Request: I don't want to solo the main scenario

[Biggs]

This is going to sound snarkier than I mean it, but it's a genuine bit of advice: if you really "want to suffer" you should pick up a Devil May Cry or Ninja Gaiden or Civilization and crank up the difficulty to full, because those are real, desirable challenges. When "challenge" is simply reliant on "hoping others don't screw up the strategy", it becomes a bit less so. When triumphing over a challenge is not reliant on your skill, it becomes, to a degree, "fake difficulty", partly defined as "The outcome is not reasonably determined by the player's actions."

Your compatriots are, essentially, fulfilling the roles of intelligent AI, and the outcome is not reasonably determined by your actions.

There is no reason your skills should not be able to be put to the test solo, if it different fashions. Yes, proper strategy can a test of skill, but so is handling yourself when the odds are significantly against you.

Besides all this, your premise is flawed: the idea of "more people = more challenge" isn't quite accurate, because it's all based on the inherent programming and balance of a game. Many games, more people = far less challenge. If you do simply desire challenge, and not an artificial means of forcing people to play together because you prefer to play together, then "more people" doesn't necessarily even come into play.

If your cry for "challenge" is indeed more along the lines of "I want more reasons for people to play together because I prefer to play together and not so much the challenge because I can get challenge solo properly tweaked", then that's fine too! Multiplayer content should be a rewarding experience in itself, and it can be without nerfing or limiting the experiences of those who wish to solo.

There were CoP runs in Xi that were way to complicated to run through with AI. There is every possibility that some of us want the combined challenge of finding a group of people and then overcoming something very challenging with them. I mean, I COULD play basketball with myself in real life, but I find it more challenging and enjoyable to do it with a team, since, you know, its a TEAM sport. THose of you that want to play a solo MMO go jump on the Star Wars bandwagon, thats pretty much who they designed that game for. The rest of us WANT to overcome difficult things in a group so that when we finally do overcome them and are rewarded for it, we have someone to hi-five. Instead of what you proposing, which seems to include just hi-fiving myself or an npc that follows me around and only fakes elation for my benefit. I like forming bonds and friendships, not sitting around playing with myself :P

Edit: A *short* list of aallllllllllll the things you can already do solo in this game:

Craft (forced solo)
Local leves (forced solo)
Gathering DoL (forced solo)
Gathering DoL leves (forced solo)
GC leves (forced solo)
Regular leves
Solo XP
90% of the Side quests


And you want to add another thing to this list?