Is there a problem for solo players
AirborneBerserker
Member
Where to begin...ah, yes.
First, we need to look at the psychological effect of being happy or just plain having fun while doing something difficult. There is a direct relationship between how much fun a person is having and how likely they will complete a task. That means the happier people are the more likely they are to finish a task, no matter how distasteful. This means that of all the things that are important having fun is the most important.
Now, let's talk about systems. Systems are important, but some systems are more important then others. For example my circulatory system has a higher priority then the electrical system in my house. We are going to take that same concept and apply it to the game.
Okay, So there are systems in the game one of them is the most important system. That system is the class system, this is because of all the systems in the game this one system is the medium by which all interactions occur between the player and the game. So we want the classes to create the most fun/happiness/enjoyment/satisfaction/all the good emotions.
Let's see...Ah, I don't think I am going out on a limb saying that the AoC community wants this game to be difficult. I agree, It helps with...it helps create a sense of...pride and accomplishment. There is no joy in dunking on kindergarteners, however there is a certain satisfaction when they're assholes.
What conclusions can we draw without even knowing anything specific about the game? Given we want the game to be very difficult, having fun is important, and the Class system is the most interacted with by players. We can then conclude that the best thing to do is make sure the Classes are 100% satisfying or as close to that as humanly possible, and do this as early as possible.
Now what conclusions can we draw from the previous conclusion? Any aspect of the class system that either delays, or removes ANY satisfaction, fun, excitement, role, playstyle or any other positive emotion is a poor design decision choice due to needing as much happiness due to the projected difficulty of the game. Now this does not mean that doing something like that is necessarily wrong, unless we establish that all the other systems are creating pressure , then it would be a huge mistake. Now we look at how people interact and the systems surrounding them. (think of pressure as a obstacle, some avoidable, some unavoidable, and some you choose which is more of an accepted challenge then an obstacle)
So, let's start with the guild system, this obviously relives pressure from players. There's no doubt about that. Not every player, solo and casual players wont receive any benefits from guild perks. On top of that some of the pressure shifts rather then disappearing, the pressure comes from other players, falls squarely on solo and casual players.
"Oh, nay, nay" I hear you say, hold your horses. It mostly comes from the always on PvP, this in and of itself isn't a problem, however when you kill people in the open world they drop stuff, and if they're corrupted they drop gear. Now, we need to do a thought experiment. I want you to imagine you're playing AoC and come to a clearing, there's one person in a guild, a Group of four, and one person not in a guild, you have to kill one, who do you choose? I'm going to assume everyone was intellectually honest and picked the one person not in a guild because it is the lowest risk thing, this is because of a psychological human trait called risk aversion which people have. If your saying "I need more information what level are they blah blah blah", that's called dodging the question, but please post that so I know you aren't intellectually honest.
(I'm breaking here because this is going to be a theme moving forward, almost every system in this game either does nothing, adds pressure, or shifts pressure onto solo and casual players, while doing the opposite for Guilds, and if you think that isn't a problem, Solo and casual players account for 50-70% of MMO players.)
Yes, guilds do create pressure for people in the guild, but that is chosen. Plus if you don't like that pressure it is /gquit <--that far away from not being your problem. You can go and join a different guild, maybe a more ambitious one, maybe less ambitious, up to you. There is no option for solo and (most) casual players for that.
What about professions, surely those don't add any pressure. Remember when I said you drop stuff? Well materials and gatherables are both dropped. Okay, but how much? 20-30% so if a person had farmed for an hour you would get between 15-20 mins worth of framing mats for 10 seconds(?) of combat. So yes, especially when you realize that the thought experiment factors into this, people are more likely to target a person they think will have little to no recourse. So even more pressure for solo and casual players.
"No, no, no" I can hear you saying, but yes because professions add another reason why you would want to kill a person that you would otherwise leave alone. They have incentivized hunting other players, and solo and casual players will be the first on the list. This gets worse the higher level you are given the crafting materials will get rarer.
What conclusions can we draw from what we know now? Well, we know people drop things and we know solo players will be targeted more often then not, but what about other mitigating factors like level. Let's start at the beginning move forward, everyone will be level 1, everyone will start with the same knowledge base(for the most part), and there will be not many grievances to consider. Groups get between a 30 and 40% experience boost while grouped based on the number of people in the group (the experience of the killed mob is divided between group members and then multiplied). This means that people that group will level faster, and the people who can group more easily more often will level even faster. Which just so happens to be one of the benefits of being in a guild.
The corruption system has many parts, we are interested in the interaction between groups and solo players, and the removal of corruption. Yes, there are other parts and while they do have some interesting interactions there aren't any that really peak my interest. Especially when we are talking creating pressure and who is affected by that pressure.
Solo and group interactions is first. Namely the fact that a group of people can still grief solo players but the other way around is not possible. This is strait forward and simple all they need to do is swap out people that kill the solo player, if the solo player fights back no corruption is gained and everyone can help if they don't they die and get a debuff making them weaker. Why can they do this? Because they're grouped up and as a result gain more levels which means they are all a higher level, to add to that they almost certainly have higher quality gear due to having access to more forms of content.
Corruption removal can occur in one of two ways either you die, or you grind experience until it falls off. As I understand it griding experience slowly removes the debuff over time. Wait. didn't we just talk about groups getting more experience, so grouping not only gets you more experience, it helps you get rid of corruption faster, ensures you're safer against ganks, and opens up other forms of content.
That brings me to the ownership system.
As we can see the ownership system is not non-existent, rather it is based on the ever popular ancient Greek idea of "the strong do what they can, the weak endure what they must". Just so we're clear ownership whether sanctioned or not, is based on one groups ability to prevent other groups from accessing the thing being possessed. And what is the smallest group? That's right one, so solo players get it again a lot more pressure here given this applies to the entire world even the "solo focused areas", and high level crafting materials which you need to have even decent gear.
In the economic system were going to focus on two things item degradation and auction houses. Yes, there lots of other parts to the system but they are all bog standard things that you would expect for an MMO made in 2024, and have no real impact on the game as a whole beyond exactly what you would expect.
Auction houses are not global. They can be linked but this only helps a little and as I understand it only 3 can be linked at most. this by no means is a huge deal, but it does mean solo players are either forced to pay more or run to a wholly different part of the world to pay less money. And people will do this. Because players will optimize the fun out of games. Guilds on the other hand can send groups of 4 or 8 to pick up what is needed for the guild massively reducing the amount of time they need to travel for this kind of thing and being much safer in the process.
Item degradation in most games saddle you with a simple repair bill which allows you to just press a button, pay gold and be done. It's a gold sink in every sense of the word. Ashes of Creation is instead a materials sink you need to have some of the materials so that you can actually repair the item when it gets damaged. The two ways you incur a repair cost is by either over enchanting an item destroying it, or dying, either from PvE or PvP(with exceptions). This means that you can have top of the line gear. Why can't you repair them well there's a guild farming the nodes where you would get the materials and they horde them for themselves and only trickle a little out at a time to keep them hyper expensive. Why are they hording them? Because they have to since there is no way for them to know when they will get another chance to farm them again, because
Player housing. The thing about player housing is it's stupid. If I wanted to play the sims I would play the sims. It takes up a massive amount of development time and effort, and should never be part of a game, but the game itself. That being said the community seems to be overjoyed that it's happening and it benefits everyone fairly equally so no pressure.
Opt-in objective-based battlegrounds better known as sanctioned PvP events. These are open world battle grounds which include sieges, caravans, guild wars and naval PvP and are guaranteed to be totally balanced in every way and never be totally one sided with sixty people attacking a caravan being guarded by twenty people, and if you didn't pick up on the sarcasm you should get out more. This system as it stands is bad for everyone, It favors uber guilds more then others, but it ultimately guarantees you will almost never have any kind of fifteen versus fifteen balanced team conflict and will likely only ever have waves of people washing over a much smaller group. But let's tackle this in detail.
Naval combat seems fine. The big problem is the lack of set transportation, but as far as I can tell that should be easy to implement and test, so while technically solo players could be prevented from traveling from one continent to the other the fix will be so quick and easy I'm not really worried about it.
Caravans!!! Everyone's favorite system, unfortunately can't be used by solo players at all, even if you're a particularly high functioning adult and think you can wait till 3 am and then send the caravan since caravan events are a thing which prevent you from doing even that, but as far as I can tell it does not directly incentivize people to kill solo players people so that's good. While technically it could benefit solo players it would require you to hang out in the area where the caravans spawn like some jaded wife waiting for lifetime alimony, then shadow it in the hopes that some other larger group shows up. Even then that doesn't guarantee any spoils, or that they wont kill you right after. Uber guilds that can take advantage of the system get a huge pressure release because they can multiply any of their earnings by 5 ensuring their entire guild is stupid rich all the time, and anything they need they can just buy.
Castle and Node sieges are a thing. I don't see a problem with Castle sieges, if toddlers want to spend 3 hours fighting over a sand castle that's their prerogative. Node sieges on the other hand are another story. Mainly because they upend everything anyone was trying to do and force you to deal with that, or leave, rather then do what you want. So your choices are forced content, which solo players are likely to lose, or move to a new area, and learn that area from scratch. This is another system that favors guilds, the bigger they are the better off they are again. This is probably the biggest slap in the face you can do to people. This does not make me feel like a player in a game, it makes me feel like I'm content for someone else's game. And while you can do that in a game you never want it to feel like that is what's happening, and no matter what you do, how fun and engaging you make these systems to participate in you will ultimately still be in a situation where you are the monkey being forced to dance for other peoples entertainment.
Node sieges are not opt in. You have two choices "Flee or Die"(IYKYK), there is no opt out. I know I'm going to get push back on this, but for something to be opt in you need to be able to opt out. Fleeing is not opting out because you never asked to be in the situation in the first place. Your are being forced to choose not being asked if you would like a choice. The other tack some might take is the by entering the game you are opting in, and okay fair enough nodes are ubiquitous so maybe that is a valid argument. Let's list the other sanctioned "battlegrounds" them Guild Wars, Castle Sieges, Naval PvP, Caravans, and Node Wars. The first 4 of those are actually opt in, arguably doubly so, first opt in to the guild system, then opt into the content. Node Wars is a pseudo-opt in system. You technically opt in because you vote for a mayor, problem is people can lie, (insert suitably insulting comment about politicians here). So while there are some that might say that people can opt in, I cannot agree with that. Node Sieges are even further from opt in because there is no way to avoid them unless you bypass the citizenship process all together, and even if you do, you still face the consequences of some one sieging the node you call home.
But what about peoples first interaction with the Node Siege system? Why don't we look at what the first experience of a node siege will be like, and tackle losing a node siege after. The first thing we need to know is when will the first sieges start to occur. How do we figure out that? well we have a number 200 to 300 hours to maximum level. At 28 to 42 hours per week that's 4.5 to 11 weeks as per the wiki. So what level can sieges be initiated? Well we know that 21 days after a node advances to a new stage, a siege can't be declared, and we also know village is the first stage that can be sieged. We know it will take a few days which usually means 3 or more, and many tends to mean 5 to 8 on the lower scale, which means on average it should take 3-4 days to get a node from Wilderness stage to the Village stage. There will be nothing average about the launch of the game so you will probably see Villages on launch day this means that the very first sieges CAN occur on day 22. Okay so we have a minimum point at which to start. Now when will people start doing node sieges, probably around max level given it is end game content.
(If you're wondering why were doing this, it's because the initial experience determines your baseline emotional state while participating in that experience. In other words how likely people will be in a negative emotional state when they engage with the second most important system in the game and constitutes a major source of content, and can't be avoided.)
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/HOURS-PER-WEEK-SPENT-ON-GAMING-BY-MMORPG-PLAYERS-AND-NON-MMORPG-PLAYERS-IN-PERCENTAGE_tbl1_7802995#:~:text=When asked how many hours,, as expected. ...
Leveling rates according to above numbers:
18 to 27 weeks @ 10 hours per week
9 to 14 weeks @ 20 hours per week
6 to 9 weeks @ 30 hours per week
5 to 7 weeks @ 40 hours per week
I'm not going to show the math you have the numbers I'm using, you can do it yourself. So we know around 3 weeks after the launch of the game people can start launching sieges. and at about 9 weeks about 45% of the population will be max level. now we need to factor in the experience bonus groups get and the fact that being in a guild means that, on average, you will get in a group faster, be able to group for longer, have access to more content, have increased efficiency, and access to more information. There is no real way to accurately predict that right now due to all the variables. So we will only take the 30% increase and leave it at that even though the rate will probably be higher.
Solo players leveling rates:
18 to 27 weeks @ 10 hours per week
9 to 14 weeks @ 20 hours per week
6 to 9 weeks @ 30 hours per week
5 to 7 weeks @ 40 hours per week
Guild Players leveling rates:
12 to 18 weeks @ 10 hours per week
6 to 9 weeks @ 20 hours per week
4 to 6 weeks @ 30 hours per week
3 to 5 weeks @ 40 hours per week
Node Wars are basically the same as Node sieges no recourse for the node having war declared on them, but there are some interesting points that we definitely need to cover. First you know how people say this game is a gank box? This system is why people say that. It effectively turns off the corruption system, and lets anyone from the declaring node kill anyone from the declared with out restriction, and vice versa. So if you want to kill the same person 30 times in a row. Your allowed to do that. If you want to camp the spawn points so people can't even play the game and simply die the moment they respawn, you can do that. There are no limits except maybe only 1 Node War at a time, but they haven't even said that, or given a time limit for that matter.
Now we apply a principle we applied at the very beginning and were going to do so with another thought experiment. Your a guild leader and you have 3 neighboring nodes to attack, one has another guild about the same size as yours plus a number of other citizens, one has a dad guild with about 50 people and another 50 solo players, another has 100 solo players and no guild to speak of. Which do you choose to attack. Now I am again relying on the honor system again, but I believe in you guys, you can do it. Did you pick 100 solo players? I know I would it's a much softer target, guilds will literally have no experience (or very little) sieging nodes, and a quick easy win will give them some confidence. Now that we have all the information there's only one thing left to do.
Time to put it all together. First they will come in groups of 4 and they will focus on killing solo players, this has 3 advantages. It lets them test how resilient the people of the node are, lowers the node-to-node reputation so they can declare war, and makes getting a count on the number of people doing it very very difficult. Then they will declare war on the node. People will flood in from the other node and start killing people, it will be indiscriminate, and they will start to corral people as much as they can, if they can camp spawn points they will. This is because the kind of person that will do this will understand that war is not about killing the other person its about breaking their morale. And even if they don't understand that, they still might be thinking 50 people that leave the node to not deal with this, is 50 less people in the siege. That will last a couple days at most(again no time limit). Then the siege will begin, and for lack of a better word it will be pathetic. It will be very short, and very brutal. And when people realize they couldn't last 10 minutes in what should have been an hour long event, some will quit the game, but others will start to ask questions. And when they get the answers to those questions they will realize they were never meant to win, the game itself was designed to make sure they lost. The same way some one would kill a random mob in the open world.
So you lost a node siege what's the big deal?
Now I realize that some people are going to give me push back on this. If you plan on saying I made an assumption about X you should probably assume I didn't assume and just cut out two paragraphs of this already horrifically long post. And if you come to the conclusion I did just assume something assume I went with either the average or the best possible outcome. depending oh which was more favorable to the game. So, yes I assumed the max number of people on the server and I did that because it's literally the best case scenario. Now for the people who are going to try and say, "I'm not that mean" or "people aren't going to act like that" I first need to thank you my internet interlocuter for allowing me to quote one of my favorite songs, and respond with this:
"Credulous at best, your desire to believe in
Angels in the hearts of men
Pull your head on out your hippy haze and give a listen
Shouldn't have to say it all again
The universe is hostile, so impersonal
Devour to survive, so it is, so it's always been"
-Tool, Vicarious
What this basically means is don't fucking assume people will be nice just because you are. Assholes exist, they will play this game, they will grief people, they will be merciless, because this is a war simulator, and that's how war gets. Not to mention all the incentives the game has given players to do these things, and since you're more vulnerable while you are attacking someone else because your resources are being spent elsewhere you want to end the war as quickly as possible. This will take 5% of the population and increase it to either 60% or whatever the maximum percentage can do it which ever is less.
The class system this is the final system and I thought this would be where I point out all the problems I have above and make my case for why having as much choice at the start of the game would be the most important. That is no longer the case. I now think that no matter how good they make the class system it still wont prevent 50-70% of people that start playing this game to drop it in the first 6 months. So here is the order I will cover this in, abilities, role diversity then some counter points.
Now according to some people we are going to get 64 unique classes and simply have to pick them, or build them, as time dictates. Why not just make 14 base classes, they apparently already exist and could be slotted in and be done. make 2 or 3 subclasses that are mostly aesthetic with some noticeable differences for each class, and then slot in the rest when time permits. And if you think class identity is important there should be concern with the fact that the base classes only have 35-40 abilities which means best case scenario you're looking at somewhat samey combat with other subclasses.
End game systems for Solo players. There are none. There aren't even plans for them.
There are other problems but I've already been working on this too long.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Solo_players
The final conclusion, this game heavily favors guilds in what I can only describe as the most blatant bias and total disregard I have ever seen in an MMO. There is not a single system that works in favor of solo/single/casual players. In fact any system that is meant to punish people punishes solo players more. Systems that solo players could take advantage of have road blocks put in to prevent them from using them ala the caravan system. Other systems which have inherent advantages in the game are given further advantages like giving groups an experience bonus. The end game systems are geared purely towards guilds and groups giving them many ways to meaningfully interact with the end game. solo players have no way to meaningfully interact with the end game, and there are no plans to create anything for solo players. The fact that design pillars are routinely broken in favor of guilds is symptomatic of the entire game. The worst part is if they do add something at the end game for solo players it will undoubtedly be flooded with people in guilds with the best gear meaning it will end up being a shit show for solo players who are permanently going to be locked out of getting the best gear because they wont be able to access the materials due to guilds hording as much as they can while they can, and dungeons which they will never be able to do. New players after the game launches will be mostly solo players, and they will have to contend with fully geared highly experienced players when they hit max level. They will have to do this with almost no experience because there is no way for them to learn about PvP except by doing open world PvP.
This will ultimately end up being some mutated version of the Stanford prison experiment where the prisoners pay for the privilege, but can leave at any time, and the guards aren't allowed full power directly, but can still achieve total power through work arounds and in built systems.
First, we need to look at the psychological effect of being happy or just plain having fun while doing something difficult. There is a direct relationship between how much fun a person is having and how likely they will complete a task. That means the happier people are the more likely they are to finish a task, no matter how distasteful. This means that of all the things that are important having fun is the most important.
Now, let's talk about systems. Systems are important, but some systems are more important then others. For example my circulatory system has a higher priority then the electrical system in my house. We are going to take that same concept and apply it to the game.
Okay, So there are systems in the game one of them is the most important system. That system is the class system, this is because of all the systems in the game this one system is the medium by which all interactions occur between the player and the game. So we want the classes to create the most fun/happiness/enjoyment/satisfaction/all the good emotions.
Let's see...Ah, I don't think I am going out on a limb saying that the AoC community wants this game to be difficult. I agree, It helps with...it helps create a sense of...pride and accomplishment. There is no joy in dunking on kindergarteners, however there is a certain satisfaction when they're assholes.
What conclusions can we draw without even knowing anything specific about the game? Given we want the game to be very difficult, having fun is important, and the Class system is the most interacted with by players. We can then conclude that the best thing to do is make sure the Classes are 100% satisfying or as close to that as humanly possible, and do this as early as possible.
Now what conclusions can we draw from the previous conclusion? Any aspect of the class system that either delays, or removes ANY satisfaction, fun, excitement, role, playstyle or any other positive emotion is a poor design decision choice due to needing as much happiness due to the projected difficulty of the game. Now this does not mean that doing something like that is necessarily wrong, unless we establish that all the other systems are creating pressure , then it would be a huge mistake. Now we look at how people interact and the systems surrounding them. (think of pressure as a obstacle, some avoidable, some unavoidable, and some you choose which is more of an accepted challenge then an obstacle)
So, let's start with the guild system, this obviously relives pressure from players. There's no doubt about that. Not every player, solo and casual players wont receive any benefits from guild perks. On top of that some of the pressure shifts rather then disappearing, the pressure comes from other players, falls squarely on solo and casual players.
"Oh, nay, nay" I hear you say, hold your horses. It mostly comes from the always on PvP, this in and of itself isn't a problem, however when you kill people in the open world they drop stuff, and if they're corrupted they drop gear. Now, we need to do a thought experiment. I want you to imagine you're playing AoC and come to a clearing, there's one person in a guild, a Group of four, and one person not in a guild, you have to kill one, who do you choose? I'm going to assume everyone was intellectually honest and picked the one person not in a guild because it is the lowest risk thing, this is because of a psychological human trait called risk aversion which people have. If your saying "I need more information what level are they blah blah blah", that's called dodging the question, but please post that so I know you aren't intellectually honest.
(I'm breaking here because this is going to be a theme moving forward, almost every system in this game either does nothing, adds pressure, or shifts pressure onto solo and casual players, while doing the opposite for Guilds, and if you think that isn't a problem, Solo and casual players account for 50-70% of MMO players.)
Yes, guilds do create pressure for people in the guild, but that is chosen. Plus if you don't like that pressure it is /gquit <--that far away from not being your problem. You can go and join a different guild, maybe a more ambitious one, maybe less ambitious, up to you. There is no option for solo and (most) casual players for that.
What about professions, surely those don't add any pressure. Remember when I said you drop stuff? Well materials and gatherables are both dropped. Okay, but how much? 20-30% so if a person had farmed for an hour you would get between 15-20 mins worth of framing mats for 10 seconds(?) of combat. So yes, especially when you realize that the thought experiment factors into this, people are more likely to target a person they think will have little to no recourse. So even more pressure for solo and casual players.
"No, no, no" I can hear you saying, but yes because professions add another reason why you would want to kill a person that you would otherwise leave alone. They have incentivized hunting other players, and solo and casual players will be the first on the list. This gets worse the higher level you are given the crafting materials will get rarer.
What conclusions can we draw from what we know now? Well, we know people drop things and we know solo players will be targeted more often then not, but what about other mitigating factors like level. Let's start at the beginning move forward, everyone will be level 1, everyone will start with the same knowledge base(for the most part), and there will be not many grievances to consider. Groups get between a 30 and 40% experience boost while grouped based on the number of people in the group (the experience of the killed mob is divided between group members and then multiplied). This means that people that group will level faster, and the people who can group more easily more often will level even faster. Which just so happens to be one of the benefits of being in a guild.
The corruption system has many parts, we are interested in the interaction between groups and solo players, and the removal of corruption. Yes, there are other parts and while they do have some interesting interactions there aren't any that really peak my interest. Especially when we are talking creating pressure and who is affected by that pressure.
Solo and group interactions is first. Namely the fact that a group of people can still grief solo players but the other way around is not possible. This is strait forward and simple all they need to do is swap out people that kill the solo player, if the solo player fights back no corruption is gained and everyone can help if they don't they die and get a debuff making them weaker. Why can they do this? Because they're grouped up and as a result gain more levels which means they are all a higher level, to add to that they almost certainly have higher quality gear due to having access to more forms of content.
Corruption removal can occur in one of two ways either you die, or you grind experience until it falls off. As I understand it griding experience slowly removes the debuff over time. Wait. didn't we just talk about groups getting more experience, so grouping not only gets you more experience, it helps you get rid of corruption faster, ensures you're safer against ganks, and opens up other forms of content.
That brings me to the ownership system.
As we can see the ownership system is not non-existent, rather it is based on the ever popular ancient Greek idea of "the strong do what they can, the weak endure what they must". Just so we're clear ownership whether sanctioned or not, is based on one groups ability to prevent other groups from accessing the thing being possessed. And what is the smallest group? That's right one, so solo players get it again a lot more pressure here given this applies to the entire world even the "solo focused areas", and high level crafting materials which you need to have even decent gear.
In the economic system were going to focus on two things item degradation and auction houses. Yes, there lots of other parts to the system but they are all bog standard things that you would expect for an MMO made in 2024, and have no real impact on the game as a whole beyond exactly what you would expect.
Auction houses are not global. They can be linked but this only helps a little and as I understand it only 3 can be linked at most. this by no means is a huge deal, but it does mean solo players are either forced to pay more or run to a wholly different part of the world to pay less money. And people will do this. Because players will optimize the fun out of games. Guilds on the other hand can send groups of 4 or 8 to pick up what is needed for the guild massively reducing the amount of time they need to travel for this kind of thing and being much safer in the process.
Item degradation in most games saddle you with a simple repair bill which allows you to just press a button, pay gold and be done. It's a gold sink in every sense of the word. Ashes of Creation is instead a materials sink you need to have some of the materials so that you can actually repair the item when it gets damaged. The two ways you incur a repair cost is by either over enchanting an item destroying it, or dying, either from PvE or PvP(with exceptions). This means that you can have top of the line gear. Why can't you repair them well there's a guild farming the nodes where you would get the materials and they horde them for themselves and only trickle a little out at a time to keep them hyper expensive. Why are they hording them? Because they have to since there is no way for them to know when they will get another chance to farm them again, because
Player housing. The thing about player housing is it's stupid. If I wanted to play the sims I would play the sims. It takes up a massive amount of development time and effort, and should never be part of a game, but the game itself. That being said the community seems to be overjoyed that it's happening and it benefits everyone fairly equally so no pressure.
Opt-in objective-based battlegrounds better known as sanctioned PvP events. These are open world battle grounds which include sieges, caravans, guild wars and naval PvP and are guaranteed to be totally balanced in every way and never be totally one sided with sixty people attacking a caravan being guarded by twenty people, and if you didn't pick up on the sarcasm you should get out more. This system as it stands is bad for everyone, It favors uber guilds more then others, but it ultimately guarantees you will almost never have any kind of fifteen versus fifteen balanced team conflict and will likely only ever have waves of people washing over a much smaller group. But let's tackle this in detail.
Naval combat seems fine. The big problem is the lack of set transportation, but as far as I can tell that should be easy to implement and test, so while technically solo players could be prevented from traveling from one continent to the other the fix will be so quick and easy I'm not really worried about it.
Caravans!!! Everyone's favorite system, unfortunately can't be used by solo players at all, even if you're a particularly high functioning adult and think you can wait till 3 am and then send the caravan since caravan events are a thing which prevent you from doing even that, but as far as I can tell it does not directly incentivize people to kill solo players people so that's good. While technically it could benefit solo players it would require you to hang out in the area where the caravans spawn like some jaded wife waiting for lifetime alimony, then shadow it in the hopes that some other larger group shows up. Even then that doesn't guarantee any spoils, or that they wont kill you right after. Uber guilds that can take advantage of the system get a huge pressure release because they can multiply any of their earnings by 5 ensuring their entire guild is stupid rich all the time, and anything they need they can just buy.
Castle and Node sieges are a thing. I don't see a problem with Castle sieges, if toddlers want to spend 3 hours fighting over a sand castle that's their prerogative. Node sieges on the other hand are another story. Mainly because they upend everything anyone was trying to do and force you to deal with that, or leave, rather then do what you want. So your choices are forced content, which solo players are likely to lose, or move to a new area, and learn that area from scratch. This is another system that favors guilds, the bigger they are the better off they are again. This is probably the biggest slap in the face you can do to people. This does not make me feel like a player in a game, it makes me feel like I'm content for someone else's game. And while you can do that in a game you never want it to feel like that is what's happening, and no matter what you do, how fun and engaging you make these systems to participate in you will ultimately still be in a situation where you are the monkey being forced to dance for other peoples entertainment.
Node sieges are not opt in. You have two choices "Flee or Die"(IYKYK), there is no opt out. I know I'm going to get push back on this, but for something to be opt in you need to be able to opt out. Fleeing is not opting out because you never asked to be in the situation in the first place. Your are being forced to choose not being asked if you would like a choice. The other tack some might take is the by entering the game you are opting in, and okay fair enough nodes are ubiquitous so maybe that is a valid argument. Let's list the other sanctioned "battlegrounds" them Guild Wars, Castle Sieges, Naval PvP, Caravans, and Node Wars. The first 4 of those are actually opt in, arguably doubly so, first opt in to the guild system, then opt into the content. Node Wars is a pseudo-opt in system. You technically opt in because you vote for a mayor, problem is people can lie, (insert suitably insulting comment about politicians here). So while there are some that might say that people can opt in, I cannot agree with that. Node Sieges are even further from opt in because there is no way to avoid them unless you bypass the citizenship process all together, and even if you do, you still face the consequences of some one sieging the node you call home.
But what about peoples first interaction with the Node Siege system? Why don't we look at what the first experience of a node siege will be like, and tackle losing a node siege after. The first thing we need to know is when will the first sieges start to occur. How do we figure out that? well we have a number 200 to 300 hours to maximum level. At 28 to 42 hours per week that's 4.5 to 11 weeks as per the wiki. So what level can sieges be initiated? Well we know that 21 days after a node advances to a new stage, a siege can't be declared, and we also know village is the first stage that can be sieged. We know it will take a few days which usually means 3 or more, and many tends to mean 5 to 8 on the lower scale, which means on average it should take 3-4 days to get a node from Wilderness stage to the Village stage. There will be nothing average about the launch of the game so you will probably see Villages on launch day this means that the very first sieges CAN occur on day 22. Okay so we have a minimum point at which to start. Now when will people start doing node sieges, probably around max level given it is end game content.
(If you're wondering why were doing this, it's because the initial experience determines your baseline emotional state while participating in that experience. In other words how likely people will be in a negative emotional state when they engage with the second most important system in the game and constitutes a major source of content, and can't be avoided.)
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/HOURS-PER-WEEK-SPENT-ON-GAMING-BY-MMORPG-PLAYERS-AND-NON-MMORPG-PLAYERS-IN-PERCENTAGE_tbl1_7802995#:~:text=When asked how many hours,, as expected. ...
Leveling rates according to above numbers:
18 to 27 weeks @ 10 hours per week
9 to 14 weeks @ 20 hours per week
6 to 9 weeks @ 30 hours per week
5 to 7 weeks @ 40 hours per week
I'm not going to show the math you have the numbers I'm using, you can do it yourself. So we know around 3 weeks after the launch of the game people can start launching sieges. and at about 9 weeks about 45% of the population will be max level. now we need to factor in the experience bonus groups get and the fact that being in a guild means that, on average, you will get in a group faster, be able to group for longer, have access to more content, have increased efficiency, and access to more information. There is no real way to accurately predict that right now due to all the variables. So we will only take the 30% increase and leave it at that even though the rate will probably be higher.
Solo players leveling rates:
18 to 27 weeks @ 10 hours per week
9 to 14 weeks @ 20 hours per week
6 to 9 weeks @ 30 hours per week
5 to 7 weeks @ 40 hours per week
Guild Players leveling rates:
12 to 18 weeks @ 10 hours per week
6 to 9 weeks @ 20 hours per week
4 to 6 weeks @ 30 hours per week
3 to 5 weeks @ 40 hours per week
Node Wars are basically the same as Node sieges no recourse for the node having war declared on them, but there are some interesting points that we definitely need to cover. First you know how people say this game is a gank box? This system is why people say that. It effectively turns off the corruption system, and lets anyone from the declaring node kill anyone from the declared with out restriction, and vice versa. So if you want to kill the same person 30 times in a row. Your allowed to do that. If you want to camp the spawn points so people can't even play the game and simply die the moment they respawn, you can do that. There are no limits except maybe only 1 Node War at a time, but they haven't even said that, or given a time limit for that matter.
Now we apply a principle we applied at the very beginning and were going to do so with another thought experiment. Your a guild leader and you have 3 neighboring nodes to attack, one has another guild about the same size as yours plus a number of other citizens, one has a dad guild with about 50 people and another 50 solo players, another has 100 solo players and no guild to speak of. Which do you choose to attack. Now I am again relying on the honor system again, but I believe in you guys, you can do it. Did you pick 100 solo players? I know I would it's a much softer target, guilds will literally have no experience (or very little) sieging nodes, and a quick easy win will give them some confidence. Now that we have all the information there's only one thing left to do.
Time to put it all together. First they will come in groups of 4 and they will focus on killing solo players, this has 3 advantages. It lets them test how resilient the people of the node are, lowers the node-to-node reputation so they can declare war, and makes getting a count on the number of people doing it very very difficult. Then they will declare war on the node. People will flood in from the other node and start killing people, it will be indiscriminate, and they will start to corral people as much as they can, if they can camp spawn points they will. This is because the kind of person that will do this will understand that war is not about killing the other person its about breaking their morale. And even if they don't understand that, they still might be thinking 50 people that leave the node to not deal with this, is 50 less people in the siege. That will last a couple days at most(again no time limit). Then the siege will begin, and for lack of a better word it will be pathetic. It will be very short, and very brutal. And when people realize they couldn't last 10 minutes in what should have been an hour long event, some will quit the game, but others will start to ask questions. And when they get the answers to those questions they will realize they were never meant to win, the game itself was designed to make sure they lost. The same way some one would kill a random mob in the open world.
So you lost a node siege what's the big deal?
Now I realize that some people are going to give me push back on this. If you plan on saying I made an assumption about X you should probably assume I didn't assume and just cut out two paragraphs of this already horrifically long post. And if you come to the conclusion I did just assume something assume I went with either the average or the best possible outcome. depending oh which was more favorable to the game. So, yes I assumed the max number of people on the server and I did that because it's literally the best case scenario. Now for the people who are going to try and say, "I'm not that mean" or "people aren't going to act like that" I first need to thank you my internet interlocuter for allowing me to quote one of my favorite songs, and respond with this:
"Credulous at best, your desire to believe in
Angels in the hearts of men
Pull your head on out your hippy haze and give a listen
Shouldn't have to say it all again
The universe is hostile, so impersonal
Devour to survive, so it is, so it's always been"
-Tool, Vicarious
What this basically means is don't fucking assume people will be nice just because you are. Assholes exist, they will play this game, they will grief people, they will be merciless, because this is a war simulator, and that's how war gets. Not to mention all the incentives the game has given players to do these things, and since you're more vulnerable while you are attacking someone else because your resources are being spent elsewhere you want to end the war as quickly as possible. This will take 5% of the population and increase it to either 60% or whatever the maximum percentage can do it which ever is less.
The class system this is the final system and I thought this would be where I point out all the problems I have above and make my case for why having as much choice at the start of the game would be the most important. That is no longer the case. I now think that no matter how good they make the class system it still wont prevent 50-70% of people that start playing this game to drop it in the first 6 months. So here is the order I will cover this in, abilities, role diversity then some counter points.
Now according to some people we are going to get 64 unique classes and simply have to pick them, or build them, as time dictates. Why not just make 14 base classes, they apparently already exist and could be slotted in and be done. make 2 or 3 subclasses that are mostly aesthetic with some noticeable differences for each class, and then slot in the rest when time permits. And if you think class identity is important there should be concern with the fact that the base classes only have 35-40 abilities which means best case scenario you're looking at somewhat samey combat with other subclasses.
End game systems for Solo players. There are none. There aren't even plans for them.
There are other problems but I've already been working on this too long.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Solo_players
The final conclusion, this game heavily favors guilds in what I can only describe as the most blatant bias and total disregard I have ever seen in an MMO. There is not a single system that works in favor of solo/single/casual players. In fact any system that is meant to punish people punishes solo players more. Systems that solo players could take advantage of have road blocks put in to prevent them from using them ala the caravan system. Other systems which have inherent advantages in the game are given further advantages like giving groups an experience bonus. The end game systems are geared purely towards guilds and groups giving them many ways to meaningfully interact with the end game. solo players have no way to meaningfully interact with the end game, and there are no plans to create anything for solo players. The fact that design pillars are routinely broken in favor of guilds is symptomatic of the entire game. The worst part is if they do add something at the end game for solo players it will undoubtedly be flooded with people in guilds with the best gear meaning it will end up being a shit show for solo players who are permanently going to be locked out of getting the best gear because they wont be able to access the materials due to guilds hording as much as they can while they can, and dungeons which they will never be able to do. New players after the game launches will be mostly solo players, and they will have to contend with fully geared highly experienced players when they hit max level. They will have to do this with almost no experience because there is no way for them to learn about PvP except by doing open world PvP.
This will ultimately end up being some mutated version of the Stanford prison experiment where the prisoners pay for the privilege, but can leave at any time, and the guards aren't allowed full power directly, but can still achieve total power through work arounds and in built systems.
1
Comments
Is this a purely theoretic discussion about game design or do you hope intrepid will take this to heart, scrap the class system to harvest their biggest shitstorm yet for going back on one of the most central aspects of this game and make up 4-5 new Archetypes?
I know you do not like the class system and doubt that it can be done to a satisfactory degree. But this is not the way to go about it. I'm not sure why the augmentation system is such a huge point of contempt, it one of multiple system to individualize a character. It is not meant to single handedly "create a unique class & role" or anything, its meant to tweak the base abilities of an archetype (and all roles that can be fulfilled with that choice) into the direction the individual player feels most comfortable with / cover some extra ground with them.
Lastly I am really wondering about the timing. You are clearly invested and thats great but putting out a HUGE post with comments on all sorts of systems when waiting a few weeks and providing feedback on those systems individually would be much more accessible for the devs and community. It just seems to me like a lot of energy shooting right past the target.
Well, okay.
Yes, I do agree with some of the stuff, kind of.
Yes.
But I don't think you quite understand the actual problem, or rather, it's not just one problem that you pointed out.
Majority of players will be in a guild, as the game will kind of force you to be in one. Groups/guilds are expected to be able to contest bosses, clear dungeons, etc. while solo players cannot do it solo, which is how it should be.
And yes, large guilds will dominate, just because of their numbers. Maybe they won't be the most organized, but the sheer numbers should make up for it in most situations. As someone who is planning to be in a smaller guild, I understand that I will be locked out from a lot of content, and it sucks, because the game's focus seems to be the stuff that only those large, powerful guilds will have access to. Or rather, that's the majority of what we've seen so far.
The bigger issue here is, groups itself. Players that will play in a group constantly, that will do everything as a group, from leveling, to exploring, to gathering, to mob farming, PKing, to anything else in the game. Those are the players that have a huge advantage, simply because they have the numbers - and bigger number wins, usually.
As a solo player, you are simply disadvantaged in whatever you are trying to do.
In this case, solo player in not someone who just plays alone all the time. I mean, those players shouldn't expect anything from this game. In this case, it's about players who are not grouped up 24/7 whenever they play the game.
I don't expect to have to group up to simply play the game, level up, take down some mobs, gather some stuff, etc. - you know, regular things you do on a daily basis should NOT require a group. And they do not require it, but you are at a disadvantage here, always, if you are not in one. Whether it's higher risk of getting PKed, efficiency of how fast a group can farm, gather, etc. compared to 1 player, etc. etc.
I am absolutely for grouping up to do anything meaningful that will increase your power, whether it's dungeons, world bosses, even caravans, sieges, or other group based events.
This is why I see things such as "bonus xp for being in a group" to be just another slap in the face of "solo" players. Groups already have advantages due to game design, why do they also need buffs to further give them the advantage?
Also, to add to your original point about large guilds. Yes, there is always a risk of just 2-3 of them dominating the entire server, in terms of power, resources, gear, etc. I just hope the map will be big enough, so smaller guilds can also thrive in their own corner of the world, which I think it will be. Also, you'd hope those 2-3 guilds will not be friendly towards each other, but will compete, which is infinitely better than all 3 guilds playing together and monopolizing everything on the server.
maybe the game isn't for you and its aimed at those who play a decent amount of hours per week, which according to your stats, its the majority of mmorpg players, who also want to group up and not solo but don't mind soloing.
I will say this there will be a solo aspect of this game. But don't expect every class to be able to solo well. Those that desire solo play can pick classes that will accommodate that. Much like in EverQuest back in 1999 if you wanted to solo you played a mage a necromancer an enchanter a bard. Other classes could solo to some degree. But you will see many teams of just two or three people doing stuff together and if you want to get real content done you will need a balance team
Castles are important because they take taxes away from your node and they may or may not buff the ZoI.
If they use the money for themselves instead of helping your node, then chances are higher your node to fall in a siege, because you cannot build defenses or have a healthy economy.
So your responsibility is to participate in those events to prevent the caravans to reach the castle nodes and make those castle owners lose the ownership. Of course you should also care who will replace them.
I think this is a only error I found.
Otherwise you are correct, this game is not intended to help solo players much.
There will be light caravans which move faster. They are intended to help them get used to the system.
Maybe taverns will bring together those who refuse to join a guild.
If they are citizens of the same node, will end up knowing each-other and rely on each other's availability.
With all of that being said I believe solo players can also have fun in this game as long as you set a goal of what you want to achieve. You can be a crafter and do work for a guild, or you can hire a group to farm mats for you. You can be someone that is a sword for hire. Watching a lot of anime maybe guilds can make quest for solo players to do. Watching this game for a while now it seems like there can be unlimited possibilities as long as players are willing to put in the work and make the game welcoming for everyone of all play styles.
I'm fine with the class system, I don't like the narrow selection of base classes. This is mostly for people that don't want to wait 100 hours to reach the playstyle they want.
What exactly is theoritic about what I posted?
I'm a disabled vet I have nothing better to do. I promise I'm fine.
First there is no reason to assume most people are in guilds given most MMO players are solo, meaning at best your looking at 50% of people being in guilds.
While the game does kinda punish you for not being in a guild or grouping it does so subtly it's not overt. It's a slow burn that you don't notice until it's too late. That's part of the problem.
The map size will only help if the player density is lower then average. There doubling the map size of wow and more then doubling the population. And a good chunk of the map is ocean which will be unpopulated. So if you have ever been on a WoW server with high population your looking at the somewhat more player density.
And it is for multiplayers.
So the problem solo players need to fix is themselves, being solo - make some friends.
It is going to be social, and it will have group content.
It doesn't mean that you should be grouped up whenever you log in to the game. It's silly.
I guess I'm having a hard time explaining this, and I see the exact same argument popping up from time to time.
Groups are there to do group content with, which the game will have plenty of. That's the social and multiplayer aspect, as you will spend more time doing that, than in any other recent MMO.
That however does not mean there should not be single player, or solo content. If I want to go out and explore, kill some mobs, level up, do some questing, or do whatever I want to, I shouldn't be held back by not being in a group. That's the content you should always be able to do solo.
The reasons why someone might play solo are numerous.
For example:
- If I only have 3-4 hours to play the game every day, I can allocate some of that time for playing with friends, or fellow guild members. However, I do want some freedom in how I spend my time in game. Being in a group does not allow for such freedom, as it's often about compromise, and you want to not inconvenience others you are playing with, the same way you do not want them to inconvenience you. This sometimes means you will do stuff together, even if you would rather do something else in game.
- This also means that if I'm playing with a group, and we are doing something, I cannot just pack my bags and leave suddenly to do something else, or log off.
- In general, I like doing what I want to do, whenever I want to do it. As a solo player, I can simply go from one activity to another instantly, while in a group it's not that simple.
- You just don't feel like dealing with/talking to people.
You are incentivized to group up for various things, for security, to actually be able to do a lot of the content, etc. The stuff you are incentivized to group up for, will also make you stronger.
The game shouldn't further disincentivize solo players by punishing them for playing solo. They are already at a big disadvantage.
---
The thing is, some design choices will inevitably make "solo players" suffer. Because such a huge portion of content is locked behind groups, some hard-locked (you simply cannot complete content solo), some soft-locked (you can in theory do it, but realistically you won't be able to).
OP made several examples. Caravans are one of them.
- In Archeage, you always had an option of less risky, or even risk-free option of doing solo trade-runs. Or if you actually wanted to make good money, there was risk of PvP, so you'd usually group up.
- In Ashes, it's always going to be a risk to run caravans, and if you are solo, it's really, really risky. But the thing is, it's risky also for groups, because there are always going to be larger groups preying on them.
This simply turns into a bigger group = win, for most of the content available. So the discussion shouldn't even really be about solo players, but about how bigger numbers will always be better in this game.
I do not share a lot of OPs concerns regarding group play, as I feel like many of these things have to be done in a group, for a good reason, but they do bring up some valid points around groups, and how small groups or solo players are often going to be at a heavy disadvantage.
Is there a way to fix that, without compromising the key pillars of this game? I'm not sure it's possible, or if it is, I'm not sure how you do it.
Good plan tell 70% of the MMO population pass on this game.
The only reason that number is as big as it is , is because want to be MMO's are more shared world solo game's.
They forgot that MMO's are supposed to be multiplayer games not solo player
I remember some People here in the Forum acting like it WOULD BE - an actual Problem - if you can not just "steamroll" +98 to 99% of the whole Open World completely alone.
Like in "Korthia" for Example - in Shadowlands in Worst of Warcraft. * cringes *
Oh N~OOO !!! We might not able to solo the whole Castle Ruins with the many Goblins inside from the Fighter Presentation with the Ren'Kai Fighter.
What~ever w~ill w~eee d~ooo ?? 😱
I personally hope Ashes - WILL - force - us - to play together again like when there were Elite-Mob Area's in WoW Vanilla where single Player couldn't just steamroll through completely alone.
An MMO should "force" People to create social Bonds. "Force" People to become Allies. "Force" People to play as a Team. Yes not Everywhere - i am aware. But "somewhere".
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Kinda starting to look for a Guild right now. (German)
Ashes encounters are designed for an 8-person group with one of each Primary Archetype.
Additionally, Stevens dream is to have massive battles of 250 v 250 PvP or 500 v 500 PvP. Even higher if they can keep the Realms stable.
That being said, players don't have to mechanically accept an invite to a Group in order to participate in Caravan PvP, Node Sieges or Node Wars. Nor to participate in World Boss battles or Dungeons.
What is stopping a Solo player from griefing a Group?
I'm going to be equally annoyed at a Solo player who repeatedly disrupts my playtime with unwanted PvP as I would be a Group who does so. Doesn't matter if my Group can kill the Solo griefer more quickly than we can kill a Group of griefers.
Man here I thought I basically talked about PvP for that entire post. Instead I was bitching about not being able to solo all the PvE content. Like the paragraph on Dungeons, oh wait there isn't one. Well the paragraph on Raids...also not there.
Almost like you didn't read the post at all just read a title and thought you knew everything.
Not like I'm pointing out that this game which has mountains of end game PvP and likes to remind people of that constantly. Has made sure Solo players will NEVER have any kind of EQUAL footing in a PvP conflict. So even if there were Solo players willing to put up with the bullshit of taking longer to level and getting ganked because people are bored they're still not going to play this game because they will almost never win a fight due to a gear gap, because of HOW THE GAME IS DESIGNED.
And if you're tempted to say "Not everyone can have good gear.". When your end game Content is 90% open world PvP you better make sure EVERYONE can get the best gear, or some sort of baseline gear and then earn better gear.
And if you're tempted to say "Where's the logic bro?". It's in the post you didn't read.
Now if you don't mind I'm going to ignore you now since you have proven yourself both dishonest and stupid which means I give zero fucks about what you have to say.
You didn't read the post, because if you had you would know that a solo player will have worse gear, and be lower level, and even if they do some how get gear AND are higher level the corruption system will probably weaken them enough to make sure the last person kills them. And even if they can't kill him and they all die, that's not griefing that's getting ganked, and the amount of corruption will likely force them to leave. Groups will not have that problem.
The message to those people would probably be more accurate by letting them know that a lot of gamers feel like this and the good news is: There are a lot of games for them out there. Ashes however doesn't aim to be one of them. It's an intentional decision, meaning people who dislike such a choice can walk away without any extra costs for them.
I was asking you whether you are making this post to discuss this mainly theoretically or whether you expect Intrepid to start over with the class system.
That wasn't my point: You may have all the time in the world, but others don't and for them there is little reason to read through your entire post when a few weeks of waiting and then testing can dismantle everything you have said so far. Which is why the center question of my previous comment was:
What do you want to achieve here and why now instead of in a few weeks with additional info from the Alpha 2?
The number is 50% to 70% depending on the game. If you look at the general population of MMO players it hovers around 60%. The reason that number is that high is because most guilds are shit, full of drama, and fueled by nepotism and favoritism. The guilds that don't have those problems are often so full that even if you play the game for 10 years you will never get any gear.
MMOs are meant to be massive online worlds that people can interact with as they please, or does anyone that doesn't group at level 1 need to be perma banned? What about people that join the game 8 months after launch they should be banned because they wont be able to group much due to everyone being max level. Huh, almost like every MMO is DESIGNED to be PLAYED SOLO.
Stop telling people there having fun wrong.
So you think that having a narrow selection of classes and a even more narrow selection for roles is a good thing?
I am making the post because I can see how things will go wrong, baring a minor miracle. I said this in the OP I started thinking that fixing the class system would solve the problem. As I got to about the half way point I realized this game had way larger problems then I thought. And given the devs are human and humans can make mistakes maybe the devs made a mistake and didn't realize it. Because the devs aren't infallible.
There is plenty of reason to read through the post because the post is not a bunch of suggestions, it's a prediction. And when someone predicts something using logic and reason and interdisciplinary practices its a good idea to at least listen to what they have to say. And then if there right you maybe listen more next time and heed the warning.
I think one or two did. but not many that's for sure.
People tend to be all talk about logic and reason until some one actually puts pen to paper then they go dark because its a lot of dry reading that has to be thought about critically which there unwilling to do.
This is a very valid point as well.
We all think about it, as if everyone will start the game from day 1.
But what about those who join later, who are inevitably going to be behind everyone else? Who do they group up with? The pool of similar players, that are at a similar stage of the game will be smaller and smaller.
This is why a big part of the game needs to be "solo" friendly.
Where are they?
I often literally go months in an MMORPG without seeing a non-guilded character that is above level 10.
I already responded to this but I wanted to add something else. It's not just that I am disadvantaged by being solo, but that for as long as the game exists I will be disadvantaged and by a large margin, in particular the numbers, which I'm used to at this point, and in gear. There is no way for me to grind out something or craft something, or do anything to get on equal footing with respect to gear, which locks me out of all other content. I will be stuck using what ever I can find in the open world, or crafting things that are low enough to not be a priority for guilds.
In other words the main gameplay loop which is grind shit to get better gear. I am totally locked out of at level 40 I wont be able to get better gear.
Are you talking about this game?