Why do people want solo play in an MMORPG?

[Nix]

I wouldn't mind "Story missions with Boss fights to be with a Light/Full Party" Why call it a "boss" if you just going to kill his wimpy behind solo style? The in-between quests should be soloable, but Boss fights should at the very least be a light party ( 4 players)

Solo doesn't have to mean easy though, think of RDM maat for instance. There were a LOT of people that had trouble with him, he was solo, he wasn't easy for a lot of people.

I wouldn't mind light party stuff for storyline, I'm totally not opposed to that.

Like it was stated earlier in the thread though, solo really doesn't have to mean easy. You can have VERY challenging and fulfilling solo content that can test your skills. 1 person doesn't = hurr let me just go cast stone and I'll watch a pretty CS after.

[Jeronlmo]

There is some misconception that solo = easy. Albeit if you have content that has no requirement (solo or party) you may find doing quests designed for solo play easy in a party or quests designed for a party hard solo (you can get around this of course through systems that force values).

However again, solo != easy. That is fault to the designers and not fault to the idea itself. You can make extremely difficult solo content, or really easy.

I dont really care how difficult the content is so long as the quality of work required and the amount of work itself matches the reward.

1.0 slow solo leveling was not the way to go at least when I played, rather you could get a party to max level in a day just by powerleveling (I avoided most of these because I wanted to level my characters once the game got better - so I only have 3 level 50s, and I focused small income on one).

The idea of something solo... is obviously just 1 person, content where you rely on nobody but yourself is easier than any content where you have to rely on 6 people, 6 people doing the right thing is always going to be harder than 1 person doing the right thing.

[Nix]

The idea of something solo... is obviously just 1 person, content where you rely on nobody but yourself is easier than any content where you have to rely on 6 people, 6 people doing the right thing is always going to be harder than 1 person doing the right thing.

Not entirely true again - Solo you have no safety net, you cannot make any mistakes but if you make a mistake as a party, you have other people there to help pick up the pieces.

[Shougun]

The idea of something solo... is obviously just 1 person, content where you rely on nobody but yourself is easier than any content where you have to rely on 6 people, 6 people doing the right thing is always going to be harder than 1 person doing the right thing.

No its not. If you rely on yourself and you go in WAR - who is going to raise and cure you?

If you go into a party with a great group the content (at least for me) has always been easy. Everyone nails it and if someone dies like the tank you just mix it up and pull a wanky raise tank revival.

There are different challenges between solo, light, and heavy groups - but intrinsically that doesn't make one superior to the other in difficulty.

[LicontAshontear]

Oh I almost forgot. Something alot of people need to keep in mind is that a game that is heavy party play forces the community to not suck. In FFXI if you were a douch/ninja/botter/ w/e then word would get out in the community and that person wouldnt get invited to anything anymore. If the game is too solo friendly, it will promote bad behaviour because they know they can get away with it.

Also on the same subject, will 2.0 finally conform with the majority of new age MMO's and make each individual player have their own loot?

[AdorraEloom]

ARR will cater to both types of players, ones who seek grouping and ones who seek solo play, with plenty of content for both types of players. So everyone will find their "Style" of play in ARR.

[Orophin]

I've played MMOs in my free time for many years and for me the biggest amount of pleasure has come from hanging with a really small group, like 2~4 people (close friends, husband etc) and just knocking out content where we could.

I was in a static group in FFXI with a full party's worth of people I knew in either RL or through extension of my RL friends. It was some of the most fun I ever had, even though we only played about 2 hours a day.

Casuals are 100% required in MMO's to have a functioning economy. Casuals should just stop trying to dumb down content so the game can be completed by them (I am not refering to the story line, all should complete that).

A Casual is usually someone that has little time to play, not someone unskilled at the game.

FF11 the content lasted years and people loved it, as in 10yrs of planning to keep gear relevant and to keep these people who never stop playing always busy, the content never ended because it was well designed for everyone.

The content lasted years because it took a minimum of three days to gather enough crap together to fight Kirin only for it to take you three years to totally gear every person's main job in your LS thanks to the RNG lottery. Don't confuse by-design time sink with great game design.

[Nix]

Oh I almost forgot. Something alot of people need to keep in mind is that a game that is heavy party play forces the community to not suck. In FFXI if you were a douch/ninja/botter/ w/e then word would get out in the community and that person wouldnt get invited to anything anymore. If the game is too solo friendly, it will promote bad behaviour because they know they can get away with it.

Also on the same subject, will 2.0 finally conform with the majority of new age MMO's and make each individual player have their own loot?

Each player does have their own loot, but at the end of a dungeon Linkshells will pass loot between each-other since the caliber of the drops are quite high. It'd be really crap to go in there and get heavy darklight body and let the person with only 50 WHM keep it. Usually there's a loot order unless it's a pickup run.

[LicontAshontear]

ARR will cater to both types of players, ones who seek grouping and ones who seek solo play, with plenty of content for both types of players. So everyone will find their "Style" of play in ARR.

If they try to cater to everyone I don't think it will go very well. I read about their "Duty Finder", and while the concept is great, I would wait to see how dungeons/endgame content is going to be to decide if a Group Finder is a good thing or not.

If dungeons are too difficult then a Group Finder is going to be a hinderance and will probably not be used by most players.

If dungeons are too easy then the Group Finder will be used constantly and the content will get old fast.

Finding the right balance is IMO too difficult. Pick a side and stick with it.

[KyahAlmasy]

Maybe they mean, they don't like being "forced" to party whenever they want to get something done. Not that they don't like parties at all.