Solo dungeon mode, please

Ashryn · January 2019

I don't think that group players are more important then Solo players; nor do I think that just because there ARE Solo players that wish to have solo-mode dungeons that they are a threat to group players. ESO needs BOTH types of players to survive long-term. People have different playing styles and wants. Respect them all, play how you like and stop saying, "This is an MMO, get used to it!" A successful MMO means many thing to different people. The more you attract, the longer the life of a game.

Tapio75 · January 2019

Joosef_Kivikilpi wrote: »

show previous quotes

myskyrim26 wrote: »

Please READ the post before posting commets, not just title

And again. PLEASE READ before commenting. PLEASE.

Dear ZOS,
A lot of lore already hidden in 4-player dungeons. It is even worse for the Wrathstone dungeons, as they are a part of the story. Please make a solo dungeon mode for players, who are not able to do dungeons in a group.
Let this solo dungeon mode be purely story oriented: no sets, no motifs, no achivements, no skillpoints - nothing that could make this mode a kind of a cheating one. Nothing to grind. It should not be a part of Undaunted pledges and whatever else - juts a story to do.

To all who want to post some answer like "find friends", "find a guild", "learn to play", please read this: I play since 2016. I tried hard to find people like me to do dungeond for a story. And here are the results:
1. We are 4 and we all want to do a dungeon for a story. I'm a tank. Other players are: a healer who sees a restoration staff for the first time and 2 DDs running around a dungeon like mad chickens. These people never did dungeond before, and will never practice - they are focused on quests only. They don't want to spend their time learning how to play in a group.
2. I found 3 people who agree to change their playstile. We live in different countries - thus it is hard to set a time for dungeon runs or practice. More - even if we all 4 are online, these players are busy doing something. As, you know, there are a lot things to do. And the most bad thing: I can be forced to log off at any moment because of my job.
3. Many players who want to do dungeon stories refuse to change anything. As a master crafter, I offer them free sets, food, glyphs. I try to explain their skills gently. I try to explain dungeon mechanics. But solo players are SOLO players. They don't want someone to be a leader. They don't want to learn a crazy rotation piano, they don't listen to a team mechanics. "I'll go see what's there!" - types my teammate in chat. I start typing "No" in respond, but the teammate is already dead, and mobs are running at us.
4. Guildmates do agree to do a dungeon with me. Sometimes they even give some time for me to make screenshots of dialogues. Sometimes. But the rest of the time they just rush through a dungeon. I don't want to rush! Dungeons are beautiful, I want to enjoy them! I don't want to make dialogue screenshots, I want to LISTEN to them!
5. I tried to do dungeons solo with a petsorc. My results: Fungal Grotto 1 and another "beginners" dungeon with a spider boss. I know - some players can do a lot of dungeons solo. Not me, unfortunately.

I assure you - I've made every effort to find players like me. A lot of people want to do dungeon stories, and it is impossible to become a team. Please @ZOS, give us a possibility to enjoy dungeons!
@ZOS_GinaBruno

I think it would be beneficial to allow players to redo the quest for the story with no reward at the end, just so they can go back for the story and remember, especially with Tharaaya making a comeback from Volenfell for Wrathstone. My wife did dungeons as she was leveling up, but we were so focused on helping her get leveled that she didn't retain much of the story. It'd be awesome to have the choice to run the quest again with no reward.

Why with no reward and why story only?

As it is in Star Trek Onlinbe. Any quest/mission can be redone at any level you wish. The rewards scale accordingly and the quality is determined by difficulty level chose.

Something similar would be lovely in ESO.

I for one would start Thieves guild from the start and go from there.

MikaHR · January 2019

Since main STORY is now in these dungeons, SOLO mode is unavoidable.

Kamatsu · January 2019

Ashryn wrote: »

I don't think that group players are more important then Solo players; nor do I think that just because there ARE Solo players that wish to have solo-mode dungeons that they are a threat to group players. ESO needs BOTH types of players to survive long-term. People have different playing styles and wants. Respect them all, play how you like and stop saying, "This is an MMO, get used to it!" A successful MMO means many thing to different people. The more you attract, the longer the life of a game.

This is the truth really. I'll point out WoW again. Do you know why WoW was so successful? There are a few reason's (such as it was made by Blizzard, was in the Warcraft world, continuation from WarCraft 3), but one of the main reason's: it was accessible to all players, whether they were casual lore/story players, solo questers, or raiders.

When you consider the other MMO's that were around when WoW launched - they were all prenty much "group or don't bother" games, MMO's that relied on forced grouping to be able to succeed... and they were all struggling to break the 400-500K subscriber mark. Sure they were profitable... but they were not huge big runaaway hits.

Then along came WoW, which could be played solo for the majority of the game. There was no need to group up apart from basically the dungeons, raids, and world bosses. Also, the majority of the games story was available via the world quest's (werll, what story there was lol). Was it 'easy' to play solo? Depended on the class you played - there's a reason the most played class in WoW was Hunter -> it was the one class that was the easiest to solo zone quest's with.

WoW absolutely flourished... yes it had all the Warcraft players flocking to it, as well as those who wanted to do the raids and such.... but it also attracted a lot of people who wanted to experience an MMO and for the 1st time could do so at their own pace, without having to be forced to rely on anyone else to actually experience the majority of the content of the game.

WoW did so well because even though it's Dev's focused a lot of attention on the raiders and endgame, they also provided a game that was accessible and playable to those just interested in the story, to those who wanted to roleplay, those who wanted to quest alone, etc. They catered successfully to many different playstyles... and the game quickly blew past 1 million subs, to top out at ~13 million around the time of WotLK... meanwhile the older "group or don't play" MMO's were still around, but had never gotten further than the 500K mark or so.

As for tying the main story to 4-man dungeons that can't be solo'ed... tsk tsk. Every other online/MMO game I know about that tried that.... faced backlash till they reversed the decision, or made it easier to access the content.

GW2 - the end of the base game used to be locked behind a 4-man dungeon. It got a lot of complaints over the years, and a lot of people never ever completed the story due to this. Eventually the dev's admitted this was a mistake as the majority of players had never completed the main story, and changed it to be a solo instance.

SW:TOR - This has been covered already. There are still some places where solo stories end in group-only content, and there are still people complaining about this fact.

WoW - They have tied their main story to raiding in the past 2 expansions, however it's only tied to the LFR system. LFR is something you can queue either solo or in a party, so even those who prefer to play solo can do it... not not mention the LFR fights are extremely dumbed down and toned down versions, so a bunch of random's can usually complete it without too much trouble.

Dubhliam · January 2019

I guess story mode you propose wouldn't hurt.

However!

You say other people are unwilling to learn and be a part of a team, yet you seem to not want to progress to a level where you can easiy solo normal dungeons.

There are many many people that can solo normal dungeons, no sweat.

TL;DR
YES, it would be a nice addition, however you can already solo them if you try.

TokenIntellect · January 2019

Dubhliam wrote: »

I guess story mode you propose wouldn't hurt.

However!

You say other people are unwilling to learn and be a part of a team, yet you seem to not want to progress to a level where you can easiy solo normal dungeons.

There are many many people that can solo normal dungeons, no sweat.

TL;DR
YES, it would be a nice addition, however you can already solo them if you try.

I'm glad you agree that solo mode wouldn't hurt.

As for the rest:
We're not saying people are unwilling to learn. L2P is not the issue. Some don't want to group. Some cannot. Some are okay with grouping some of the time but would like to have the time and freedom to engage with story.

But we're also not talking about FG1 here (although I think it'd be fantastic to make a solo mode for all dungeons).
Read through the PTS Forum on Wrathstone— Frostvault and Malatar cannot be soloed no matter how good you are.

kathandira · January 2019

Kamatsu wrote: »

Then along came WoW, which could be played solo for the majority of the game. There was no need to group up apart from basically the dungeons, raids, and world bosses. Also, the majority of the games story was available via the world quest's (werll, what story there was lol). Was it 'easy' to play solo? Depended on the class you played - there's a reason the most played class in WoW was Hunter -> it was the one class that was the easiest to solo zone quest's with.

WoW absolutely flourished... yes it had all the Warcraft players flocking to it, as well as those who wanted to do the raids and such.... but it also attracted a lot of people who wanted to experience an MMO and for the 1st time could do so at their own pace, without having to be forced to rely on anyone else to actually experience the majority of the content of the game.

WoW did so well because even though it's Dev's focused a lot of attention on the raiders and endgame, they also provided a game that was accessible and playable to those just interested in the story, to those who wanted to roleplay, those who wanted to quest alone, etc. They catered successfully to many different playstyles... and the game quickly blew past 1 million subs, to top out at ~13 million around the time of WotLK... meanwhile the older "group or don't play" MMO's were still around, but had never gotten further than the 500K mark or so..

The bolded. The same applies in ESO.

WoW also locked story behind dungeons. Some early examples would be Gnomeregan and Dead Mines. The zones all told you a story, which was extended and sometimes resolved in the Dungeons. Raids also did the same thing.

Kamatsu wrote: »

WoW - They have tied their main story to raiding in the past 2 expansions, however it's only tied to the LFR system. LFR is something you can queue either solo or in a party, so even those who prefer to play solo can do it... not not mention the LFR fights are extremely dumbed down and toned down versions, so a bunch of random's can usually complete it without too much trouble.

Did you play Vanilla, Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, and Cataclysm? All of these had main stories linked to the Raids.

Black Wing Layer was not only linked to the areas story, but were extensions of the dungeons that precede them.
Burning Crusade had Illidan which was very ingrained in the story of Outlands
Wrath of the Lich King, you could go anywhere without tripping over Arthas, but finish him off in the Raid
Cataclysm, literally all of Azeroth was torn asunder by Deathwing. The entire story was about assembling the dragon flights and legendary heroes to destroy Deathwing and the Dragon Soul which was resolved in the Raid.

There is more obviously, but WoW has always tied their world story to the dungeons and raids. It what makes it all cohesive. I actually wish ESO would do more of that to make the world feel more connected at times.

MikaHR · January 2019

When WoW was released all "hardcore" EQers and such were spitting and laughing at it for being "some solo casual cr@p that would fail so hard its hilarious"

Whos laughing now?

But...WoW and story....no one played WoW for story because both presentation AND stories are not worth playing....show me single player who read quest dialogues in WoW.

AND WoW had to make "LFR" because raid content wasnt worth making unles at least some population over 0,01% plays it.

I wish ESO didnt waste $$ on things not worth making like raids.

kathandira · January 2019

kathandira wrote: »

show previous quotes

Kamatsu wrote: »

Then along came WoW, which could be played solo for the majority of the game. There was no need to group up apart from basically the dungeons, raids, and world bosses. Also, the majority of the games story was available via the world quest's (werll, what story there was lol). Was it 'easy' to play solo? Depended on the class you played - there's a reason the most played class in WoW was Hunter -> it was the one class that was the easiest to solo zone quest's with.

WoW absolutely flourished... yes it had all the Warcraft players flocking to it, as well as those who wanted to do the raids and such.... but it also attracted a lot of people who wanted to experience an MMO and for the 1st time could do so at their own pace, without having to be forced to rely on anyone else to actually experience the majority of the content of the game.

WoW did so well because even though it's Dev's focused a lot of attention on the raiders and endgame, they also provided a game that was accessible and playable to those just interested in the story, to those who wanted to roleplay, those who wanted to quest alone, etc. They catered successfully to many different playstyles... and the game quickly blew past 1 million subs, to top out at ~13 million around the time of WotLK... meanwhile the older "group or don't play" MMO's were still around, but had never gotten further than the 500K mark or so..

The bolded. The same applies in ESO.

WoW also locked story behind dungeons. Some early examples would be Gnomeregan and Dead Mines. The zones all told you a story, which was extended and sometimes resolved in the Dungeons. Raids also did the same thing.

MikaHR wrote: »

When WoW was released all "hardcore" EQers and such were spitting and laughing at it for being "some solo casual cr@p that would fail so hard its hhilarious"

Whos laughing now?

But...WoW and story....no one played WoW for story because both presentation AND stories are not worth playing.

Aww....I did though = (

I absolutely loved the Lore of World of Warcraft, even read some of the books. But I was also a pretty serious Raider, so it worked out for me so I could experience the whole story, without the need for a solo mode of sorts.

MikaHR · January 2019

The way that WoW butchered Warcraft lore is hialrious.

Thats great for you but not great for 99,999999% of others and companie's bottom line.

Even in WoW raiders were just leeches on rest of the playerbase that couldnt even closely sustain raid content production (and Blizzard's expenditures in making such content). Just imagine magnitutde of losses for ESO when it wasn't nowhere NEAR worth producing it in WoW (and it still isnt but LFR is good excuse to keep making it)

kathandira · January 2019

MikaHR wrote: »

The way that WoW butchered Warcraft lore is hialrious.

Thats great for you but not great for 99,999999% of others and companies bottom line.

I stopped at Cataclysm, because that crossed the line for me. But I really enjoyed it up till then.

The thing I find hard to get gripped by with ESO's story is that it feels very fragmented. There is this huge thing with Molag Bal, that doesn't feel like anything that matters very much because most of the zone stories have little or nothing to do with it. There are so many pocket stories that have no relation to each other, it just feels like a large puzzle that was never meant to be assembled.

I like the pocket stories as they are interesting, but the looming threat of a Daedric god doesn't have any dooming presence outside of Dolmens.

[Edit] I thought a little more, and it is unfair to say it is so disconnected from the Molag Bal story, the Alliance stories do lead up to a connection to the main story as you need the alliance leaders to band together to help. There also is Molag Bal's forces terrorizing areas. There just feels like there is some suspense missing that could make the connections feel stronger.

MikaHR · January 2019

That is just the format ZOS chose so they could have exactly same main story across 3 alliances and which is somewhat detached from rest of the world. Putting that story in dungeons and raids would make the situation 100x worse as absolutely no one would play it.

But that is how all ES (and Fallout games) are structured. You may even extend it to "open world" games.

Oh, and you completely missed the point that WoWs success was because it completely ditched "what came before" and "group or die" norm for 100% of the game and made 99% of game soloable and easily accessible. In a way ZOS made same thing when they reworked whole game, ditched forced grouping for all zones and VET levels etc etc.

kathandira · January 2019

MikaHR wrote: »

That is just the format ZOS chose so they could have exactly same main story across 3 alliances and which is somewhat detached from rest of the world. Putting that story in dungeons and raids would make the situation 100x worse as absolutely no one would play it.

But that is how all ES (and Fallout games) are structured. You may even extend it to "open world" games.

Oh, and you completely missed the point that WoWs success was because it completely ditched "what came before" and made 99% of game soloable and easily accessible. In a way ZOS made same thing when they reworked whole game, ditched forced grouping for all zones and VET levels etc etc.

Just so I understand, are you saying WoW ditched the story from before WoW? Or that the story was heavily reconned after a few expansions (or even along the way)?

rei91 · January 2019

This is a wonderful idea. If solo mode existed, I would actually buy all those group-only dungeon DLC. And finally see what's inside all other dungeons I never set my foot inside due to not having guild/constant group to play with (not to mention friggin MAIN STORY dungeons).
I think there are many people like me, I mean who'll buy dungeon DLC with solo mode. Maybe developers should consider this for money, if not out of caring about solo players.

Sorry for my English being funny.

MikaHR · February 2019

kathandira wrote: »

show previous quotes

MikaHR wrote: »

That is just the format ZOS chose so they could have exactly same main story across 3 alliances and which is somewhat detached from rest of the world. Putting that story in dungeons and raids would make the situation 100x worse as absolutely no one would play it.

But that is how all ES (and Fallout games) are structured. You may even extend it to "open world" games.

Oh, and you completely missed the point that WoWs success was because it completely ditched "what came before" and made 99% of game soloable and easily accessible. In a way ZOS made same thing when they reworked whole game, ditched forced grouping for all zones and VET levels etc etc.

Just so I understand, are you saying WoW ditched the story from before WoW? Or that the story was heavily reconned after a few expansions (or even along the way)?

"Story" in WoW was written by BOT that was programmed by primary school "compuetr enthusiasts".

Szop mentioning story in WoW as some kind of strawman, no one played WoW for story same as absolutely no one read quest text. It is irelevant.

rei91 wrote: »

This is a wonderful idea. If solo mode existed, I would actually buy all those group-only dungeon DLC. And finally see what's inside all other dungeons I never set my foot inside due to not having guild/constant group to play with (not to mention friggin MAIN STORY dungeons).
I think there are many people like me, I mean who'll buy dungeon DLC with solo mode. Maybe developers should consider this for money, if not out of caring about solo players.

Sorry for my English being funny.

Yup, ZOS is losing a LOT of money on these DLCs, and if they keep shoving main STORY in them on top of that (without implementing solo mode) it will have more drastic and far reaching consequences.

I cant vote with my wallt with DLCs (ESO+, i wouldnt mind if they excluded all these DLCs and lowered sub as they have 0 value to me....just like for 99% of playerbase) but....i will spend my money Elswhere as i dont intend to pay 40 eur for HALF of the story, sorry ZOS.

TokenIntellect · February 2019

^ Yes.

At a certain point, I think people will begin voting with their wallets. Most likely, they already are; skipping DLCs they have no intention of playing.

The wildcard is then the value of ESO+. Is it worth paying for a subscription for a craft bag, bank space, and a housing freebie? (I may be oversimplifying, but not by much.) If people perceive that they are only getting part of what they paid for, it makes what they are getting seem more expensive (and yes, they are getting access to the DLCs, but if they're not playing them, access means nothing.)

Then there's Elsweyr. The same calculus applies: is it worth paying for an expansion, if you're not getting half the story?

Since people brought up WoW: I remember leaving WoW after Cataclysm, among other reasons, because it became clear that the devs were going to tie the story into raiding. LFR may have been well-intentioned, but it only solidified my belief that Blizzard didn't really want my business. I don't want to see ESO heading down that same road.

JadonSky · February 2019

I don't really understand the argument against a solo option other then people are worried it would ruin people wanting to do GROUP dungeons. Meaning GROUP players are worried if their is a solo mode it will make the sets and gear too easy to obtain and no one would want to group for a dungeon when you could just easy solo it in a solo mode.

Solution:
- Solo mode set gear obtain would be green and rare drop
- Jewelry would be rare drop and also green
- monster sets would not drop (which isn't an issue since you can only get on vet mode).
- You still get the skill point for completing the quest.

This would allow the people who want to enjoy the lore of the game an option with the difficulty of a public dungeon. By making set gear drops rare and green level it would not make it worth to solo grind it. But it would allow people to figure out how the dungeons works so when they want to group for gear and keys they have a better understanding of dungons

I for one love grouping with players mainly for the fun of the mechanics and working together as well as getting gear. But I have not done a dungeon yet (in the 4 years i have been playing) and have been able to do the story line because the group always skips it and if you don't you get left behind. With the exception of the dungeons I can solo

Sure there are RP guilds that will allow you to do the story, but to me that's a waste of a guild slot bc I don't want to group RP i just like to solo.

I really don't understand how having this option would cause any issues with the game and I don't think it would kill the group aspect if there was nothing to obtain other then a skill point, story lore, and if your lucky maybe a set piece will drop (but once again rare drop) and you would have to upgrade to make it even usable.

kathandira · February 2019

MikaHR wrote: »

"Story" in WoW was written by BOT that was programmed by primary school "compuetr enthusiasts".

Szop mentioning story in WoW as some kind of strawman, no one played WoW for story same as absolutely no one read quest text. It is irelevant.

Oh, I thought we were having a conversation. Never mind, carry on with your delusions.

kathandira · February 2019

TokenIntellect wrote: »

Since people brought up WoW: I remember leaving WoW after Cataclysm, among other reasons, because it became clear that the devs were going to tie the story into raiding.

The story was always tied to Raids (And dungeons as well) since Vanilla. That is why it was brought up. People are saying how it kills the game, yet it was in WoW from the start and they are touted as the most popular MMO of all time.

Maybe I really am one of the very few who paid attention to the story on WoW.

TokenIntellect · February 2019

kathandira wrote: »

show previous quotes

TokenIntellect wrote: »

Since people brought up WoW: I remember leaving WoW after Cataclysm, among other reasons, because it became clear that the devs were going to tie the story into raiding.

The story was always tied to Raids (And dungeons as well) since Vanilla. That is why it was brought up. People are saying how it kills the game, yet it was in WoW from the start and they are touted as the most popular MMO of all time.

Maybe I really am one of the very few who paid attention to the story on WoW.

Yep. You're the one person. Congrats on your enduring specialness. Mazel Tov.

You're right that there were always raids going back to Vanilla and they were always terrible wastes of time that only 0.5% of the player base actually played. And when the first attempt at LFR didn't work (for Wrath, IIRC) they had two choices with Cataclysm:

open up content and story to everyone, or
concentrate on trying to convince people to do 10- and 25-man raids by tweaking the difficulty and making it "easier" to form an ad hoc group

They went with option 2. They never could seem to understand that raids still took more time than a lot of casual players could invest. They still couldn't wrap their minds around the idea that some people hated raiding. And with a lot of other questionable decisions in Cataclysm, it was just one more thing that started to make people wonder whether WoW was the game for them.

What worries me is that Wrathstone seems designed to specifically reward only those who play dungeons for the hack and slash mechanics with story that, let's be honest, most of them are going to skip through. If you're one of the few who likes to group in 4-man dungeons and get the story, good on you. But starting the yearlong story in a 4-man unsoloable-even-if-you're-amazing dungeon leaves a lot of us high and dry. As @Zos_Finn pointed out, it's not something they'd ever tried before.

Essentially the argument is really simple: it's not something they should be doing as part of Season of the Dragon.

Wifeaggro13 · February 2019

MikaHR wrote: »

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Jhalin wrote: »

This isn’t skyrim 2.0, this is a multiplayer game

Group content should be encouraged, and anything that discourages or disincentivising grouping should be dismissed

Here is what James Ohlen had to say about SWTOR after being game director (former, left mid 2018.) for SWTOR for over 10 years and SWTOR being on its last legs now:

"With Star Wars: The Old Republic I wish that I pushed a little bit more toward making it kind of Knights of The Republic online rather than “Star Wars World of Warcraft.”

And you can go play Wildstar, that game was made specifically for you....oh wait.

James ohlen just developed a bunch of single player games . He was never considered an MMO genius What killed swtor was greed and corporate big wings calling the shots. Personaly I'm glad all the fathers of the MMO genre have moved onto creating niche true mmos

cheeseaddict · February 2019

the simple fact is main story lore is hidden behind dungeons that solo players don't have access to because they chose to play SOLO is bulls%$t.

Reistr_the_Unbroken · February 2019

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

show previous quotes

MikaHR wrote: »

Jhalin wrote: »

This isn’t skyrim 2.0, this is a multiplayer game

Group content should be encouraged, and anything that discourages or disincentivising grouping should be dismissed

Here is what James Ohlen had to say about SWTOR after being game director (former, left mid 2018.) for SWTOR for over 10 years and SWTOR being on its last legs now:

"With Star Wars: The Old Republic I wish that I pushed a little bit more toward making it kind of Knights of The Republic online rather than “Star Wars World of Warcraft.”

And you can go play Wildstar, that game was made specifically for you....oh wait.

James ohlen just developed a bunch of single player games . He was never considered an MMO genius What killed swtor was greed and corporate big wings calling the shots. Personaly I'm glad all the fathers of the MMO genre have moved onto creating niche true mmos

“Greed and corporate big wings”
So basically every gaming corporation.

Linaleah · February 2019

MikaHR wrote: »

When WoW was released all "hardcore" EQers and such were spitting and laughing at it for being "some solo casual cr@p that would fail so hard its hilarious"

Whos laughing now?

But...WoW and story....no one played WoW for story because both presentation AND stories are not worth playing....show me single player who read quest dialogues in WoW.

AND WoW had to make "LFR" because raid content wasnt worth making unles at least some population over 0,01% plays it.

I wish ESO didnt waste $$ on things not worth making like raids.

<--- player who reads quest dialogues in wow. I'm not the only one btw.

just saying. there is a reason Blizzard keeps expanding lore and store and cutscenes. because a great number of their players DOES play for the story (and its quite involved actualy, and they keep improving their story telling too, but even in vanilla, there were stories that legit made me cry when I played them, "Pamela's doll"..). and that's while most quests are not voiced. ESO? even more so.

Sylvermynx · February 2019

Olith wrote: »

show previous quotes

Jhalin wrote: »

This isn’t skyrim 2.0, this is a multiplayer game

Group content should be encouraged, and anything that discourages or disincentivising grouping should be dismissed

Why don't you explain that to the developers? They made the main campaign for the whole game, the one where you fight Molag Bal in the end, solo and solo only.

No kidding. And since I can't complete most of it solo, and I can't bring along a friend without mega-ping to help.... well.... it's a real issue for me.

Actually, the definition of MMORPG is:

Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) are a combination of role-playing video games and massively multiplayer online games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual world.

As in all RPGs, the player assumes the role of a character (often in a fantasy world or science-fiction world) and takes control over many of that character's actions. MMORPGs are distinguished from single-player or small multi-player online RPGs by the number of players able to interact together, and by the game's persistent world (usually hosted by the game's publisher), which continues to exist and evolve while the player is offline and away from the game.

"Interacting with one another" doesn't really mean "grouping". That's something that's injected into the game by various developer choices. And since the FIRST dev choice was a solo only main quest....

To return to an earlier post I missed somehow:

MikaHR wrote: »

When WoW was released all "hardcore" EQers and such were spitting and laughing at it for being "some solo casual cr@p that would fail so hard its hilarious"

Whos laughing now?

But...WoW and story....no one played WoW for story because both presentation AND stories are not worth playing....show me single player who read quest dialogues in WoW.

AND WoW had to make "LFR" because raid content wasnt worth making unles at least some population over 0,01% plays it.

I wish ESO didnt waste $$ on things not worth making like raids.

I played WoW for nearly 8 years. I played it mostly as a solo game (same issue with this game as well as RIFT in between WoW and ESO: MEGA-ping....) and I read every quest dialog with which I was presented.

I play games. That means I read the story info, the dialogs.... the books.... the extraneous information. I found the WoW story interesting though not particularly outstanding - but that doesn't mean I didn't read everything. I really think those who state "no one reads all that crap" probably don't know how to read themselves....

GLP323b14_ESO · February 2019

H3IIi0N wrote: »

No. Don’t need it. Saw someone mention LOTRO. LOL. Worst game I’ve ever had the misfortune to test & play.

Normal dungeons are soloable in eso. You don’t even need to be BIS min maxer to do it.

Lotro is great for it's excellent story telling, well put together and considered world (largely thanks to Tolkien), and its vast landscapes.

If its performance was better it'd be an excellent MMORPG.

Supposedly they are working on a 64-bit client to improve performance.

Diminish · February 2019

Reistr_the_Unbroken wrote: »

Sorry the truth hurts sweetheart, but it’s not just a MMO.

It is advertised and sold as an MMORPG. To this day, it is still classified within the MMO genre everywhere you look online. So, sweetheart, it is an MMO; sorry the truth hurts. You want a single player RPG, go play one, there are many available.

GLP323b14_ESO · February 2019

Diminish wrote: »

show previous quotes

Linaleah wrote: »

My comment is mature; I'm sorry the truth hurts. The reason why this is a terrible idea is because then they need to allot resources to creating this "solo-instance". Different boss mechanics, different difficulty, different/no item drops, etc. etc. This is an MMORPG! Resources should not be spent catering to solo players when a large portion of the game is a broken mess as it is; they should use those resources to actually fix what they have. If you or anyone else wants a solo game, go play one.
Sorry the truth hurts sweetheart, but it’s not just a MMO.

It is advertised and sold as an MMORPG. To this day, it is still classified within the MMO genre everywhere you look online. So, sweetheart, it is an MMO; sorry the truth hurts. You want a single player RPG, go play one, there are many available.

Darlings darlings! No need to get all passive aggressive with one another.

Can't we all just agree here that Reistr_the_Unbroken is right. ZOS marketed ESO as a hybrid of MMORPG and Single Player Elder Scrolls that would appeal to both crowds.

See, problem solved.

Tarmika · February 2019

I haven't read the whole discussion, but I totally agree with the OP. Some sort of a solo/story mode would be great for many reasons. One of them is learning dungeon mechanics. In a simple way, but it would still show players what to do in this dungeon so they would be more prepared for a normal 4-player version. Especially with the dlc dungeons that are not hard if only people want to think a little about mechanics.

andy_s · February 2019

I am a group player and I hate when normal dungeons/trials require a minimum amount of people to pass certain places/bosses. Anyone (in a proper build of course) can solo dragonstar and blackrose on normal difficulty which are 4 man trials, but making normal dungeons not solo'able is bs.