Guild Wars and Solo Players

Why is that a bad thing? Some of us don't have time to join groups.

Or, to ask the question a different way:

Would you rather have solo options in GW2, or more people quitting your group?

I dont know i soloed all 3 chpters and the expansion With exaptance of 1-3 missions overall dont seee a problem

Like everyone else, I can only make guesses. I was chatting with a few friends a few nights ago about this very subject. We were asking ourselves, "How will Guild Wars 2 keep its user-friendly 'solo' style, while also moving to persistant areas?"

None of us could really figure out if they could do it, and if so, how would they. Then we had a brain storm.

What if they provide users with the option? Consider it similar to switching between Normal Mode and Hard Mode. Example: Before you venture out of an outpost, or town, you toggle to "Solo" (or it could be named non-persistant..whatever hehe) so a player can farm in peace, just like we do now. Players who desire to move in large groups, play alongside greater numbers, and battle for territory rights, can toggle to Persistant Mode.

I certainly don't know, programming wise, if that could be done. But I could see it as beneficial. I can say, for myself, I'd make use of both modes.



Anywho, I've gone way off-topic from the OP and I'm sorry. I will say that I agree with him though. That as each new chapter has come more challenges for the h/h player. I prefer it that way though. I don't want to be able to complete every mission, or quest, or area in a single try every time. Having my butt kicked without mercy now & then keeps me on my toes and brings my ego back down to ground level.

I guess it's okay if you don't like conversing with people. Seriously though, aren't we anti-social enough considering we are spending our time playing this video game? =P

I would rather go with groups since I don't buy online games to play by myself.

I am actually hoping for something exactly along these lines. It'd be like having a choice between New Coke and Classic Coke: you'd have the option to play Guild Wars the "old-style instanced way" or the "WoW-like" persistent world way.

Now, that would be innovative for an MMO. Except that we all know what happened to New Coke...

And I agree with a poster above who likes the way henches patiently wait for you if you have to tend to real-life issues for a few minutes.

I, too, have kids and other commitments. The current option of working your way through a dungeon with henches -- who happily dance away if you have to go to do other things -- really works great for me. (I also really appreciate the fact that idle toons do not get booted from the server the way they are in WoW. )

I should add that the difficulty issue is highly debatable, I agree. I only mentioned it because it sometimes seems ArenaNet is taking Guild Wars in a less solo-friendly direction. Henches and Heroes are a great option for solo players. I really hate to see them go.

So guild teams are overpowered then?

7 heroes cant do anything 8 players cant. Infact since players get pve skills they have the advantage.

7 heroes doesnt unlock some godly team build, it wont be anymore powerful than 8 players.

Balance isnt the issue.

Not everyone purchased it to make friends with people ingame.
Not everyone purchased it to pug ingame.

It was advertised as a game you could play solo, thats why I purchased it.

If you still want to pug you can. There are others who also want to pug.
There are also people who want to play solo as well. And doing so isnt the wrong way to play the game. Both solo and pugging should be viable.

I just want to see all online games steer away from forcing party play in any area. Everything should be soloable for those that prefer solo play. While GW has a H/H system, it doesnt work in every area of the game. Im not talking about elite areas, I dont care about or play them much, I mean parts of the normal game in HM like Eternal Grove and Dzagonurs Bastion. From what it seems, Anet believes all of the story line content in GW is solo friendly, which just shows how unreliable it is to believe that all of GW2 will be solo friendly too.

Forcing players to play with others will destroy computer games for a lot of people. Those of you that enjoy playing with others wont understand why, only people that play solo will.

The name of the game is Guild Wars. I don't believe going solo should be an option. Also, it was advertised as a team game (which is what it is).

I hate it when these threads get trolled by twats telling me Im not allowed to play my video games on my own.

/Goes to play maple story instead.

Edit - the name of the game, Guild Wars refers to the GvG part of the game. Where do you see Guilds fighting each other in PVE?

Personally i hope they don't scale things to party size.

I like the missions having a certain amount of difficulty, gives you a reason to ask a guildie for help etc. Would suck if a group of 4 guildies got together to do a tricky mission, only to find it got 4 times harder.

Well I don't speak for the rest of you, but I'm waiting to rant about GW2 until after it's released.

That isn't any fun. I mean by that point we've actually experienced the game and would have a way better opinion of what its like. Why would we want to formulate our opinions based on concrete information when we could do it today using the vague information given to us?

The game was advertised as soloable from the beginning. The game is soloable (by and large anyway) and Anet is well aware that failing to make GW2 soloable would be financial suicide. Many people don't have any interest in playing games with people they don't know. Providing options to allow those that enjoy teaming and those that don't to both play the game is wise, and is exactly the way GW was designed. Don't like it? Go buy a game that requires people to play together. This isn't one, nor is it ever going to be.

Actually no, no it wasnt.

I quote the holy text of the Prophecies Box

So it was advertised as a game you can play solo.
This has also been supported with the addition of heroes in Nightfall, and again with heroes in GW:EN.

Heres what I expect:
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Ad...g_Fellow_Guide

A companion wont ever be as good as H/H though.

All GWEN does is make it more important in the type of build you give to your heroes for the particular dungeon/mission you are going on. This is to prevent boredom of the same hero builds being able to take on anything. So, you have to be "intelligent" to be able to get past some of these quests/mission areas. If you think you can rely on everything you've done in the past to work everywhere then that is where you are ignorant.

It's important to pay attention to what the mobs/npcs/bosses are throwing at you in these places. Then if you wash you have an idea of what you need to build or take from the henchie group of choices to be able to defeat the area. Most people probably or don't want to pay attention to these details and then they end up on some forum whinning about how hard solo is in some areas of the game.

There's not an area I can't beat with heroes and henchies if they give me a full compliment of choices. I may bomb one or two times, but, I eventually get thru all of them. To me Torment was a lot more deadly and those damn Rain of Terrors than anything else I've encountered so far.

I'll give ya a little hint. Protective bonding hero Monk and one of your other heroes using Blood Ritual and you can pretty much take on anything if you know how to pull and maintain agro. I run in UW with this type of setup with just me and 3 heroes. Protective bond still works if you know how to use it and other heroes as well.

According to a preview of GW2, it will actually ENCOURAGE solo play with buffs. What buffs? It wasn't specified. But I can only hope that things are done right to keep solo and team players happy. Some of us actually finish missions far faster solo than we do with a team who have different ideas on how to finish a mission.

LOL yeah my 1440x900 wouldn't be able to handle 7 hero panels, let alone someone on 800x600

I agree with you on that, but you are missing my point. I am all for using intelligent builds to counter particular obstacles and/or dungeons and/or monsters. But, generally speaking, a party of live players doesn't have to do much research to counter Cyndr, they just go in and mop up. A solo-er has a much bigger challenge -- and in this particular mission (and others like it) -- the disparity between the "live"-group and h/h-group difficulties is especially wide.

It is not the fact that going solo can be harder that bothers me (I expect that), but that, in many cases it is inordinately harder due to the way a boss or dungeon or mission is designed and the limitations of hero/hench AI. I can recall some quest early in Presearing Prophecies that required two players to open some gate or other. I recall thinking, "well, this really stinks." I was afraid the rest of the game was going to be like that, but fortunately, it wasn't.

Be that as it may, my main concern in all of this is where ArenaNet is headed in abandoning the hero/hench feature. I do not want a game that forces players into an "LFG hell" the way WoW does. The answer Blizzard (and other players) always gives is that you can do other stuff, like quests and crafting, oh boy. Well, sure. But I did not appreciate having important areas of the game (the dungeon instances) effectively roped off from solo players: "Sorry, you need a group here. No admittance."

I am not ranting about GW2, by the way. I am sure it will be a fine game, as is WoW, though it may not be the game for me the way GW1 is. I do think it is worthwhile talking about what features you hope ArenaNet will retain while they are still developing, designing, and refining GW2 as opposed to waiting until it is released.

I believe that, in an interview Jeff Strain once gave, the henchmen idea was added relatively close to the release of Guild Wars as an added inducement for solo-oriented players. Thus, if ArenaNet "listens" to these boards (and I am certain they do), the time to talk about such likes and dislikes is now.

So far, I have heard that GW2 is jettisoning several of the features I really appreciated most about Guild Wars 1 from a solo-player perspective, including the wide use of instancing and the heroes and henchmen. I just hope GW2 is as accessible and open for solo players as GW1 has been. The standard WoW-ish MMO model for dungeons and groups really stinks, in my opinion.