Solo play: I'm interested.

ValiumSummer

I solo almost exclusively.   The few times I participated in any raids playing WoW I was berated and screamed at by irate 14 year olds because I "suxored".

I was excited about this game as it was being developed until I learned about its raid heavy content and lack of solo play.

I noticed the advertisements proclaiming "new solo play!" and I'm wondering if anyone has been able to enjoy this new "solo play".

Winter is comming and the days get long and dark here in Alaska.   I need to find something to play soon!

apocalance

I have a friend at work that I talk to about DDO frequently. We both started playing in beta and shortly after beta, I was finished with the game. I couldn't solo and it just sucked because I often times like soloing. Sure I like playing in small groups as well, but I really wanted to be able to solo, even if it meant I had to play a specific class. Anyway, he says he can take a character up to level 7 by himself now. There's a lot of rinse and repeat of dungeons, but I guess that's to be expected.

By the way, the new solo content wasn't meant to give you solo content all the way up.

FYI: if you carefully read the full update notes, they've made, you'd see this:

"Quests in the Harbor have a new option available to you, opening up solo gameplay during your character's earliest levels."

So they've made the HARBOR quests have a solo option. Personally, I would say if you already own the game. Give it a shot again. They have one new race, a few new level 5-6 dungeons, and it sounds like there's quite a bit to do.

(Re-reading your post, I don't think you currently own the game, thus I'd say that dropping $50 on DDO is a bad investment. For some reason I got the impression you already bought it but were turned off by the lack of solo play in the game.)

Keep in mind, raiding in DDO is like 12 players. That's nowhere near the 40+ raids of other games. You might have fun in DDO long enough to hold you over until something else comes out.

Just my 2¢.

TheFranchise

"I was excited about this game as it was being developed until I learned about its raid heavy content and lack of solo play."

I don't consider groups of six people max "raid heavy content." There's only three quests in the game that are raids, and two of the three the 12-man raid parts aren't even 50% of those two quests. The first half of those quests are still 6-person max.

There's not much if any "you guys suxor" in the game. Not saying something like that can't happen, but the community is mature enough that most people who don't get along in a group use the ol' "sorry, gotta go, my guild needs me" excuse and then leaves. It's funniest when they use that excuse while in a group containing some of their guild members.

Solo play is probably not what people expect. Another recent thread in this forum berates DDO's solo play as just being watered-down regular play. Well, I guess that would make it about on par with WoW's watered-down solo play then. If someone thinks they should be able to solo South Threnal or VoN or the vampire or (insert quest here), then all the quest would indeed be is a watered-down version of what it should be since it should already be designed for a group of four players.

You can solo a lot in the game if you play below your character's level, but when a quest is designed for a group of four, you can't expect to solo at the same level very well without using good tactics and/or having a good character. Even duo'ing makes things way easier than soloing.

And, really, with the built-in voice chat and LFG screen, why solo if you don't have to. I found the game 10x more fun once I stopped soloing so much. DDO does some things well and does other things not so well. Give the free trial a go and see what you think. That's what free trials are for.

MuppetHero

I stoped playing this game about a month ago. I did love it. But it just got old. I think its funny that NWN can get lvls up to 40 but this game has trouble getting it you up to lvl 10. In beta they promised to raise the LVL cap this summer and notta. I cant imagine what the people at lvl 10 are doing. It dosent take that much to get there.

I am going to play it again. But I think i will give it a while.

Elnator

Solo play is a farce to get more people to try the game in the hopes that they'll stick with it past the 7 day trial.

There is no meaningful solo play in the game at all.  Period.  End of Story.
There is nothing to do while waiting for a group so if you can't get a group quickly you're basically sitting around doing nothing.

Nuff said.  DDO is a fun dungeon emulator but nothing more.  And it's certainly not worth a monthly fee. 

fiontar

I think the sad thing about DDO is that even for those who "play as intended", you basically have to repeat the same content over and over again. If you want to solo, multiply that grind by ten. How is this really that different from the old MMORPGs where you had to grind every level?

The audience for DDO would still have been a niche one if they could have stuck to the grouped quests, but had enough content so that you never, ever had to repeat any quests as you advanced. At least then you could say the game was not a rip off for those who desired forced grouping with no MOB grinding. Still wouldn't be a viable MMORPG game model, but I could appreciate it as a good niche title.

However, they designed a game for a tiny niche audience, then still were not able to provide enough content to sufficient value for the buck for that niche. I question whether the content even warrants the box price, let alone a monthly fee. It's shameful.

DevilHawk

I have to agree with fiontar on this. I had high hopes for DDO as I am bored to death with WoW, SWG went to crap, and DAoC is just to damned old. I couldnt even stomach DDO for entire first month. The game is good, if you have a group of friends who can log in at regular times to do quests.. if ya dont, its just a huge waste of time.

I hate to down this game, but its just the truth. I'd say the game might be worth the box price, but sure as hell isnt worth a monthly fee. Lack of content, lack of solo play.. etc

Teleboas

---

Originally posted by fiontar
I think the sad thing about DDO is that even for those who "play as intended", you basically have to repeat the same content over and over again. If you want to solo, multiply that grind by ten. How is this really that different from the old MMORPGs where you had to grind every level?

The audience for DDO would still have been a niche one if they could have stuck to the grouped quests, but had enough content so that you never, ever had to repeat any quests as you advanced. At least then you could say the game was not a rip off for those who desired forced grouping with no MOB grinding. Still wouldn't be a viable MMORPG game model, but I could appreciate it as a good niche title.

However, they designed a game for a tiny niche audience, then still were not able to provide enough content to sufficient value for the buck for that niche. I question whether the content even warrants the box price, let alone a monthly fee. It's shameful.

---

Yup, I just quit playing recently myself.  The endgame consists of something like this :

Run Instance A until you ransack the chest(s) you're going for.

Wait a week, rinse/repeat.

And you do this to 4-5 different instances every week.  After you finish those, there's not much else left to do for the week besides rolling more alts.

apocalance

It's my opinion that rinse and repeat dungeons are the bane of all current MMO's that focus on PvE.

(Some folks actually enjoy that aspect of the game as long as they're getting desirable loot.)

All of these MMO's that rely on the 40-man raids are even worse than DDO though because they require a lot more coordination to achieve what you were achieving in DDO with fewer folks and probably having the same experience with only fewer turds in the punchbowl with DDO.

nynniva

Here was my problem -

I typically want to duo with my boyfriend in MMOs. We messed with DDO a bit, and you COULD solo/duo ( he played a warrior, I played a cleric ) but you were not compensated for the time taken in doing so.

Lets say a team of 6 does a dungeon and at the end, each get 1000 xp. Okay, fine. We can do the same dungeon with 2 people and we get what? 1000xp. It isn't worth the trouble. If the dungeon XP/rewards were divided by the number of people you have in there ( in this example, 3000xp each?) it would be more worth our time.

I like to play games where 'great' teams can get better rewards than a 'mediocre' team - and DDO is definitely not that. Just having a warm body who only half knows how to play their character is more helpful than an empty spot simply because the rewards are exactly the same if you drag someone else along.

I don't think low level solo content is what this game needed - There really wasn't a lot of content that COULDN'T be done in a duo - or even solo if you were an appropriate class and made use of consumables. It just wasn't worth your time to do so. I like the challenge of doing a 6 man dungeon with 2 people, but the reward isn't worth it.

TheFranchise

Nynniva makes a great point, and I don't understand why xp-per-character wasn't implemented into the game.  I assume it'd be hard to program since, because xp isn't given until the end of a quest, six people could run a quest, then five drop out right before the end, so then the last person gets 6x the xp for "soloing" the quest.  Then again, they have it where if a person comes in late to a quest he gets docked percentage of xp until x amount of time has passed, so a part of xp-per-character is already in use.

On that same note, since quests are (supposedly, like in PnP) designed for a group of four, there's no reaon to not makes things easier and always use a group of six.  If the xp is the same, you may as well have a six-person group instead of four.

apocalance

In most MMO's, people find larger groups less rewarding than smaller groups on a quest/reward basis. Developers have a speed at which they want you to be able to progress, so if you're in a larger group, you may get less XP in some MMO's. So if Turbine decided to weigh XP, they might give current XP to two person groups and penalize larger groups for their superior numbers.

However, there is another option, larger groups can be challenged in DDO by simply upping the dungeon difficulty, which is a pretty cool concept.

The challenge of a normal instance isn't there for a full group, agreed. But full groups who are there for the XP are missing the challenge that you and your boyfriend are experiencing.

Play for fun, not solely for the reward. Yeah, XP is important, but it's no big deal in DDO right now, right?

Just my 2¢.