The Solo disease?

[AdaraaKatsumi]

Should fully read alot of their commenting. Which is why they get the hate. MMorpg are about the COMMUNITIES and these two solo'ers can't seem to respect that. Idm they solo, but not act like a snob when asked for help or to join in on fun group content. Which is why most ppl dislike solo'ers.

I have gone through the three pages of rants from both sides and figured to throw my two gil in. Sorry if I offended your very minimal in-game play time to interrupt your monopolizing of time on forum posting with my opinion.

[BruceyBruceyBangBang]

To the OP, I commend you for going solo. That is a great feat that most players in MMOs do not do and I respect that in you. I for one cannot do it, but we all are different in playing styles. I say enjoy the game how you want to enjoy it and just take the negative rants from the haters here with a grain of salt. The haters on the boards here are campers on the forums and should be camping the Battle Warden instead.

I for one can and have soloed a lot of things in the game so far, and I do agree there has to be a good amount of skill there, but it's inspired all by a design flaw. People who solo things that are designed for groups know very well what they are doing and they know that they are exploiting something.

Half of it is the skill of the player and the other half is the ability to identify exploits in terrain, skills, and character builds. It is a skill, but not in the sense of how it was intended and developed for.

[ZephyrAM]

Creating content and entire MMO's that allow both soloing and grouping is entirely possible, games with just that scaling system even already exist. Unfortunately, a side effect of such is that the content, to different types of players, is either too easy or too hard both ways, solo and group. All-grouping-all-the-time MMO's aren't being created anymore. Why? Because solo players are far and away 'not' a quiet minority anymore.

Which means that the 'deal with it or leave' mentality that is oft expressed may very well get flipped back around at the speaker one of these days.

In truth, it's even more important for there to be soloable content in games with character systems like FFXIV's Armory, because grouping is focused around each member specializing in one particular aspect of play, whereas the Armory system is designed from the ground up to allow the mixing and creation of whatever type of character you want. By nature, it supports cross-talent characters that don't do as well in groups and excel at solo just as much as it supports specialized defensive, offensive, or support builds.

'Massively Multiplayer Online' means only one thing: massive amounts of players interacting in the same online world. And we do just that, from the moment we log in until the moment we log out, we exist right alongside everyone else in the game world (server).

[Ayerc]

Creating content and entire MMO's that allow both soloing and grouping is entirely possible, games with just that scaling system even already exist. Unfortunately, a side effect of such is that the content, to different types of players, is either too easy or too hard both ways, solo and group. All-grouping-all-the-time MMO's aren't being created anymore. Why? Because solo players are far and away 'not' a quiet minority anymore.

Which means that the 'deal with it or leave' mentality that is oft expressed may very well get flipped back around at the speaker one of these days.

In truth, it's even more important for there to be soloable content in games with character systems like FFXIV's Armory, because grouping is focused around each member specializing in one particular aspect of play, whereas the Armory system is designed from the ground up to allow the mixing and creation of whatever type of character you want. By nature, it supports cross-talent characters that don't do as well in groups and excel at solo just as much as it supports specialized defensive, offensive, or support builds.

'Massively Multiplayer Online' means only one thing: massive amounts of players interacting in the same online world. And we do just that, from the moment we log in until the moment we log out, we exist right alongside everyone else in the game world (server).

I agree with your post 100%. I'm very excited to see how S-E handles the armory system going forward with job implementation. They'll have the tools in place to support both play styles equally well. And if they do pull it off, there may be hope for this game yet.

[Dubont]

Despite all of the negativity, it is my personal opinion that if you want to solo, solo, but don't complain when you can't solo something that was clearly designed for group play. An example of this was Great Buffalo before the nerfs. If you can solo him, great! Good Job! But if you can't, don't demand a nerf of the NM because a group of 4 people can take him down easily and you can't because you decided to solo something that was at a group content level.

[Asmeret]

I don't understand why people really have to ask the question, "Why play an MMORPG if you're a soloist?" I love to play in a party with my friends, and I love to level solo as well. Obviously you shouldn't be able to do everything in the game by yourself, and need to party up with other players at times. If I ever saw a soloist complaining that they wanted to be able to do everything in the game on their own, I would laugh at them. However, I don't see why people think all soloist are anti-social either... After reading half of this thread, I can tell a lot of you kids don't know what being social means.

[Kilta_Firelotus]

I don't understand why people really have to ask the question, "Why play an MMORPG if you're a soloist?" I love to play in a party with my friends, and I love to level solo as well. Obviously you shouldn't be able to do everything in the game by yourself, and need to party up with other players at times. If I ever saw a soloist complaining that they wanted to be able to do everything in the game on their own, I would laugh at them. However, I don't see why people think all soloist are anti-social either... After reading half of this thread, I can tell a lot of you kids don't know what being social means.

the OP stance is to have a solo-able mmo as he/she doesn't wanbt to group up at all and will do it if they have to. Which is why most of the replies have been negative wjat OP said was a slap in the face of the community.
Pretty much the vibe I got from TDJ is this "i want to play mmo, but i do not want to play with other ppl" kinda of an oxymoron.

[Seraphite]

If you like to play alone....

...why did you decide to play an MMO?

[CrystalWeapon]

I enjoy a bit of both. Personal preference: I like to train solo, but kill bigger things as a group. I'm not against grouping with others, in fact I love being social, but sometimes you do want to go off and do your own thing. One thing I hated about XI was that it was a little bit too group oriented.

It's a really hard thing to balance b/c if you allow everyone to solo everything, chances are no one will want to group together. Why make the effort if you can do it yourself. On the other hand, if you make things too hard, the people who enjoy doing things on their own are screwed and will be forced to pair up on things they need done.

Really what I'm hoping for is that they keep the casual play such as smaller quests, leveling, crafting, minor nm's and the such easily soloable, but they add in tougher content/events/endgame that require a group effort in order to complete.

[Vanguard319]

I will join parties if invited, but I am primarily a solo archer, I see it as a way to push my limits, since parties almost always will hunt a specific type of mob, (i.e. one that dies quickly, and gives high xp/sp.) but if I can solo a mob that is a considerably higher level, and within a reasonable timeframe, I am likely to learn new strategies and combat skills, which I can then apply to parties against very high mobs that I can't solo.

In short, anyone can do alright in a group, but to find your true skill, you have to go it alone at some point.