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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Solo play
Menda Goodbody
Member, Braver of Worlds, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
If you don't have great solo options in AoC, this game will fail. I have played a ton of MMO's over the last 28 years. The ones that fail in less than a year make EVERYTHING hard to kill. I want to be challenged, but I also want to be able to solo the open world, generally speaking.
I know there needs to be group content, like dungeons and world monsters, plus all the pvp stuff. However, when I login to AoC, I want the OPTION to group with others if I want. I don't want to be stuck grouping all the time to finish simple daily quests.
I was in Alpha 1. There were many quests I could do by myself, but the last step of theses quest were basically impossible to finish without a group. [I know alpha 1 is not balanced in any way and is not a finished product. (duh!)
]
All I am saying is make the game challenging. Just make sure the option to solo is a viable choice or this game will crash and burn. I have seen this model over and over. It is not good.
I know there needs to be group content, like dungeons and world monsters, plus all the pvp stuff. However, when I login to AoC, I want the OPTION to group with others if I want. I don't want to be stuck grouping all the time to finish simple daily quests.
I was in Alpha 1. There were many quests I could do by myself, but the last step of theses quest were basically impossible to finish without a group. [I know alpha 1 is not balanced in any way and is not a finished product. (duh!)
]All I am saying is make the game challenging. Just make sure the option to solo is a viable choice or this game will crash and burn. I have seen this model over and over. It is not good.
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Comments
Also, If you are seeing this in Alpha 1 why would you think they would deviate from this? I am sure they will build upon this so this and all the info from every other angle really drives that home. Seems like a galaxybrain move to put group questing and content you are referring to in Alpha 1 only be like "SIKE, this is BDO".
No. Solo and challenging are opposite in mmos. If you can complete a "challenge" alone, then a group can breeze through it.
That means the game is shallow.
If you can reach the same destination (goal) by the solo avenue, as well as the group avenue, then you dont need groups, you dont have a social game.
Not gonna happen.
Alternately, you can also implement scaling to make it so that enemies and challenges work based on the number of players that are involved in the event or instance. Lots of games have been doing that extremely successfully in the past decade. Final Fantasy 14 even released a specific style of dungeon to cater to variable sized player groups, all the way down to one player, in their latest patch, which is still fun and interesting in a group due to scaling.
This though, this is largely correct. Given the option, most players won't pull together a party to do something; they'll throw their head against the brickk wall until either it breaks or they do. Unfortunate reality of the relatively antisocial nature of most gamers, given we generally start playing escapist media because we're not outgoing people or have trouble talking to others. Intrepid wants Ashes to be a social experience, and that means social experiences need to happen; forcing us to talk to others due to game systems requiring us to talk to others is a core part of the AoC experience.
Just because we CAN get away with solo content doesn't mean the game should be awash in it. By all means, we should have some solo activities here and there, maybe some fun stuff like the fight clubs WoW and Guild Wars 2 have as events, but soloing the dungeons and raids is not something Ashes should cater to.
I agree with the solo class Q challenge example. See, it's not an option, as the OP wants. This way it's a requirement for progress.
But Im responding to the overall direction of this thread.
Solo may be a part of the game. But it shouldnt be an "option" to play the game.
I hear we get ice cream when we reach 1,000 of these. 🍦
Yeah, and I'm just responding to the specific post. We both seem to be on the same page.
I am pro instance, challenging class quest. It's a great chance for story mode, immersion and investment in your class. Instanced will make it better, as opposed to clowns runming around.
It doesnt affect the mmo gameplay.
Hell, I even suggested a system where solo players could do that kind of dungeon and their reward would be items that other players donated, so that there wouldn't be any stuff that "came out of thin air", while there'd still be hardcore solo content.
But in the context of OP's comment, anything hardcore would probably get partied, unless you went the way of L2's Parnassus where if you had a party of over 3 people (might've even been 2+, I forget) - you'd get additional mob spawns that didn't have any loot and were there only to prevent the solo content from being farmed by parties. And imo that's still a shitty design because that approach didn't solve the issue, it just made it a chore for those parties.
Solo players will be able to play the game too. Just don't go into the deep ocean
By solo player I mean players who do not want to be part of a guild but can team up with random players for a while, to do dungeons or defend objectives.
If you really do not want to team up at all with anyone, then your options will be limited to buying and selling stuff on the market and producing goods.
When you say "fail" you must define what does it mean.
If may fail to attract many players or to reach it's intended number of subscribers.
Or may not bring much profit if it brings at all.
I sympathize with your concern. The game should not fail. Seems to head the right direction though.
Solo just means you are not in a party.
Solo does not mean you never encounter another player.
It is possible to PvP while soloing.
It is possible to participate in Caravan and Siege PvP while not in a party.
Too many gamers equate solo play with "non-social" "single-player" gameplay - as if solo play means never interacting with other players.
Many solo players are extremely social in-game. They just rarely formally join a party or formally join a raid.
Steven has said in the past that Ashes has plenty of solo content:
"From a content path standpoint, there is content that is being developed for both group play and raid play and also solo play. But, ultimately at the end of the day, you have to recognize that we're building an MMO RPG. Which is a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game. There are plenty of single-player RPGs out there. And I don't want to discourage more solo-oriented players from playing Ashes of Creation - I think that they're going to have a great time and there will be a lot of content for them to explore kind of single-handedly - but, at some point, you have to understand the game is designed around massive amounts of players. Which means you're going to have to interact, either on an economic level
with procuring assets for your profession or Crafting, if you're interested in that, you're going to have to purchase things from players, and get housing and Craft in that way, there's going to be group monsters you're going to want to complete based off of questlines, there's going to be raids you're probably going to want to participate in. And because we're a non-faction-based game, we're incorporating many, what we call pseudo-factions, that get you involved, in some way, shape or form, with a community. It doesn't have to be a community that you're super-strongly bonded with per se - we can leave that up to player-agency to determine - but, you're going to have a Node Citizen chat, you're going to have an Organization Scholar's Academy chat, depending on which one you choose, you're going to have a Religion Temple chat.
These are micro-communities within the grand community that exist that give you an opportunity to form friendships, bonds, whatever you want to do and you can work with some of those people to complete group and/or non-solo content.
But, in the same way that we're providing solo content for solo players, we are an MMORPG and there's going to need to be some interaction with a community in order to achieve some of the content."
---Steven
"For those solo players who don't really care about finding a community to play with but they want to have one when they need it, there's going to be a lot of opportunities from a dialogue perspective, in-game chat options; you can join as part of citizenships: there's a lot of pseudo factions there- social organizations that give you an in to other players without the strong bonds that typically come with guild-oriented organizations; and I think that that's a comfortable medium between the two."
---Steven
Based on what Steven has said in the past, solo players will have stuff to do.
You can play solo and contribute to the progression of a Node, but you still need other players contributing to that progression. You cannot elect a Mayor of a Node without other players. You cannot win a Siege without other players.
But, you also don't have to join a party to participate in a Siege.
NPC/Mob encounters are generally balanced for a group of 8 players with one of each Primary Archetype.
That group could include players who have not mechanically joined a party.
But, loot distribution might not be favorable for players outside of the party.
I don't think Ashes has "daily quests", per se.
But, players will probably be able to find tasks they can solo in a short session each day. Especially via Religions and/or Social Orgs.
or we could not have daily quests, that way you wouldn't even need to solo them
Also, when it comes to balancing open world solo/group play, I'd take a look at GW2. If anything, open world is what it is good at.
I prefer this. But i also realise that there are people that want what AoC is making. And they should also have their game. Plus this is Steven's vision. He has said it won't be a game for everyone