One could point out there is a reason that "hand holding, carebear MMOs " have come to dominate the genre. But that is another discussion.
As I have mentioned previously why anyone would want fewer players in Ashes, just because they don't have the same play style as you, is mind boggling to me. We should want Ashes to have as many players as possible. And from every nook of the mmo sphere.
There seems to be this thought that "if solo players are in this game, there will be less for me to do within a group setting." Literally everything we have heard from Intrepid says this is not the case. Everyone will have a role and all of those roles will need to be filled in order for Ashes to become what it is promised to be.
Ashes is being created in a way that raiding and grouping are but one link in the chain of activities or goals that will then come together to create a living world. In order for this world to thrive, all links have to be equally strong and many of those links will be filled and made strong by solo players.
Solo players will in fact enhance the experience that groups have and vice versa.
"I miss the days where you had to group in order to get anywhere or kill
anything. It's about forming connections with others through shared
experiences and hard won battles."
I don't miss those days where you had to party to level in FF11. In 2003, after about lv 12, it became more or less impossible to solo level. You could maybe try until lv 18, but it took you 3-4x more time. But then the aggravations of pugs for leveling were sometimes worse. It didn't feel like fun, it was forced, it was annoying, it was also very elitist after around lv 25, you needed that subclass and that race - just to be picked to level. My best souvenirs of FF11 certainly didn't involve leveling or trains of mobs, or being bored waiting for a 6th member (doing nothing at all while we wait, too) to come only for the party to disband before they come, but not before making us wait 20 minutes. It involved exploring solo and fishing (I would have tried crafting more heavily, but I didn't have the financial means to fund it - a complete loss until endgame of the craft).
Forced connections are resentment or boredom soon forgotten, not fond memories.
This is just a difference of opinion, I personally liked MMOs that emphasized grouping, such as FFXI. I suppose I should clarify the carebear, handholding comment, I meant that I would like to see no group queues and no instant dungeons. I enjoyed finding a party in towns then traveling together to the dungeon entrances. Those "forced connections" , were to me often the beginning of long running friendships. I hear you on the elitism that was in FFXI, I hope the developers of this game can do their best to make almost all classes viable in their specific roles. I'm just of the opinion that playing MMOs with other people is the way they were intended to be played. If you want to solo of course there should be routes to level, but grouping should be emphasized through experience benefits and rewards. I'm on the Ashes train regardless of what systems they plan on implementing, I am just of the opinion that MMOs are best experienced with a group.
Easy enough to play MMORPGs with other players and make friends without ever joining a party. Especially without being "forced" to connect with people.
Everyone agrees that Ashes should have numerous opportunities and challenges available for people who enjoy Grouping. That is not mutually exclusive from having numerous opportunities and challenges available for people who enjoy Soloing.
Bonuses for Grouping should be available to encourage players to Group. I think everyone agrees with that, too.
Crafting and gathering, that should be the solo content. I for one am sick of the hand holding, carebear MMOs that have come to dominate the genre. Its a MMO, if you want to play a game by yourself go play a single player RPG. I miss the days where you had to group in order to get anywhere or kill anything. It's about forming connections with others through shared experiences and hard won battles. This is just my opinion, too much solo content would detract from what I love about the genre, the need to work with others to accomplish mutual goals.
carebear - single player You keep using those words. I do not think they mean what you think they mean.
Its possible cam knows exactly what they mean, and i semi agree.. much of current MMOs is just content that is soloable (with minor skill) or require no coordination from a group randomly put together by a group finder to complete a goal.
Where i disagree slightly is the isolating of the crafting gathering as solo content but i feel it should dive deeper than that. Solo content should range from crafting to story line progression to difficult challenges, the line should be drawn at significant gear acquirable all by yourself (except maybe class respective gear). Challenges and cosmetic rewards are great for solo content as they reward a sense of achievement or items that dont effect gameplay to a significant degree.
My understanding of solo BTW: Is you are alone, no one is helping you either directly/indirectly
if you are running around with a group of people but your not in a party you aren't solo... stop with the semantics about how its worded.
The problem with your definition of Solo is that you there are all kinds of ways to be interacting with other players directly and indirectly in an MMORPG without anyone helping.
Also, in Ashes, people who Solo will still be indirectly helping other players.
So, if we go by your definition, not only is it inherently impossible for people to play MMORPGs like they are single-player games, it is also impossible for people to do anything alone. Because we will always be indirectly helping other players.
Significant gear is subjective. In Ashes, all gear is "the same". There is no PvP gear. There is no raid gear. Everyone should have access to the gear that is appropriate for them to reasonably survive the encounters they experience.
"much of current MMOs is just content that is soloable (with minor
skill) or require no coordination from a group randomly put together by
a group finder to complete a goal. "
Group finder stuff is not solo. When I want to do stuff on my own, I don't want to get a group, even less a PUG. So stuff you call soloable content is not solo at all. When FF14 had me do 4-man dungeons for token gear, it was not "soloable", it often forced me to PUG (small guild, not always enough on when I could run), which is tolerable if the success rate isn't horrible like raid, but I prefer not to (pugs in current raid success rate is near 0, and even if you practice and learn patterns, you're doing it over and over 1000x+ long after you've learned it, cause the others haven't done it 1000x, as pugs are random). I'd do normal dungeons, not raids, with just friends or just guild (because then it's actually fun), at my pace (not weekly tokens I feel forced to run to not miss out). I'll need lots of convincing to run raid, even with guild.
When I do solo, I don't do bosses usually, unless they're trials for my class or something special. I don't intend to get gear from solo combat (maybe recipes). I do intend to get gear from solo crafting. BiS gear, too.
I wouldn't use "solo" or "group" in this discussions as people see those in different way. I would also not generalize.
I'd would for example say specifically, I would like the world mobs to be challenging so a single person can not just kill them without a risk to his own safety.
I'd say I'd like that you are able to kill world mobs alone, but only if you use your skills well, and take your time, and still risk your life while doing that. However the task of killing world mobs should be most comfortable for 2-3 players working together on said task.
So mobs should be killable by single person, but not easy.
This would be only one example of how I see one specific part of the game should be made.
I don't think world mobs should be killable by just 1 lone player no matter how good one's skills are. World mobs should not be alone. Rather they should be part of of their own raid. And players should not be able to defeat a raid alone.
Some mobs should be killable solo... and some mobs should not be. Actually, even some bosses should be killable solo - especially if it's in an instance designed as Solo content. A boss designed for a Solo instance should be possible to kill alone, but only if you use your skills well.
A boss designed to be defeated by a raid should not be killable solo - unless it's way below your current level.
I would overlevel the mobs, simple. That's what I do in offline RPGs when I don't want boss-like fights with the normal fauna (ie to farm).
The devs said there wouldn't be grinding to level, so I'm expecting quests, not camp-style fighting world mobs like FF11, to get experience. If I'm exploring a higher level area, I'd stealth. If farming/harvesting a lower level area, I'd be fine. I have no reason to seek the same level mobs except at cap where I have no choice.
I hope the normal non-elite non-boss same level mobs won't be impossible to solo if you do it right, without trying to exploit stuff like going out of reach on terrain and using long range attacks. Or without being limited to one/two main archetype. Not necessarily in dungeons (because if it's anything like the super chaos proposed in the other thread where its a battle royale with you, the mobs and everyone that enters, I likely won't ever even want to go there).
I just think it would be weird for me to need a 3 people party to secure a harvest point for some ore/wood/herb (in the open world, not a dungeon - some parts of dungeons can be considered pre-dungeon for difficulty, much like the Beastmen nests had soloable areas before the tougher spots with higher lv more numerous patrols, in FF11) because I'm made of paper compared to mobs.
I just think it would be weird for me to need a 3 people party to secure a harvest point for some ore/wood/herb
This should ideally not be a problem in the first place by (1) design where mobs wouldn't be packed in every square meter of the area so you can't pass nowhere without agroing some, and by (2) player classes having some interesting "tactical" CC skills that could be used to distract or disorient mobs, or something similar, so that if you used your skills smartly you could traverse some area without necessarily having to fight mobs.
Again if you are smart about it.
World should be challenging, but it should allow you to use your brain to work around various problems.
Comments
As I have mentioned previously why anyone would want fewer players in Ashes, just because they don't have the same play style as you, is mind boggling to me. We should want Ashes to have as many players as possible. And from every nook of the mmo sphere.
There seems to be this thought that "if solo players are in this game, there will be less for me to do within a group setting." Literally everything we have heard from Intrepid says this is not the case. Everyone will have a role and all of those roles will need to be filled in order for Ashes to become what it is promised to be.
Ashes is being created in a way that raiding and grouping are but one link in the chain of activities or goals that will then come together to create a living world. In order for this world to thrive, all links have to be equally strong and many of those links will be filled and made strong by solo players.
Solo players will in fact enhance the experience that groups have and vice versa.
I don't miss those days where you had to party to level in FF11. In 2003, after about lv 12, it became more or less impossible to solo level. You could maybe try until lv 18, but it took you 3-4x more time. But then the aggravations of pugs for leveling were sometimes worse. It didn't feel like fun, it was forced, it was annoying, it was also very elitist after around lv 25, you needed that subclass and that race - just to be picked to level. My best souvenirs of FF11 certainly didn't involve leveling or trains of mobs, or being bored waiting for a 6th member (doing nothing at all while we wait, too) to come only for the party to disband before they come, but not before making us wait 20 minutes. It involved exploring solo and fishing (I would have tried crafting more heavily, but I didn't have the financial means to fund it - a complete loss until endgame of the craft).
Forced connections are resentment or boredom soon forgotten, not fond memories.
What do you think carebear means??
Easy enough to play MMORPGs with other players and make friends without ever joining a party. Especially without being "forced" to connect with people.
Everyone agrees that Ashes should have numerous opportunities and challenges available for people who enjoy Grouping.
That is not mutually exclusive from having numerous opportunities and challenges available for people who enjoy Soloing.
Bonuses for Grouping should be available to encourage players to Group.
I think everyone agrees with that, too.
Where i disagree slightly is the isolating of the crafting gathering as solo content but i feel it should dive deeper than that. Solo content should range from crafting to story line progression to difficult challenges, the line should be drawn at significant gear acquirable all by yourself (except maybe class respective gear). Challenges and cosmetic rewards are great for solo content as they reward a sense of achievement or items that dont effect gameplay to a significant degree.
My understanding of solo BTW: Is you are alone, no one is helping you either directly/indirectly
if you are running around with a group of people but your not in a party you aren't solo... stop with the semantics about how its worded.
Also, in Ashes, people who Solo will still be indirectly helping other players.
So, if we go by your definition, not only is it inherently impossible for people to play MMORPGs like they are single-player games, it is also impossible for people to do anything alone. Because we will always be indirectly helping other players.
Significant gear is subjective.
In Ashes, all gear is "the same".
There is no PvP gear. There is no raid gear.
Everyone should have access to the gear that is appropriate for them to reasonably survive the encounters they experience.
Group finder stuff is not solo. When I want to do stuff on my own, I don't want to get a group, even less a PUG. So stuff you call soloable content is not solo at all. When FF14 had me do 4-man dungeons for token gear, it was not "soloable", it often forced me to PUG (small guild, not always enough on when I could run), which is tolerable if the success rate isn't horrible like raid, but I prefer not to (pugs in current raid success rate is near 0, and even if you practice and learn patterns, you're doing it over and over 1000x+ long after you've learned it, cause the others haven't done it 1000x, as pugs are random). I'd do normal dungeons, not raids, with just friends or just guild (because then it's actually fun), at my pace (not weekly tokens I feel forced to run to not miss out). I'll need lots of convincing to run raid, even with guild.
When I do solo, I don't do bosses usually, unless they're trials for my class or something special. I don't intend to get gear from solo combat (maybe recipes). I do intend to get gear from solo crafting. BiS gear, too.
I'd would for example say specifically, I would like the world mobs to be challenging so a single person can not just kill them without a risk to his own safety.
I'd say I'd like that you are able to kill world mobs alone, but only if you use your skills well, and take your time, and still risk your life while doing that. However the task of killing world mobs should be most comfortable for 2-3 players working together on said task.
So mobs should be killable by single person, but not easy.
This would be only one example of how I see one specific part of the game should be made.
World mobs should not be alone. Rather they should be part of of their own raid.
And players should not be able to defeat a raid alone.
Some mobs should be killable solo... and some mobs should not be.
Actually, even some bosses should be killable solo - especially if it's in an instance designed as Solo content. A boss designed for a Solo instance should be possible to kill alone, but only if you use your skills well.
A boss designed to be defeated by a raid should not be killable solo - unless it's way below your current level.
The devs said there wouldn't be grinding to level, so I'm expecting quests, not camp-style fighting world mobs like FF11, to get experience. If I'm exploring a higher level area, I'd stealth. If farming/harvesting a lower level area, I'd be fine. I have no reason to seek the same level mobs except at cap where I have no choice.
I hope the normal non-elite non-boss same level mobs won't be impossible to solo if you do it right, without trying to exploit stuff like going out of reach on terrain and using long range attacks. Or without being limited to one/two main archetype. Not necessarily in dungeons (because if it's anything like the super chaos proposed in the other thread where its a battle royale with you, the mobs and everyone that enters, I likely won't ever even want to go there).
I just think it would be weird for me to need a 3 people party to secure a harvest point for some ore/wood/herb (in the open world, not a dungeon - some parts of dungeons can be considered pre-dungeon for difficulty, much like the Beastmen nests had soloable areas before the tougher spots with higher lv more numerous patrols, in FF11) because I'm made of paper compared to mobs.
This should ideally not be a problem in the first place by (1) design where mobs wouldn't be packed in every square meter of the area so you can't pass nowhere without agroing some, and by (2) player classes having some interesting "tactical" CC skills that could be used to distract or disorient mobs, or something similar, so that if you used your skills smartly you could traverse some area without necessarily having to fight mobs.
Again if you are smart about it.
World should be challenging, but it should allow you to use your brain to work around various problems.