out there, even so, you rarely find a rewarding “solo” experience. I have hunted down and fought several different champions in the game “solo”. The usual formula is I engage the champion, by myself, and spend several minutes whittling away on it’s health bar, during this time, several different people usually go by, early on in the fight, people see me fighting and head off, figuring it for a lost cause or more interested in something else they’d rather be doing, who can say?
Sometimes I’ll get an add who wants to help, spends a couple seconds attacking then gets hit hard and downed, I try to revive if a can, this doesn’t always go well, after their defeat or revive, the add usually departs, wanting nothing more to do with the champion. Toward the end of the fight people happening by usually jump in to finish it off.
Some of the champions I’ve faced can take a long time to solo, learning their move set at my scale, figuring out how far I can kite them before they rubber band back and reset the fight (GRRR!), adjusting my tactics, skill bar (Usually after a rubber band) and strategy in order to defeat the champion, adjusting to people adding on and getting downed almost immediately is part of this as well.
There is no kill stealing in GW2 but there is sometimes a lost sense of accomplishment when I have spent so long learning fighting a champion only to have someone show up and help finish off that last 10th of the health bar. I don’t begrudge them the loot bag, I do miss the sense of success at times though.

I can reference GW1 and it’s mapped instances I used to try to vanquish solo. I could talk about polymock (Still waiting for that in GW2!) and the fun change of pace it was. I could remind you of Kilroy Stonekin and his solo drunken boxing dungeon I used to run for kicks. The experiments I used to run with builds in Random PvP arenas. I used to make funny experimental builds(no attack skills, something we can’t do in GW2), go into highly dangerous places and see how long I could survive. Clearing missions solo, NM and HM. Trying to run from one end of Tyria to the other as fast as possible. Relaxing in the Maguuma Jungle after removing all enemies from the map. Loved those waterfalls.
I played the group content, it was nice, all of that other stuff was in the moments between.

We aren’t asking the developers to deprive people of enjoyable group content, to diminish your rewards, or remove what you can do. We do all those things as well! (Except PvP I find it unenjoyable in GW2 )We’re asking for a chance to enjoy this game on our own from time to time. In the moments between. We’re asking for an extension of what we all already enjoy; this game. How can that be wrong?

I’ve been a solo PvE player since early access. I have never experienced a lack of content. In fact, ALL of the content seems to be made specially for me. The lack of content is for anyone how isn’t a solo PvE player.

Ghost Bear.5280:

xadine.7069:

I agree, BUT GW1 was NOT an MMO…

Yes it was. It was non traditional, but definitely a Massively Multiplayer Online game.

No, Guild Wars was an Online game with Minor Multiplayer capability and Massively Multiplayer Graphically Intense Chat Rooms.