Lone Wolves Losing Interest

[Raithe]

...I'd play a console or stand-alone PC game instead. Why pay $15 a month?

Don't think you get the current development model for DDO - it is basically a stand-alone game that lets 4 to 6 people play at the same time. We currently are paying around $42 every three our four months for a new stand-alone game - we are not paying for the client/server game service, because no one would pay for just the service without the updates.

[VonBek]

I must be missing something, but if I was just playing solo, I'd play a console or stand-alone PC game instead. Why pay $15 a month?

When you hear someone advocate for solo content or options, do you translate that to someone asking Turbine to make DDO a standalone game?

[VonBek]

I disagree. Solo play should not be encouraged in DDO. DDO is designed around questing. The entire point of the game is to complete quests with a group. I do not think people should be encouraged to play solo.

Conversely, some of us do not want it actively discouraged. Sometimes, grouping just won't work for all of us. When I don't have the option to group, that doesn't mean I don't want to

• explore
• learn maps so I can better support a PUG
• trickle in some XP and loot
• learn how my character operates in new situations (without imposing my learning curve on a group)

If I log on at 8:00 AM and find no guildies, no groups forming, and that my effort to form a group has wasted 30 min, that doesn't mean I want to log off, play Tetris, or go dress up Barbie.

Basically, I don't want all the whiners turning DDO into another WoW or LOTRO. Go kill 5 rats, go find 10 sticks.....gag me. Games that encourage solo play usually have that element, and DDO is not intended for that target audience.

From what I've seen or heard of WoW, or LoTRO, I agree.

[BlueLightBandit]

Conversely, some of us do not want it actively discouraged. Sometimes, grouping just won't work for all of us. When I don't have the option to group, that doesn't mean I don't want to

• explore
• learn maps so I can better support a PUG
• trickle in some XP and loot
• learn how my character operates in new situations (without imposing my learning curve on a group)

If I log on at 8:00 AM and find no guildies, no groups forming, and that my effort to form a group has wasted 30 min, that doesn't mean I want to log off, play Tetris, or go dress up Barbie.

I dunno about Barbie... but Hello Kitty has it's own MMO now too. I figure Mattel will join forces with our Hasbro and get her one soon... that B* has everything.

And my apologies man... I'm normally up until one or two trying to get that stupid power shard... I'll try to stay up later to help you out more from now on though.

[Hafeal]

Conversely, some of us do not want it actively discouraged. Sometimes, grouping just won't work for all of us. When I don't have the option to group, that doesn't mean I don't want to

• explore
• learn maps so I can better support a PUG
• trickle in some XP and loot
• learn how my character operates in new situations (without imposing my learning curve on a group)

If I log on at 8:00 AM and find no guildies, no groups forming, and that my effort to form a group has wasted 30 min, that doesn't mean I want to log off, play Tetris, or go dress up Barbie.

I will say that there are times when I do not want to group because I only have 30 mins. I find those to be perfect times to do things like character maintenance, inventory management, and AH shopping. And If I REALLY am jonesing for some action, I check for an explorer grp that I can jump out without question or I go solo to an explorer area to rack of up kills and practice technique, especially for my first beloved character, a rogue, who struggles at times.

[Ringos]

My post before was just a question, not a veiled snide comment. I do solo in DDO when there aren't any groups I want to join or start or if I don't feel like grouping. I may not play as much as some, but I find there to be decent enough content to solo at any level.

[Beherit_Baphomar]

The problem with upping the ante, as it were, for solo play is that doing so also ups it for groups.

Is there maybe a way Turbine can put in a penalty similar to power levelling?
What I mean is completing a quest solo adds +75% XP, +1 Loot. Completing a quest
duo adds +65% XP. Trio +50% etc.

This, of course, would then discourage group play.

Its a tough one to call man....I'll leave it up to Turbine.

[VonBek]

It wasn't taken as snide (by me, anyway.) "Party's of One" don't seem rare. I've read more than a few posts from players having trouble grouping while playing at odd hours, or with RL impositions.

FWIW, I've played other games. I like this one best. And, I do group, but its not an option for me, most of the time. If I NEVER grouped, would I still pay a subscription? Dunno. But I might be more inclined to try one of those other games.

[Cupcake]

I must be missing something, but if I was just playing solo, I'd play a console or stand-alone PC game instead. Why pay $15 a month?

As far as the OP goes, I understand why people wouldn't group with a cleric that didn't heal...do you blame them?

My friend Phil has a lvl 11 cleric on Argo by the name of Conduit.

Conduit is NOT a cleric. He is a WF that will buff the party with appropriate spells but it was his choice to NOT heal.

He tells people he is not a healing cleric. He usually only groups with friends or guildmates but NEVER as their cleric.

It was his choice to make his person in this fashion and no one has any right to diss him for it. If the OP wants to be a killer of undead and wraiths, that is his choice and he should be allowed to do so.

If they want a healing cleric, they need to ask for one. The assumption that all clerics heal, is wrong.

Anyone is allowed in my parties. If a cleric wants to be a battle cleric that's fine. The group needs to learn how to be self sufficient though. But the stand that all clerics "heal" is just not right.

It is also anyone's right to NOT invite people who have chosen a non-healing path, but sometimes you may just regret that decision.

[Ringos]

My friend Phil has a lvl 11 cleric on Argo by the name of Conduit.

Conduit is NOT a cleric. He is a WF that will buff the party with appropriate spells but it was his choice to NOT heal.

He tells people he is not a healing cleric. He usually only groups with friends or guildmates but NEVER as their cleric.

It was his choice to make his person in this fashion and no one has any right to diss him for it. If the OP wants to be a killer of undead and wraiths, that is his choice and he should be allowed to do so.

If they want a healing cleric, they need to ask for one. The assumption that all clerics heal, is wrong.

Anyone is allowed in my parties. If a cleric wants to be a battle cleric that's fine. The group needs to learn how to be self sufficient though. But the stand that all clerics "heal" is just not right.

It is also anyone's right to NOT invite people who have chosen a non-healing path, but sometimes you may just regret that decision.

Hey now...that's why I put the smiley face after that line!

[Cupcake]

Hey now...that's why I put the smiley face after that line!

LOL. I wasnt mad at you, Ringos.

Last night, or the one before someone made a comment about that fact that Phil wasn't healing party members. It's not in his make up to do so and we told the pugs that from the get go.

As for soloing..

My husband solos alot because he doesn't like to pug. Its a tad difficult to do if you arent a solo friendly build.

He tried taking his lvl 9 cleric into necro 1, not sure which quest, and promptly died when he got ambushed.

[Vormaerin]

we are not paying for the client/server game service, because no one would pay for just the service without the updates.

I'm not big on MMO participation, but I'm pretty sure that quite a few MMOs only have paid expansions as 'updates'. So I think this isn't an accurate assessment. Turbine senior management has spoken in interviews specifically about how they think that model is BS and that the subscription should cover the service and the updates. Which is why it does in both DDO and LotRO.

But there seem to be folks out there who pay for the service alone. Unless you just mean no one would pay for DDO's service without updates? That might be true, but I don't know that I'd bet on it.

[villainsimple]

I disagree. Solo play should not be encouraged in DDO. DDO is designed around questing. The entire point of the game is to complete quests with a group. I do not think people should be encouraged to play solo.

Basically, I don't want all the whiners turning DDO into another WoW or LOTRO. Go kill 5 rats, go find 10 sticks.....gag me. Games that encourage solo play usually have that element, and DDO is not intended for that target audience.

So your argument against encouraging solo play is that 1. DDO (Which could have been a phenomenally successful game but very obviously is not) was not "designed" with soloing in mind (despite building a solo option directly into many quests), and 2. Solo Play may have elements you don't want in the game, such as go kill 6 rats (Slayer: Go kill 10... whatever...).



Both of these contentions are silly for above noted reasons. DDO already has soloability, it just hasn't been truly fleshed out, and DDO already has "Go kill 10 Rats".

No, the root of your argument is you don't want people to solo because it may inhibit YOUR play style because some people who would otherwise enjoy playing solo are instead forced to group in order to enjoy the game at all. Ergo, you have more people to play the game with for YOUR preferred style of gaming.

And this argument beyond being.... sick. Is a false one.

Many players log off simply because they don't have anything to do, can't find groups, whatever. By allowing solo play you provide players something to do while they are looking for groups rather than just standing at the auction house staring at the auctioneer for a half hour.

The goal should not be to do away with groups, but to make solo play more attractive so that you can 1. Have a larger pool of gamers total, and 2. provide players with a means of earning XP and loot that is superior to solo play.

The first one is self evident, let me explain the second one.


Make solo play able to be solo'd and people will play it... probably a lot... but if you make group play significantly more worth the time investment people will pursue it.

If running X quests will net me good XP and something to do for shoots and goggles while solo I'll happily run those to my hearts content...but if a group comes up that I want or need that provides superior rewards and or XP... I'll likely jump at the chance.

In both instances I win.

Under your theory I lose UNLESS I have a group.

[Cupcake]

I have leveled my ranger, my fighter and my caster..

SOLO

running Tangleroot slayer and Sorrowdusk slayers up to the 1500 mark.

When I get to Ataraxia, I create an LFM and it fills faster than anything.

My fighter was able to solo Ataraxia, but my ranger and caster needed assistance.

Solo play is available in game as it stands now, to a certain point.

DDO IS NOT a failing game as much as some people would like to think so because it doesn't have what THEY want.

Several of my guildmates on Ghallanda and Argo solo quite a bit and have leveled themselves up to around 9 and 10. SOLO.

So the argument that there is no soloability within DDO is..false.

[Aspenor]

You assume I say these things for selfish reasons, I don't. I don't NEED you or any other person in my party. There is no shortage of people that I know that I can play with when I so desire.

DDO was created with the intention for grouping. I see your join date is this month, back in Spring 2006 there were no dungeons with the "solo" difficulty. The only solo dungeon in the game was The Wavecrest. Since then, Turbine has made accomodations for solo'rs. They added difficulty levels to some dungeons, and started putting in more and more explorer zones.

The game already has options for people that want to solo, at every level. There's nothing stopping a level 14 player from wandering into the desert to kill some gnolls.

Basically, you want what YOU want for soloing, and don't care about what's already there. Turbine has made the accomodations, you just want more, more, more. Nobody forces you to stare at the AH, that's your choice. The things to do are there, you're just not trying hard enough to find them.

[Laith]

I have leveled my ranger, my fighter and my caster..

SOLO

...

Several of my guildmates on Ghallanda and Argo solo quite a bit and have leveled themselves up to around 9 and 10. SOLO.

So the argument that there is no soloability within DDO is..false.

i have to agree that soloing is quite possible.

heck, i've soloed a ranger/rogue, a rogue, another rogue, and a cleric most the way to lvl10 solo.

The thing is though, my ability to solo was no doubt aided by the fact that i had already spent quite a bit of time getting to know the game in groups. The experience, tactics, and items i earned in groups with other toons was invaluable.

Soloing into the high-levels is completely possible.
Soloing it the first time through though? Not so much.

I love this game though, even the fact that you sort of "earn" your right to solo.
It feels great to go back and solo that dungeon that gave you so much trouble before.

They are adding a lot of solo content in though. In fact, all those adventure areas and solo difficulty quests were added AFTER DDO's release.
The solo XP was just upped to 80% of normal, which makes it as far from normal as hard is, just in the other direction.
Adventure areas are getting HUGE ranges of levels allowed, meaning you have 2+ places you can wander at any given level.
If anything, they've heard the cries of the lone wolves... it just takes time to create a complete niche for a type of gameplay that wasn't endorsed at all at release. Just look at PvP.

[Karavek]

1st point. this game has been a struggling MMO since it began, the server merge proved the player population wasnt growing at the anticpated rate(largely because many quit within a month or two and decided to live with PnP weekly games). The Devs have often mentioned thier low budget, if the game was designed like say city of heroes where there is both easy enjoyable solo play as well as great reasons to party up sometimes just to ahve more energy blast flying around.Provide to bigger audience= more money to improve game further for all.

2nd point. Yes many of the quest can be soloed and or 2 to 3 man teams, especially the uber elite meta game builds who have every quest memorized.Not dissing them they ahve a right to exist and play as much as me I would just like to be able to do something similair with my crazy agile warrior elf and not have to be a super str,con, dex dwarf in mithril fp and such god saves I laugh off beholders.

3rd point a response more like it but I wont even bother to post the comment in quote as it may only make them feel validated somehow. When I left the game last it had already added the first attempts at solo content, which largely disgusted me with thier much to low xp and loot for what when you are alone should be considered a riskier proposition and deserve something resembling an equal reward.

4th point. One of my favorite low levle quest has always been osgoods basment and always felt it would be a good model of solo friendly quest. Its long enough to let you be in for time enough to enjoy the atmosphere, has mobs of a managable size throughout with 1 large mob as the final showdown allowing for a single man with some self buffs to prepare for a good fight and some chance of retreat if things go bad.Grants some very healthy xp(some might even say to much compared to other quest but that is far from a complaint) and decnet enough loot in the form of the breakables piles of coins( i cleared over a 100 plat soloing it from solo-elite from lvl 2-3).I kinda wish it had a trap or two and a few secret doors in fact to further expand it and make a rogue feel a touch more useful.

Villainsimple makes many of my own feelings clear in his post, as well as reflecting some of the reasons City Of Heroes(the mmo I played most of all mmo's, grant very respectable rewards for completing task force(special mission chains which require X amount of members depending on the lvl range) Teaming to go through tangle root or deleras for its end rewards was never a problem but when you are all tangled out or sick of hearing people yack in voice and want some quiet dungeon crawl or hack festing to gain some decent jink and xp should be encouraged as it will only increase the population of this game and pump new life(capital) into the development.


Thanks to all the posters so far both For and Against.

P.S. If you never had fun ina 1 on 1 PnP experiance it may mean you are dangerously lacking imagination which is the true point and power of DnD. Frankly 1 of my most memorable nights of play only occurred after a in rp falling out between the 4 friends over an item found( I forget what it was lol) and we went cut throat on each others characters. Mine won took the loot and since the DM had a adventure still planned I obliged him by continuing on my way through it while the rest started rolling up new characters of equal lvl to their old to be introduced where fitting. It was expected I would perish but our DM was never one to go player killer without good cause and with some clever uses of things like a potion of gaseous form alot of stealth and a cut throat attitude I prevailed over the vampire we had been stalking long before the friends had finished fleshing out their new characters( which not surprisingly had all been made with overcoming and killing my character which they promptly tried to do in a later quest and failed) I always was the combat and tactics master in the group.

[akla_thornfist]

LOL. I wasnt mad at you, Ringos.

Last night, or the one before someone made a comment about that fact that Phil wasn't healing party members. It's not in his make up to do so and we told the pugs that from the get go.

As for soloing..

My husband solos alot because he doesn't like to pug. Its a tad difficult to do if you arent a solo friendly build.

He tried taking his lvl 9 cleric into necro 1, not sure which quest, and promptly died when he got ambushed.

even when you are a healing cleric people ***** if you dont save them everytime, i was in a pug the other day stk hard now my cleric is lev 3 cant heal much yet these guys were yelling at me cause they died every 15 secs why are you not healing us they say i say well my cure lt wounds is hitting you for about 20 and your taking 80 damage, then they say why are you not wand whipping us i say why are you not taking potions in between they dont have any i say good bye.

[GeneralDiomedes]

The thing is though, my ability to solo was no doubt aided by the fact that i had already spent quite a bit of time getting to know the game in groups. The experience, tactics, and items i earned in groups with other toons was invaluable.

Soloing into the high-levels is completely possible.
Soloing it the first time through though? Not so much.

Totally agree on that point. HEck, you need to play the game for quite a while to even figure out which builds work best for soloing.

But soloing most of the content is definitely possible. You just have to think more like a computer hacker than a hero.

[villainsimple]

DDO was created with the intention for grouping.

And this is largely why DDO has failed as an MMO. It forces you to rely on other people for your fun.

This care was designed with the intention of moving a great many people... consequently we've created it so that all seats must be filled in order for the driver to advance past 15 miles per hour.

They added difficulty levels to some dungeons, and started putting in more and more explorer zones.

Not enough.

The game already has options for people that want to solo, at every level. There's nothing stopping a level 14 player from wandering into the desert to kill some gnolls.

Name for me a level 14 quest that's built to be solo'd by a level 14 Character.

Basically, you want what YOU want for soloing, and don't care about what's already there.

I care what's there, I just want more.