There is a difference between accommodating solo play and saying solo players should be able to take part in every facet of the game though. Building settlements and settlement warfare frankly is one of those area's which I don't think can realistically be accommodated
Goblin Squad Member
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@Eaghen
Hi! :)
If you had to guess at a percentage, of the player pop, that would want to build solitary structures or single handedly develop villages, what would that number be?
I googled current number of subscribers to Eve Online and what I found indicates around 300k accounts. Decius is a little more optimistic and guesses in the millions (and nothing would please me more!)
However many subscribers PfO winds up with, I think the percentage of people who might try to build their own little fiefdom would have to be a function of how hard the developers made it to start, grow and sustain. I imagine a large percentage would consider it. I'd also imagine the developers would have to make it hard enough to discourage a large number of those people...after all, Decius has a good point about overcrowding. It should take time, work, resources and perhaps most importantly dedication to achieve.
I bring all this up because I'm not keen on joining groups led by people who have more time than sense. I've experienced too many times the disappointment of putting lots of effort into helping a group grow, and ultimately seeing it disintegrate (and my efforts go to waste) because of factors completely out of my control. And frankly, I don't have the time to lead such a group myself...it is a tremendous commitment and my priorities lay elsewhere. I want a game I can play 5 or 10 hours a week that lets me build something tangible without being dependent on anyone else to sustain. I'm ok with some risk, even the possibility of catastrophe, but it should be something that can be recovered from without having to completely start over again.
A persistent world ought to make some accommodation for people who want to go it alone, and offer some of the same sorts of persistent achievable goals to individuals that are available to groups.
I can fully appreciate the frustration of putting a lot of effort into something and seeing it fall apart. Hopefully, settlements in PfO will be so difficult to build, maintain, and require such populations that the disappearance or dissolution of the leadership will not be the end for the settlement.
IMO, to have special protection for solo or group builders, so that they would not lose all, is not really part of the plan. Diligent management, planning and safeguards are your only hope. You can truly lose it all.
There will be accommodation for solo players in many aspects. Not everything will be achievable by solo play though.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Lee Hammock: Hi, I'm Lee Hammock. I'm the Lead Game Designer at Goblinworks.
Stephen Cheney: And I'm Stephen Cheney. I'm also a Game Designer at Goblinworks.
Can I play the game Solo
LH: [laughing] That is a fantastic - I love that question.
SC: [laughing] You shouldn't do that, you're going to die.
Too much honest for the Holidays, gentlemen. Let's try it again!
Haha, wow. That there might be the rawest, and at the same time funniest, game developer answer to an interview question ever.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Even at 300k players and a tenth of a percent, there's 300 Solo Owned Buildings.
At some point I'm going to have to suggest Minecraft or something else well-suited to solo construction.
By the time 300k subscribers is reached, the world should be of sufficient size where 300 or even 3000 solo buildings would be a drop in the bucket. If such a number of solo buildings were untenable due to the size of the world, then 300k subscribers would also be untenable.
Eve has approximately 7500 planets, probably as many moons, as many asteroid belts again, and untold vast areas of empty space between each of them.
I can't imagine where it would be impossible to find a balance between # of players who want to go solo and sufficient space for them to do so. Especially for a team as capable as Goblinworks.
Minecraft? Seriously? :)
One final thought. I just read through the blog where the devs are saying this world will be geared towards group play, with solo play potential either on the periphery in support of groups engaged in settlement building, or in the pursuit of wealth. Meh. But I'm reserving judgment. Early enrollment is slated for about 12 months from now, followed by approximately 18 months of continued fundamental development supported and (hopefully) guided by an active but limited user base. Plenty of opportunity for more discussion on things in general :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Despite a recent disagreement about a game that seemed to punish soloing rather harshly, I agree with Being that there should be room for solo play. I don't think that soloable content is necessarily easy content or that it will inevitably lead to everyone ignoring the "Multiplayer" part of MMORPG.
We're a social species, so we usually enjoy interacting with one another. I tend towards introversion, but still, I continued playing many games well beyond my personal interest simply because I had friends who were playing regularly. Still, even within a community one enjoys, schedules don't always meet, so even extroverts are likely to end up trying to solo a bit. If that option is truly impossible and my options are to suffer the company of fools (the way an average PUG feels, regardless of actual foolishness) or just log off, I'll probably become sick enough of the former to increasingly tend toward the latter. That's corrosive to long-term gameplay, because less involvement and less interest become cyclical.
I think it is in the best interests of all players to keep others playing in whatever capacity they can. Cooperative boardgames (or their app versions) like Castle Panic and Forbidden Island can be played solo, making the challenges different but not lesser. There are also ways to make asynchronously multiplayer games like many browser-based ones.
I see how "don't do that, you'll die" is a simple answer, but I think it's also a glib one. Development time and money may require a simple answer early on, but I don't think it's a good permanent assumption. Regardless of the design assumption, players will seek to solve soloability themselves if options are not offered, causing the roles or role-blends who do it best to become too prevalent. That generally results in players of other roles calling for nerfs constantly, making the community unnecessarily antagonistic.
Will processing resources and crafting be of sufficient interest to provide solo gameplay? Can challenges be constructed in such a way that a solo player can 'slum' in a less challenging area that doesn't become so rewarding that everyone prefers it or so low-reward that it's irrelevant? UO seemed to manage that, often enough, and it had a relatively flat power curve as PFO is supposed to.
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Goblin Squad Member
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When I read "solo play or content" in a sandbox MMO, I don't think the person is asking to be able to do group content solo. I also don't see it as saying, I don't want to play with others either.
There is already solo content planned for in PFO: Crafting, Settlement Management, *Exploration, etc.
These are activities that don't necessarily require being in a group to do. Now, to Exploration which I marked.
I believe there are many advantages to being a solo explorer, provided that the game mechanics has a somewhat common sense Mob Aggro system. I had written about this a long time ago, but the signature radius (sorry to use an EVE term) of a solo character should be significantly smaller than that of a group. Add to this that a solo built explorer would likely train in some stealth skills and advanced skills for movement in wilderness terrain, the solo explorer should be very viable.
I think both players and GW will be surprised by the solo play that PFO will end up having. GW may be surprised by how many players will want it. Players will find is surprising how often they will end up doing it, while they wait for a group to form for some other activity.
It is MMO, not MCMO (Massively Cooperative Multiplayer Online).
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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We have confusion about what "solo" means, I see. Crafting, settlement management, investment banking schemes, and market manipulation are all non-solo aspects of the game.
I don't think there will be a complete lack of orcs to go out and kill by yourself; I think that 'kill some orcs' doesn't provide the gold, loot, and experience rewards that are typical for theme park MMOs.
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Goblin Squad Member
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We have confusion about what "solo" means, I see. Crafting, settlement management, investment banking schemes, and market manipulation are all non-solo aspects of the game.
I don't think there will be a complete lack of orcs to go out and kill by yourself; I think that 'kill some orcs' doesn't provide the gold, loot, and experience rewards that are typical for theme park MMOs.
You are confusing solo with complete isolation, when it comes to crafting, settlement management and investment / market gaming.
I did not say those are done in isolation from any other character involvement, they are none the less, solo activities.
When I craft a sword, I don't need anothe player to pump the billows, and another stoke the furnace with coal. I go to a work station, take out my materials, and begin crafting.
Did I need someone to gather those materials, and put them in the market? Yes
But crafting is still a solo activity, it is just not done in isolation from the broader server community.
I believe the spirit of the OP's question is, will I be forced to group in order to participate in a meaningful way in this sandbox MMO?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't think there will be a complete lack of orcs to go out and kill by yourself; I think that 'kill some orcs' doesn't provide the gold, loot, and experience rewards that are typical for theme park MMOs.
About the other stuff I agree, but the gold? Where is new gold going to come from if not mobs and quest rewards? I would think mob farmers are going to be the people introducing new money to the economy.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I suspect that the per-person coin rate will be much higher for groups doing group things than for individuals; in most MMOs that is reversed (except for players soloing group content).
Everything else listed requires coordination with other player in order to be effective, which is enough for meaningful player interaction.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I suspect that the per-person coin rate will be much higher for groups doing group things than for individuals; in most MMOs that is reversed (except for players soloing group content).
Everything else listed requires coordination with other player in order to be effective, which is enough for meaningful player interaction.
You seem to be coming form the belief that here will be a good deal of group content, in the form of PVE. Other than perhaps a few, randomly spawning dungeons, the escalation cycles are the primary form of PVE content. I would imaging that they lower tiers of an escalation cycle can be dealt with by a number of solo characters (ie a non coordinated attack, but by several people disassociated from each other).
I belief the Devs had mocked the idea of going solo because they were thinking in the context of either raid dungeons (the few that there will be); upper tier escalation bosses; and or PVP.
Traveling around solo, in the wilderness, the greatest threat will come from players and a majority of them will probably travel in small packs.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It will depend on what my goals are and what Im doing at the time. But I expect I will solo a decent amount of the time. Im pretty sure I can cross Me vs Group PvP off that list (Probably...... but I do PvP like a Boss ^.~).
And I don't expect I will be soloing any dungeons, though it honestly depends on how dungeons are set up. And if there are some class archetypes (or combos) that just solo like beats or not. If I can work my way through one and pick off targets 1-2 at a time, It might take a while but it wouldn't be impossible. Now if there is no way to avoid having 6 Goblins jump me at a time........ yea, no solo dungeons for me. Aside from boss mobs, I can solo my way through most NWO and GW2 dungeons.... Then again most modern themepark games have easy mode PvE. Its not like the old days when mobs would just run up to you and 1 shot you.
Ultimately I imagine most of my solo adventures will be exploration and whatever stray mobs I find. Though as a bandit Ill likely approach the rare solo player for a SAD, or fight....... Whatever it turns into :b
I don't think anyone is looking to be able to accomplish as much as a coordinated group effort will. Instead, I think people looking for "solo" play are simply asking if they will be forced to join groups in order to accomplish anything worth while.
Personally, I plan to join companies of combat-oriented players, along with a settlement to call home. I plan to do mercenary work (that doesn't conflict with CG alignment) as well.
But I also plan to spend a great deal of my time exploring the world in an opportunistic fashion. Not looking for something in particular, but always paying attention for anything that I can take advantage of. I'll be combat oriented for self defense, but I'll also train myself in the ways of gathering and crafting. Searching the world for people that need help, evil that need vanquished, resources that need gathered, and economic shortages that need filling.
I image that other players are looking for a similar experience to be supported, where groups are the most efficient method but by yourself you will be able to explore, gather, craft, and fight within reasonable circumstances.
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In my favorite mmo, I loved to just wander and explore then jump into any fights I happened across, often times healing or reviving those who were losing. To be able to do that would be almost a requirement for me to play.
I guess you could say I like watching people go about their funny ways and mostly interacting from a distance for the most part.
Then I'll join up with a group for a dungeon or two.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I image that other players are looking for a similar experience to be supported, where groups are the most efficient method but by yourself you will be able to explore, gather, craft, and fight within reasonable circumstances.
This I certainly see, In general I do expect solo to be possible. Though with an obvious opprotunity cost. The total rewards you can get, are of course going to be notably lower, (IE going for the individual nodes, vs taking a full harvesting site, having to pick and chose a handful of stragler enemies, vs taking on the encampment etc.... having a tough time at 10th "level", taking on a batch of enemies that would be an average fight for a group of 4th-5th level, etc...
As well as of course, higher risk... IE 2 bandit players come out... and bam you are at 2:1 odds against yourself. a powerful wandering monster pops out of the wood works, you are doomed, etc...
The key thing is, it needs to be that way for grouping to be the expected gameplay, and not the 10% exception.
Where I think most MMO's do it wrong is, they generally scale it with a very close ratio, so that say in a group, you will obtain at best, 110%-125% of the goods you would solo. Which while it sounds better at first, we then factor in that you spend 20 minutes finding said group, which then makes it more or less only a net gain, only after about 2 hours or so with the group, which drives less people to play in groups, which makes finding a group take 45 minutes, which drives even less people to play groups etc...
So yes I do think soloing should certainly be viable, in some circumstances. But it does need to be at best, somewhere in the 15-25% as good as grouping. to avoid the vicious cycle.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You seem to be coming form the belief that here will be a good deal of group content, in the form of PVE. Other than perhaps a few, randomly spawning dungeons, the escalation cycles are the primary form of PVE content.
I thought every harvest site would be spawning PvE encounters as it continued to operate, and along with harvesters we'd need player guards to keep harvesting. Did that change?
If it didn't change, I'll bet harvest sites will be the majority of PvE content and group content as well.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I seem to recall that there will also be growing threats caused by the spawning of creatures in certain hexes. That is most definitely PvE, and helping to tackle the build-up of kobolds is a mission that could be undertaken individually (taking out one or two at a time) or en-masse (a major concerted sweep of the hex by the sword-swingers and spell-flingers).
I am hoping that most tasks will allow solo players to have a meaningful impact, even if that isn't brutally slaughtering dozens of orcs whilst armed only with a knife for peeling fruit.
I don't want to clear entire dungeons and fight whole tribes of goblins by myself, but I would like to be able to operate reasonably safely picking off small groups of NPC enemies who venture into the forest. We'll have to see how viable that is going to be.
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Goblin Squad Member
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There were some signs that several soloing adventurers thinning the herds at an escalation site could work cooperatively without formally grouping up.
Escalation hexes and the fallout from those are expected to be the primary PvE content.
I don't recall seeing anything yet to say that part of the plan is that harvesting a node may have a chance to trigger a reactionary spawn, but there isn't anything saying it won't either, sounds like a good idea, and there were statements suggesting it is a good idea to be prepared for combat when harvesting. Unknown whether the reason to be prepared is PvP, PvE, or both.
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Well, I would in ddo go through dungeons three to six levels above me and successfully clear them, not from awesome minmaxing but from intelligent play, drawing off enemies one at a time, drawing them near explosive barrels etc. But I hated getting to the end and having to abandon the dungeon because the boss was ten or twelve levels higher then everything else, always saw through my sneak, and would one shot me regardless of my defenses.
Intelligent play can allow the tackling of greater challanges more then minmaxing sometimes, but it is very dissappointing that the only place to find a solo challange is in dungeons with bosses that can simply and completely overpower any tactic and can only be overcome by higher level characters in a group, cause even a group of four at my level can't even challange some of the bosses I had to abandon.
That is what I want to avoid. I generally don't group in dungeons because I hate dealing with fools that just rush through the entire thing just to get to the boss and claim victory with no thought to tactics or intelligent play or even trying for a challange before the boss. And the exploration aspect as well, never could find a group that moved slowly and methodically through a dungeon even if they had never seen it before.
As Treebeard might say, "hasty."
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Goblin Squad Member
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That is what I want to avoid. I generally don't group in dungeons because I hate dealing with fools that just rush through the entire thing just to get to the boss and claim victory with no thought to tactics or intelligent play or even trying for a challange before the boss. And the exploration aspect as well, never could find a group that moved slowly and methodically through a dungeon even if they had never seen it before.
As Treebeard might say, "hasty."
IMO, the fools who don't know how to play as a team, comes as a consequence of the majority of the game being solo-able. When I started playing DDO, I ran into a bunch of bad parties, up to and through waterworks (Level 3-5 instance if I remember right). After that, they got rarer and rarer. By temple spire, virtually never happened. The need to party drove the mindless and bad players, either quit, or to learn tactics and work as a team.
Then turbine worked on popularizing the game. They added dungeon scaling and solo mode to prevent people from crying that they couldn't solo dungeons. They shortened the time and effectiveness of debuffs. (Blindness used to be until cured or you reach a shrine, gradually that went down to like a minute). Auction house to make sure everyone always had the appropriate gear for level.
The good: the game got much more popular, town was flooded with people
The bad: 1. Parties were rarer than previously, it went from a 30 second open up LFG, see a group my level hop in and start within 5-10 minutes. to, half hour wait to see a relevant group to pop up, then another half hour for it to fill. 2. The bad player rate went up. After all that waiting, only to have the run sabotaged by one player leroying the dungeon.
Now the exploring complaint I agree with you on, that was always present, it's the belly of the beast when you are looking at a game like DDO, in which the content is finite, the mechanics encorage/require making multiple characters and re-running the same instances. Thus on any given party of 5, 3-4 of them, have already run that dungeon multiple times, and have lost all desire to see what's hidden behind that corner for the 20th time. That particular problem is solved inately in random dungeons, in which traps and treasure locations, are not known to the group before entering.
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Yeah except to get a challange while soloing required much higher lvl dungeons on higher difficulties. (They added the solo setting just before my comp fried) I was literally running kobald assault and similar solo waiting to level up to unlock the higher lvl dungeons so I could solo them on hard as soon as the game would let me into them.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yeah except to get a challange while soloing required much higher lvl dungeons on higher difficulties. (They added the solo setting just before my comp fried) I was literally running kobald assault and similar solo waiting to level up to unlock the higher lvl dungeons so I could solo them on hard as soon as the game would let me into them.
Yeah, I'm trying to remember on my DDO history also if it was before or after solo mode that dungeon scaling went into effect.
IE dungeon scaling was, if you went in alone, all the enemies etc... were greatly nerfed. Basically negating the point of running a dungeon solo to chalange yourself. With the exception of elite mode, and dungeons with intentional requirements for multiple members (IE 2 buttons that have to be stood on at the same time etc...)
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Goblin Squad Member
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It would be cool to have the moon phases match the real moon and maybe give some boost to certain feats... When it's full moon, druids are OP. :). So that's once in every 28 days. :P
You read my mind... /jk.
I was thinking along the lines of usually the lone wolf becomes separated from the pack, the lone wolf knows a lone wolf is a dead wolf and the strength is the pack. So I'm not really in favor of solo with respect to it being much more inefficient, dangerous - though you can go solo to do things if you like and like risk etc.
Potentially on a full moon Druids might be able to operate more soley for this limited duration and limited frequency ie every 28 days or in-game moon cycle - not sure. It's thematic and provides Druids with an opportunity to go solo, perhaps transmogrify into a wolf so they can travel further and generally move around unhassled?
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The idea of a lone wolf being a dead wolf is not accurate. The lone wolf just has a harder time of things.
I don't mind encouraging grouping, I do have a problem with abstract, artificial, and implausable restrictions requiring grouping.
I am someone who has gone three to one, me alone and won. I hate games telling me I can't do something I can actually do in real life when the character is supposed to be more heroic then real life. Playing a character substandard to the real me isn't fun, even if that character is nothing like me.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It would be cool to have the moon phases match the real moon and maybe give some boost to certain feats... When it's full moon, druids are OP. :). So that's once in every 28 days. :P
This got me thinking, maybe there could be certain feats (passives) that can only be activated when you are solo.
It is often in MMOs that groups have available to the various group buffs or combined powers or effects.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Damn, so no moon dancing festivals in the grove with Being!
But Being, youll like the drama I bring, its bloody, its brutal, and its fun. And I promise no Napoleon delusions........... I only have Goblin delusions. But hey that's what you get when you are raised by Goblins aye?
You may have picked up there is little about me that is absolutist. I definitely enjoy grouping and belonging to a community, and dancing before the moon, playing a woodwind under an eclipse, and meaningfully placing stones and sticks in coherent geometries are quite in alignment with me.
I would respond to goblinesque drama suitably with ferocious glee: It is the soap opera sort that riles me.
Could someone well informed list here solo activities proposed on the blog ? many thanks !
Woot ! it Sounds Epic to my ears.... hehe
Seriously, i'm really interresting about the solo content... i believe i have on my mind some things could be fun, but i don't know if it already be plan or exists ...
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Goblin Squad Member
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It would be cool to have the moon phases match the real moon and maybe give some boost to certain feats... When it's full moon, druids are OP. :). So that's once in every 28 days. :PYou read my mind... /jk.
I was thinking along the lines of usually the lone wolf becomes separated from the pack, the lone wolf knows a lone wolf is a dead wolf and the strength is the pack. So I'm not really in favor of solo with respect to it being much more inefficient, dangerous - though you can go solo to do things if you like and like risk etc.
Potentially on a full moon Druids might be able to operate more soley for this limited duration and limited frequency ie every 28 days or in-game moon cycle - not sure. It's thematic and provides Druids with an opportunity to go solo, perhaps transmogrify into a wolf so they can travel further and generally move around unhassled?
Apologies for quoting myself, but to expand this thought:
1. Transmogrify means Druids cannot wear anything.
2. As per "Were"-wolf, they skill-train this ability for activation every full moon phase.
3. What's the reason? If Druids collect as a wolf pack and go hunt down some prey (other players) on the full moon, they get some sort of boon for the next full phase of the moon. And even some sort of bane if they fail?
4. So incentive to pull down some prey, act as a pack.
5. Perhaps they are stuck as wolves until they contribute to a kill or for at least a few hours of in-game time? I did watch the film The Grey not to recently but this is an independent idea!
=
@kenshi33 - I think you can do many things solo, but you take on more risk and in economic terms may be less efficient. But certainly exploration training up ranger skills sounds a good route to begin with if going into the wild solo. Be careful...
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Goblin Squad Member
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@kenshi33
OH MY GOD! You have a sense of humor! You are a magical unicorn!
But seriously: I still won't be able to make an actual list but the general gist is if it's not specifically concerning a number of people, like for example settlement, kingdom or company management, most of the things you will be able to do solo as long as you don't scale your operation up that it would require a number of people. So you would be perfectly capable doing missions/quests in the starting areas and around them or you will be able to gather lower end resources solo. I know this may be a useless statements as i'm basically saying small scale things are doable in small scale but i hope you see what i mean.
for sure i see what you mean, just having some difficulties to understand how they'll implement solo content in a such mass pvp world.
I'ld hope long term quests requiering scouting, crafting, important choices, combat tactics, or soloable dongeons... but i didnt read anything about that.
Solo is more a participation to the social, economic, productive organisation of your clan : i doubt there is really exclusive epic "content".
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Goblin Squad Member
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@kenshi33, you might check out the Video and Transcript for Can I play the game Solo?.
Hi Nihimon,
I did check the video, and we can't speak about specific "content for solo" on this speach.
Stephen Cheney told us what a solo player could do in PFO in extreme condition into the wilderness (and a large group do that better too). (monster bashing, harvesting, and others things).
Oh yes, I will feel a lot of stress and pleasure to do such things too, as i keep the reward for me.
But how can be longtime involved in the story of the game if we don't participate to large assaults on sttlements, or in dongeons ??
perhaps a long story line quest provides such a link with the background, and keep the player active too for his community as he's a bard, druid, hermit or such alone character on solo paths.
Maybe i'm wrong, but it's a path that does'nt be explain so much.
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Goblin Squad Member
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SC: Well, the first thing to get conveyed is that I'm also a big solo player in a lot of MMOs, but I think that a lot of it has to do with it not being easy to get into a group and being sort of reliant on other people who can ruin your fun and having to gather all the stuff and our goal on the whole for Pathfinder Online is to make it as painless as possible to become part of a group for both PvE and PvP. We want Settlements to actively recruit people, we want groups to be a really good idea and make it really easy to join up, and we'll have some other ideas on how that will happen later on in development. But in general, solo play is not going to be the thing that you have to do because you just can't stand anybody else. But as a solo player, you can still help out a lot if you're willing to take on a greater risk vs. reward because if you're going to be out alone in the wilderness, you're going to be threatened by bandits, and that's something you can do. But you can also craft locally in town, and that will be almost completely safe in most locations. That can be both refining resources and producing finished goods. Additionally, you could go out in the wilderness and identify locations, scout, report back and if you realize the location is safe, you can harvest there, you can fight stuff there and there'll be a lot of things you can do in the wilderness as long as you've basically covered your own back.
This point I disagree with, or at least from my own perspective and intentions. Unless that solo character presents a low risk, high reward image to me, they would have no more to fear from me than a caravan that presents the same ratio. As a matter of fact, the likelihood of a solo character being higher reward than a caravan is probably less so in most cases.
Stephen Cheney and the other devs can develope flags that further shift the attentions of bandits away from that solo player, if they chose to. If they tied the operation of a caravan to a PVP flag, that would make the caravan a better target for bandits, and thus shift attention away from solo characters.
I am planning on playing both a Bandit and a non PVP oriented, lonewolf traveler (explorer, gatherer, herbalist). So I come from the perspective of wanting both to be made equally viable.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@ Kenshi33
I support your desire to play solo and I hope you fight vigorously for that play style to be made viable. Perhaps you should suggest both PVE and PVP instances where solo play could be balanced within the risk vs. reward concept.
For PVP there could be specific types of flags that benefit a solo player in ways, unique to solo play.
The same could be done for PVE, where a solo character has a much smaller aggro attracting radius, making them less intrusive (detectable) explorers to the senses of NPC mobs.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Hi Nihimon,
I did check the video, and we can't speak about specific "content for solo" on this speach.
Stephen Cheney told us what a solo player could do in PFO in extreme condition into the wilderness (and a large group do that better too). (monster bashing, harvesting, and others things).Oh yes, I will feel a lot of stress and pleasure to do such things too, as i keep the reward for me.
But how can be longtime involved in the story of the game if we don't participate to large assaults on sttlements, or in dongeons ??
perhaps a long story line quest provides such a link with the background, and keep the player active too for his community as he's a bard, druid, hermit or such alone character on solo paths.Maybe i'm wrong, but it's a path that does'nt be explain so much.
I'd say it isn't explained, much because it isn't a priority. the blogs, depth etc... is based on where they are developing their time, resources etc...
The settlement building game, economics, etc... is the focus of the game. The escalation system, dungeons, etc... are secondary. The general concept of the developers for the game in it's entirety, revolves on 2 key things.
1. You make your own meaning for your character.
2. When you change the world, that change is intended to stay in place.
IE, when you deal with an escalation involving clearing out the ravenous kobolds away from area X. The intent is not that when you leave, instead of still seeing the exact same quantity of kobolds standing around for the next player to kill off. But to actually feel you've cleared the kobolds out.
The overall intent of the developers is not to create 1 consistant story that every player walks through, nor do they have time to possibly develop 500,000 unique stories for each person to walk through.
You will be able to solo, but it will 1. Be much harder, and 2. Will most likely not hold your hand and tell you what you are supposed to be doing.
@ Kenshi33
The same could be done for PVE, where a solo character has a much smaller aggro attracting radius, making them less intrusive (detectable) explorers to the senses of NPC mobs.
This idea sounds good, and make possible real exploration as well.
i don't know well enough the flag system to say if they need to create specific one for solo players...
the purpose of this post is just to balance the two gameplays, making it as fair as possible for everyone who choose to be most of the time in groups and those who prefer to live on they're side and enter a group when they decide to.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@kenshi33 -
There is mention of quests around Escalations:
If you've been following our dev blogs and discussions for a while, you've probably heard us say that Pathfinder Online is a sandbox, not a theme park. What that means is that our game isn't going to present a tightly scripted set of storylines or a large number of iconic locations or dungeons to explore. Instead, we're designing a game that generates opportunities for you to engage in activities or tell stories that interest you, based on the narrative you decide you want to tell with your character. That doesn't mean that we won't have PvE content—it just means that our world isn't going to have the sort of career-long quest chains or custom-built raiding dungeons that you might be familiar with from other MMOs. Instead, our primary vehicle for PvE content comes from events, not locations. We call these content-generating events escalation cycles.
[Note: Emergent Story > Narrative Story]
Escalation cycles do a lot of things for us. First of all, they bring a steady diet of PvE opportunities and stories to the player settlements. In a game where settlement loyalty and participation are some of the most important choices you make, we think it's important to have both PvE as well as PvP content based on those decisions, and escalation cycles bring dynamic quest content right to your doorstep. Since escalations need to be answered, they create a strong demand for roving bands of monster-hunters in most settlements—newbies who want to go collect goblin scalps will find themselves welcomed even in well-established settlements.
[Note: Constant demand for monster-slayers]
So you'll find something useful to do solo, but note you'll find some monsters/mobs more amenable to hunt dependent on what skills you've trained up to tackle them.
GW envision this as an apt way for players to grow into the game and/or specialize.
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Goblin Squad Member
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the purpose of this post is just to balance the two gameplays, making it as fair as possible for everyone who choose to be most of the time in groups and those who prefer to live on they're side and enter a group when they decide to.
The key to this idea, is they can't be balanced evenly. If an hour in a group = 1 hour solo, then 5 minutes looking for and organizing a group, puts groups behind. Leading to more soloers, making groups take longer to form as less people are looking for groups. Making it take 10 minutes to find a group, loop repeats, groups take 15 minutes, then 30, then hours. I've seen that feedback loop so many times, in so many different games I have darn near given up on MMORPGs. They try over and over again to make it even, but then don't factor in that organization time, is an inconsistent variable that changes based on time of day, seasons, etc... Then of course there is the variable of non-ideal groups, backstabbing, potential loot stealing etc...
Solo vs group, Solo needs to be balanced not against a good day in which you log in, and there is a great organized party waiting for you in which everyone is geared up and ready to go.
Rather it needs to be balanced against the low end of partying, IMO it needs equal problems in setup time, problems happening outside of your realm of control etc...
This can be accomplished as well within PFO's system as well. The world isn't going to be segregated where "If I go here, there's no chance of running into anything I can't handle". Instead you can go there, sneak around, attempt to find the right enemies etc... But still run the risk of "oh crap that kobold just yelled for help, now I've gotta fight 8x more kobolds than I was prepared for, or run away. Or oh crap I was jumped by a group of rogues etc... Or simply "crap I walked 20 minutes out here, and there's no enemies in my league around" etc...
The key issue with solo in so many games, is it is too attractive on the grounds that, 100% of the variables are in my control. I could get a party, but then I have to share the loot, the other party members might not know what they are doing, etc... Or I could make the same gain solo, with only worrying about myself.
The false assumption that making them equal is possible, is what leads to the regular path of the modern MMO being
Solo to cap, maybe have a few optional instances on the way which mandate partying.
At cap raid parties are the only way to progress.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@kenshi33, I would also ask you to consider this post from Ryan Dancey (Goblinworks Blog: I Can See for Miles). Specifically, the post talks about how the players of Ultima Online were very vocal in their desire for a non-PvP server, but once they got it, the game started losing players. What they didn't see was that the PvP made everything else they were doing meaningful.
I think the desire for solo content in PFO is similar. If there are things we can accomplish in PFO without having to team up with others, then those things will become less meaningful.
I'm not saying this to argue that everything should require a group - others have already pointed to a number of things that you'll be able to do solo. I'm just saying that solo content in PFO is likely to always be High Risk for a relatively Low Reward, and I think that's probably the way it should be.