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How about GW2 Solo-ability?
heimdall22
Member UncommonPosts: 76
Guys, I'm just wondering what do you think about solo-ability of upcoming GW2?
Let's say that I am the kind of guy that tends to play at odd hours and quite often I'm on "stand by", which basically means i don't know when i have to drop the game on a quick system.
Because of that I tend to play solo or join groups only if it's made in a solo-friendly way. To give you a quick example, I used to play WoW and I concentrated on dailies/battlegrounds, which in case of emergency i may drop relatively easy.
I know some may rise the argument that i should stick with single games, but there's plenty of MMO aspects that I really enjoy
(unpredictabilty of pvp, crafting, playing on the auction house , roleplay, character customization, etc.)
Based on all of the the informations I've read so far seems like a perfect game for me, especially with dynamic events system, but I'm really afraid that it might be group oriented at the endgame (dungeons or raids kind of thing).
Do you have any information about that that somehow i missed?
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone elses opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation
Comments
I get the impression GW2 is going to be very friendly for all playstyles (except maybe the really hardcore types). So yeah, I think it'll be pretty solo-friendly.
Well from what we know of the endgame your way of gaming would probably work well with hotseat-join-at-any-time pvp arenas and the WvW pvp. Dynamic events also, like you mention. The dungeons seem to be design for 5-person teams where every person is important and teamplay is key. That doesn't sound like it would work as well with your style of play however we don't know yet. The competative e-sport pvp 5vs5 will probably not work for you if you have to leave suddenly.
Due to the way the quest system works, this game will be very solo friendly. All questing can be done with Ad Hoc grouping, as long as you make a 'favorable attempt' in the Dynamic Event you will get rewarded regardless if you are present when the event is won or lost.
sounds like 90% of the game will be right up your alley.
My theme song.
There's a lot of things you can do at end game... dynamic events is one of them, and they are PERFECT for drop in/drop out play, the way they've been explained. You get bronze/silver/gold depending upon your level of participation, and if you drop out, the event scales back down so the remaining people can complete it. Even if you fail the event, or leave in the middle, you still get rewarded.
Minigames and the 5v5 (non-competitive) pvp should both fit really well with that sort of thing. 5v5 pvp will probably be going by pretty fast. I know that 4v4 random arena PvP matches is how I used to spend quick little bits of time in GW... like if I had a few minutes, I could do a couple matches, then quit when I have to leave (It helps if you can stay at least 2 extra minutes to finish the current round, but you can drop out in the middle if you're not tooooo bothered making people cry with your absence.
)
WvWvW PvP, where three servers battle out for a week is just as perfect as dynamic events for drop in/drop out play, and you can totally do that at end-game.
So far, it seems like this game works really well for soloers, or people with limited time... though they leave a lot of ways to do team play.
The 5 man dungeons seem like the part that might be the hardest to drop out right in the middle of... so you might want to hook up with a guild of people who are really understanding about that, like a guild full of parents of babies or something.
As long as I understand somebody might have to run, I'm pretty understanding, for example. I've had to suddenly drop out of occassional FPS matches because of baby emergencies (Waking up in the middle of the night), so I understand how RL can interfere in a lot of ways. There's other people in MMORPGs who should be just as understanding, just hang out with adult guilds.
I noticed you made the same thread at SWTOR board and I have to say, at this point GW2 looks to be a better choise for heavy solo play, like explained in this thread you can join and drop out of events without pissing anyone off and still getting rewards. SWTOR will have great "solo" personal story, like GW2 too, but end-game at this point seems better on GW2 for solo player.
Edit: "unpredictabilty of pvp" I noticed no one mentioned there's no world pvp in GW2, but there will be in SWTOR depending on the server type you join, if this is not a huge case GW2 still looks better for very heavy solo play, at the time being at least (I'm kinda hoping Bioware to announce "public quests/events" there too).
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone elses opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation
There aren't seperate characters for PvP and PvE. What happens is that your level is scaled up to 80 (which is the cap) and you are given max level gear and skill for the duration you spend in competetive PvP.
I confess I did similiar thread on SWTOR, because that's two games im willing to try, although i put much more faith into GW 2 myself as well, considering the way I like and have to play.
What catches my attention about SWTOR is personal story thing (and if there's any company that know how do it, it's Bioware, at least based on their cRPG's), Star Wars universe itself (hey, were talking lightsabres here :-), companions system, space combat and few more details i forgot. But As I said, i'm way more convinced by the overall concepts presented so far by Anet and I'm pretty sure that it would suits me better.
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone elses opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation
No more seperate characters for PvP, that was for GW1 only. For 5v5 PvP, everybody is scaled up to 80 (Weapons and armor included), and for the WvWvW PvP, it's come-as-you-are. Supposedly they've designed it so even low level characters have things to do, missions they can run to help the overall war effort. It's the feature I'm probably most wanting to hear more information about, honestly.
It sounds so perfect I'm starting to get suspicious!
Also, GW2 has a nice dungeon system where the first time you run it, it's solo (You can bring friends, but you dont' have to), and you get a weapon token for it (It's repeatable in story mode, which means theoretically if you just wanted weapons, you could rerun a dungeon by yourself forever, haha.
) After that, it unlocks 5 man dungeon version, which is supposed to be the harder kind. Every time you run a dungeon that way (And there's multiple ways to do it after story mode, branching paths), you get an armor token token. A token can be traded for a single dungeon-themed piece of equipment.
Since there's... 6 armor pieces, you never have to run a dungeon more than 7 times to get every single armor piece + 1 weapon for it.
The BEST part of all, is that dungeons are only supposed to be equivalent to other methods of getting gear (Crafting, dynamic events, PvP), so it's just a possible way to get gear, and you wont' be locked out of higher end content by not being able to run a dungeon 7 times (Which seems like a relatively reasonable number of times to me. Especially with changing story. I think even as a parent I could manage this.
). The main reason to run a dungeon vs. anything else is either because you just really like running dungeons, or you want that specific armor appearance. 
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone elses opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation