World of Warcraft Will Now Let Players Do Solo Raids (arstechnica.com) 20
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: After 20 years, it's now possible for solo players to finish storylines in the massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft that previously required a group to do an intensive raid. That's thanks to "Story Mode," a new raid difficulty that was added for the final wing of the first raid of the recently released The War Within expansion. Over the years, developer Blizzard has expanded the difficulty options for raids to meet various players and communities where they are in terms of play styles. The top difficulty is Mythic, where the semi-pro hardcore guilds compete. Below that is Heroic, where serious, capital-G gamers coordinate with friends in weekly raid schedules to progress. Then there's Normal, which still requires some coordination but isn't nearly as challenging and can typically be completed within a few tries by a pick-up group. The most accessible difficulty is Raid Finder, where you're matched with random players automatically to complete a vastly easier version of a raid. Now Story Mode has been added to the mix, and it's even easier than Raid Finder.
In Story Mode, you fight only the raid's final boss, which has been scaled back in stats and complexity so that it's beatable for a single player or a very small group of friends. Challenging encounter mechanics have been removed, and the whole fight has been retooled to focus exclusively on the narrative aspects. There are some rewards, but they're not the same as those on more difficult raids; the goal was to avoid cheapening the experience for those who do want to go all the way. So far, Story Mode is available exclusively for the newest raid, which is called Nerub-ar Palace. It hasn't been made available for other encounters yet, but Blizzard has hinted that this could be the long-term goal.
In Story Mode, you fight only the raid's final boss, which has been scaled back in stats and complexity so that it's beatable for a single player or a very small group of friends. Challenging encounter mechanics have been removed, and the whole fight has been retooled to focus exclusively on the narrative aspects. There are some rewards, but they're not the same as those on more difficult raids; the goal was to avoid cheapening the experience for those who do want to go all the way. So far, Story Mode is available exclusively for the newest raid, which is called Nerub-ar Palace. It hasn't been made available for other encounters yet, but Blizzard has hinted that this could be the long-term goal.
Still collecting 20 bear asses (Score:3)
I played quite heavily through the first three expansions or so, and went on a hiatus for the Pandaren. Then came back for the next two, but ever since then...whenever I have tried to get back into the game, I'm always miffed after the Grind with collecting 20 bear asses begins. Especially from the special species of assless bears.
Yes, they have done lots of improvements over the years to get rid of most of the annoyances (like the drop rate issue), but whenever a new expansion lands and I pay for one month of playtime, I just have gotten bored so damn fast that haven't bothered. Happened with Battle of Azeroth, Shadowlands, and Dragonflight.
At least I'm glad that my guild is still around.
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Shadowlands time and grind gates got too much for me
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World of Warcraft is one of the most expensive video games on the market. You must pay to buy it, pay for each expansion, pay 15 bucks a month to play it, and on top of all that there are optional things you must pay even more money to buy in the game.
Of course, they get away with this by virtue of being one of the most popular games on the market. The king of its genre. Despite many criticisms of its formula, they are clearly doing something right, at least from a business perspective.
Personally, I pref
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I quit it when I realized every expansion is just a reset with the same exact grind repeated every time. "Oh boy, they replaced elves with leprechauns, now they are replaced with lemurs..."
coming soon (Score:2)
a brand new gaming experience we call it boutique mode, it provides every single player a unique experience, all by themselves.
Very wise decision (Score:3, Informative)
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Those idiots made shadow raids in person only so only organized groups ever do the ones beyond the soloable levels. Half of the gyms seem to be clogged up with these damn group shadow raids. The dynamax raids seemed to be soloable until beldum so back to hoping you run into a group by luck.
Excuse me? (Score:2)
So, doing single player is cheap and not going all the way?
With an attitude like that, why would I be interested in playing at all?
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Re: Excuse me? (Score:2)
Re: Excuse me? (Score:2)
Lots of people hate the MM in MMORPG. All I want is the RPG, I have zero interest in playing a game with internet strangers. By doing this, Blizzard is expanding their audience.
The secret is out (Score:2)
People suck.
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Nothing like being screamed at by an antisocial kid because you weren't born knowing a boss fight and you dared to make a mistake.
Leeroy Jenkins (Score:4, Funny)
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To offer a little context, the "plan" that the team was discussing wasn't just doomed, it was a farce. That specific room requires a lot of knowledge and coordination to beat, and there are several mistakes which, if made by even one player, results in the full party getting wiped out. Their plan was to deliberately make each of those mistakes.
So the irony is that Leeroy didn't actually ruin anything, despite the fact that what he did would, under any other circumstance, ruin everything.
Runescape (Score:2)
Runescape has had story mode (actually called this) in quest lines for people to introduce them to a boss fight and let them finish the quest for a while now. Damage to the player is usually reduced and hp on the boss also reduced. Most bosses are soloable anyway.