Devs are killing soloing

[Draugris]

There is whole zone made for dueling and 1v1 matches. And guess what, none is going there. Like literally, only times were there is someone there is when some event make ppl go there. If your solo fun consist fair match and deep respect vs known enemies go there and have your fun.
But we all know that zone will stay abandoned cos solo play is most toxic game mode

Whats make solo so toxic for you? :>

I think what he is trying to say is that soloers look for victims not for opponents. I don´t think the RR80+ in BiS has much of a challenge killing that lvl 16 dude trying to get to his WB. That´s of course an extreme example but i think it is safe to say that you meet all kinds of different level and equipped people. So the question is valid why all the soloers who pretend to be up for the challenge are not there where the challenge would be.

[FeelFreeToDie]

There is whole zone made for dueling and 1v1 matches. And guess what, none is going there. Like literally, only times were there is someone there is when some event make ppl go there. If your solo fun consist fair match and deep respect vs known enemies go there and have your fun.
But we all know that zone will stay abandoned cos solo play is most toxic game mode

Whats make solo so toxic for you? :>

I think what he is trying to say is that soloers look for victims not for opponents. I don´t think the RR80+ in BiS has much of a challenge killing that lvl 16 dude trying to get to his WB. That´s of course an extreme example but i think it is safe to say that you meet all kinds of different level and equipped people. So the question is valid why all the soloers who pretend to be up for the challenge are not there where the challenge would be.

Yes. that is true for alot of solo players, but not all of us doing that. personally i dont touch lowbies until provoked, if i kill somebody once and notice that he is undergeared or not even trying to fight back- i'm not touching him again until provoked and i know that some soloers do the same :>

[nocturnalguest]

Well, it's quite obvious where this brought this server, isn't it? Forums are full of solo complains, it's become harder and harder to find any actual fights and even less against non meta classes/builds. Who will those "OP characters" fight when nobody will be solo anymore except them? When there won't be any decent fights to be found for hours or days? Genuinely don't get this mindset of "it's supposed to be unfair and toxic", maybe I'd agree on a big official server but not on a small passion project server because every person who leaves is someone who just moves on and doesn't return which in the end only hurts the population of this server. Do what you feel like but don't be surprised when there won't be anyone left in the near(?) future to farm.

Forums are full of solo complains because thats the only place left where you can high-light them. Majority of population is not on forums and just dont post anything. Organised part of population (guilds, alliances, established groups) have many other channels for communication and people who are doing organised content use many other means to voice their concerns. Back in the beginning when discord wasnt so much mandatory and people used other platforms for communication forums were full of very high quality posts, feedback, game mechanics discussions etc. Nowdays they almost fully degraded into digital diary for soloers whinning.

Whole this topic is absolutely nothing new and going in circles with people questioning "why?!" however answer has been given numerous times already for past few years. answer is 1) rewards structure 2) campaign 3) killboard. Balance has so very little to do with all this, especially specific class balance.

Also it has absolutely nothing to do with devs (however they are surely theoretically capable of making things better but they all know how this game works, all play it in teams and in highly organised environments so i cant see how they can find a motivation to cater so much of actions for ~1% of solo population). Whole this "soloer proud honor codex" has been there since live and was a simple work-around for AoR devs not giving a flying f**k to indulge how people interact in game. RoR devs has clearly proved that all this honor codex worths s**t as unlike AoR devs they catered into soloers wet dreams way too much imo and literally just introduced a whole f***ing new map (!) for them to have their honorable fair duels. Want me to continue with explanations of why its completely empty for years? I dont think you will like the answer.

Whole discourse of searching causalities between class balance and solo scen is literally just painful to read. Its beyond me how ~40yo people still struggle to connect simple logical chains of cause-effect. Especially amusing to read posts with passive agression about people playing solo "meta" classes as if it wasnt always the case since the beginning of times... The dumber is only putting a blame into current situation upon regen items.

[salazarn]

Solo is dead and I don't think devs specifically killed it (sure didn't make positive changes though) but rather the playerbase ruined it. If everyone had more self respect, dignity and honor we wouldn't have everyone run around on meta classes with regen. The amount of times I didn't attack someone low hp and let them walk away just to have that person zerg me with an entire grp a few min later, being chased by an entire WB for minutes all the way into PvE, the corpse jumping and overall poor etiquette absolutely kills the soloscene. If I roam for 40h I can count on one hand the amount of decent people I've encountered who actually wanted a fair fight and not just to boost their egos. Before I quit right after mdps rework I had a WE log to Order to thank me for not attacking him in a 1v1 and we had some fights, or a certain someone who always blows me a kiss, some people who actually stop the fight we are having when zerged, coming back after losing or waiting for a rematch .. THOSE are the moments I solo'd for but over the years they became more and more rare to a point where I'd have to expect everyone I fight solo to be a clown because the chances are just that high. Especially ironic considering in this game you don't lose ANYTHING when dying and barely get anything from a solokill either yet so many are treating it as if your families lineage is on the line.

Sure, you can have your own opinions and views, but then people who think that's cute will take their OP character and just stomp you into the ground—it's that simple.
Red means dead.
If you want fair 1-on-1s, get organized—go to an area where it’s not too crowded, or head to the deserted arena they created just for you.
PvP is and always will be toxic; as soon as you enter the RvR zone, don’t expect anything—it’s just merciless, and that’s how it should be.
If you’ve been playing the game solo for a long time, you should just accept it.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

And that is why roam and solo is largely dead. Hope you have fun on your regen magus vs the 6man 2.2.2 now you bullied off the order roamers

[Bergbart]

im a choppa when play the game and very mediocry solo/pug food .
and no thanks The disk is to weird.

[Shieldslam]

Balance has so very little to do with all this, especially specific class balance.

Is that why there are so many dpshealers, stealthers and apparently now Magi running around? Years ago we had a considereable amount of melee dps, tanks and others running solo but a big part of those have been bullied off. How can you possibly claim the balance has little to do with solos choice of class when you constantly see FOTM rerolls abusing certain mechanics or classes?

Also it has absolutely nothing to do with devs (however they are surely theoretically capable of making things better but they all know how this game works, all play it in teams and in highly organised environments so i cant see how they can find a motivation to cater so much of actions for ~1% of solo population).

No reason to make any changes for other parts of the community when it doesn't affect your game it seems. Not everyone enjoys solo, as much as not everyone wants to blob all evening, but that doesn't mean that either playstyle is invalid and not worth considering. I also cannot agree with the "know how this game works" comment considering the insane and outright unbelievable changes we've seen over the years or in the recent reworks.

Whole this "soloer proud honor codex" has been there since live and was a simple work-around for AoR devs not giving a flying f**k to indulge how people interact in game.

This "solo codex" or whatever you may want to call it is not exclusive to this game. It's an idea for those who have some self respect and don't want to just win for the sake or winning but actually compete and seek out FAIR engaging fights. It's not some made up term for this game as it directly links back to hundreds or thousands of years of civilization and has been present for as long as video games are around, might be hard to grasp that concept when the underlying sentiment is "red has to die" though. It's essentially the equivalent of sportsmanship in modern competitions. It's the reason we have separate gender and weight classes in sports, or MMR/matchmaking systems in games. You may not agree or like it but there are, or were at least, quite a lot of people who agree with this idea and behaved in such a way, however barely anyone is left due to the mentioned reasons. There is nothing fair about dying to DoTs while dealing negative damage to a dpshealer or not even being able to touch a ranged class because someone decided melee classes don't need viable gapclosers, as little as dying in one KD from a stealther with no counterplay.
Players who were not looking for fair fights to an extended degree used to be called out and clowned on in chat and even on here, a certain infamous Shaman or Riposte Slayer or terrible WH come to mind immediately. Nowadays there's no standard anymore and "he who shall not be named"s behavior, amongst many others, is a clear sign that almost all dignity has left the solo scene. After all, not many solos are on here defending this mindset like I am but rather just stop without a word because it's not worth the effort.
This is what I'm talking about in less words:

Yes. that is true for alot of solo players, but not all of us doing that. personally i dont touch lowbies until provoked, if i kill somebody once and notice that he is undergeared or not even trying to fight back- i'm not touching him again until provoked and i know that some soloers do the same :>

Especially amusing to read posts with passive agression about people playing solo "meta" classes as if it wasnt always the case since the beginning of times... The dumber is only putting a blame into current situation upon regen items.

Regen items are just the icing on the cake and yet another way to abuse ingame mechanics. I used to run regen myself (well, a ring and chest) while being full offensive after some time just to not die to overtuned DoTs but that in return made any fight against someone who doesn't run regen an automatic win which in return forces that person to run regen too and so on. There goes a lot more into it and I do agree certain people always gravitated towards meta classes but I do not remember the scene being this dry and only being unable to quite literally find nothing else but the most meta classes in the past. But then again how could anyone blame someone for choosing to reroll to meta when having to deal with unbalanced garbage for an extended period of time, the choice is either stop entirely or reroll .. or simply become a punching bag which surprisingly some are fine with.

[nocturnalguest]

Spoiler:

Balance has so very little to do with all this, especially specific class balance.

Is that why there are so many dpshealers, stealthers and apparently now Magi running around? Years ago we had a considereable amount of melee dps, tanks and others running solo but a big part of those have been bullied off. How can you possibly claim the balance has little to do with solos choice of class when you constantly see FOTM rerolls abusing certain mechanics or classes?

Also it has absolutely nothing to do with devs (however they are surely theoretically capable of making things better but they all know how this game works, all play it in teams and in highly organised environments so i cant see how they can find a motivation to cater so much of actions for ~1% of solo population).

No reason to make any changes for other parts of the community when it doesn't affect your game it seems. Not everyone enjoys solo, as much as not everyone wants to blob all evening, but that doesn't mean that either playstyle is invalid and not worth considering. I also cannot agree with the "know how this game works" comment considering the insane and outright unbelievable changes we've seen over the years or in the recent reworks.

Whole this "soloer proud honor codex" has been there since live and was a simple work-around for AoR devs not giving a flying f**k to indulge how people interact in game.

This "solo codex" or whatever you may want to call it is not exclusive to this game. It's an idea for those who have some self respect and don't want to just win for the sake or winning but actually compete and seek out FAIR engaging fights. It's not some made up term for this game as it directly links back to hundreds or thousands of years of civilization and has been present for as long as video games are around, might be hard to grasp that concept when the underlying sentiment is "red has to die" though. It's essentially the equivalent of sportsmanship in modern competitions. It's the reason we have separate gender and weight classes in sports, or MMR/matchmaking systems in games. You may not agree or like it but there are, or were at least, quite a lot of people who agree with this idea and behaved in such a way, however barely anyone is left due to the mentioned reasons. There is nothing fair about dying to DoTs while dealing negative damage to a dpshealer or not even being able to touch a ranged class because someone decided melee classes don't need viable gapclosers, as little as dying in one KD from a stealther with no counterplay.
Players who were not looking for fair fights to an extended degree used to be called out and clowned on in chat and even on here, a certain infamous Shaman or Riposte Slayer or terrible WH come to mind immediately. Nowadays there's no standard anymore and "he who shall not be named"s behavior, amongst many others, is a clear sign that almost all dignity has left the solo scene. After all, not many solos are on here defending this mindset like I am but rather just stop without a word because it's not worth the effort.
This is what I'm talking about in less words:

Yes. that is true for alot of solo players, but not all of us doing that. personally i dont touch lowbies until provoked, if i kill somebody once and notice that he is undergeared or not even trying to fight back- i'm not touching him again until provoked and i know that some soloers do the same :>

Especially amusing to read posts with passive agression about people playing solo "meta" classes as if it wasnt always the case since the beginning of times... The dumber is only putting a blame into current situation upon regen items.

Regen items are just the icing on the cake and yet another way to abuse ingame mechanics. I used to run regen myself (well, a ring and chest) while being full offensive after some time just to not die to overtuned DoTs but that in return made any fight against someone who doesn't run regen an automatic win which in return forces that person to run regen too and so on. There goes a lot more into it and I do agree certain people always gravitated towards meta classes but I do not remember the scene being this dry and only being unable to quite literally find nothing else but the most meta classes in the past. But then again how could anyone blame someone for choosing to reroll to meta when having to deal with unbalanced garbage for an extended period of time, the choice is either stop entirely or reroll .. or simply become a punching bag which surprisingly some are fine with.

Nice post btw. Seriously

> Is that why there are so many dpshealers, stealthers and apparently now Magi running around? Years ago we had a considereable amount of melee dps, tanks and others running solo but a big part of those have been bullied off. How can you possibly claim the balance has little to do with solos choice of class when you constantly see FOTM rerolls abusing certain mechanics or classes?

You constantly see FOTM rerolls is what im saying too. You seen tanks, yeah sure, chosen was op af, just go thru some youtube videos of 1k str/tou/wounds ones hitting all magic dmg. People played that because it was strong. 2h IBs with GnM and fleshrenders hard countered dots classes and reign suprime, people played that because it was strong. Regen def maras were flooding lakes in off hours. People played DPS runnies even before it was cool, because they had AP drain and ranged snare always and were cancer even in their previous itteration, its just they havent been so easy mode as now. Magi has always been toptier solo roam class. People always go with a path of least resistance and pick strongest classes.
But class balance has indeed nothing to do with what lakes are from solo perspective - kills and KDR being the only rewarding behaviour along with meaningless campaign and transparent killboard having an option for "solo kills/deaths" combined are the main culprits for your ranting. Not class balance. Thats what i say.

> No reason to make any changes for other parts of the community when it doesn't affect your game it seems. Not everyone enjoys solo, as much as not everyone wants to blob all evening, but that doesn't mean that either playstyle is invalid and not worth considering. I also cannot agree with the "know how this game works" comment considering the insane and outright unbelievable changes we've seen over the years or in the recent reworks.

1. Im incredibly consistent with what i publicly say. Here is no different. Solo is one of game modes, always been. It never ever in AoR/RoR history has been anyhow "balanced". Whole game combat mechanics and designed interactions of archetypes are made in a way shoehorned into "teamplay" so its absolutely impossible to truly balance solo gameplay not ruining all other modes. You have to pick completely different design model which is widely present in modern MMO's - each class should have same amounts of selfsustain, cc and dmg capabilities. This was never the case for AoR/RoR design. Current rock-paper-scissors is the only possible approach in this game unless you fundamentally change whole game mechanics.
2. Point me any "insane and outright unbelievable change" made by devs from group teamplay perspective? I can instantly point you out only super minor completely unsufficient for majority of population nerfs that they made to cater to super whiny solo/pugging part of population - RoB nerf on RP, recent WE/WH nerfs.
3. Balance team will gladly implement any change that will affect only solo gameplay without creating issues in other game modes. Have you ever in this forum history seen anyone from soloers consider in their "suggestions" effects into other modes? No! Majority of soloers are arrogant, fragile ego and have close to 0 experience with group gameplay and just dont even know its meta and thus struggle super hard to think few more steps. Thats the harsh truth and actual reality and you cant mask it with your turned-up nose and meaningless "i dont zerg!1".

> "solo codex"

Solo roaming in the lakes is not about fair fights. Never was. Most brilliant part of solo roaming was going against all odds and still dominate. That was the most amazing part of solo roaming experience, to outplay as many opponents as possible. oRvR solo roaming is skilled gameplay as you have many unpredictable components and you yourself take all the risks to go against the odds.
Duels (1v1) is a different game mode, one of the most dumb, super lame, predictable and boring crap this game has. Literally on PvE levels. Thats the game of guessing your opponent build and then rock-paper-scissors. The only skill here is GCD management but its one of the least deciding factors here. If you know for sure how your opponent is built you can pick counterplay. Builds always carry this.
Codex used to touch mainly dueling issues. Dont interfere, /bow&jump etc. Here devs made a special zone and took time to fix bugs that provide ideal conditions for those absolutely FAIR 1v1, even crossrealm chat. Result? Zone is completely empty. Quite telling all you need to know about "fairness", "dignity", "honor" and other made up bulls**t ppl usually came up with in solo discussions.
Mark my words, if killboard wouldnt be counting results in arena it would be flooded with people like it was once introduced. People used to duel there even if there were tons of bugs. I suggest to think again about what cases your bad feelings about solo scene nowdays. Some current DPS RP wouldnt be solely sitting in PvE for KDR surely knowing that DB screenshot is the only source of proof. You could alt+f4 to save your fancy addon scores but you simply cant do that with transparent killboard. How many alt+f4 have you seen recently?
Riposte slayer, shaman and even that WH are behaviour models that were always with us since the beginning of times. Nothing changed a tiny bit. Because thats people psychology, not devs or class balance. And you can clearly see in last solobitz a mara that was waiting for a duel to end. So no, not taking your words for granted, its just your grumbling of green grass and blue sky.

> regen items

Im actually not in a mood to go in circles on issues that are completely obvious but pop out each time with irritable frequency. Ill just say, that regen items are solo scene saving balance lifebuoy currently to overcome game combat design and selfsustain issues on many classes as there would be completely no diversity on classes present, it will be even worse then now to roam around on anything but ranged DPS healer. It will never ever be that bad for solo scene if those are out of the game. Also in no way its anyhow OP as regen hardcounter is burst in this game so to kill something with lots of regen you have to build to burst. As for your exact example, any player doing solo is making choices, in a game of rock-paper-scissors you pick offensive build and few regen items to counter dots. Thats fine. Your opponents that didnt pick any selfsustain option and lost to you have to blame themselves only. They came unprepared.

There is an other approach - drastically decrease TTK increasing damage, pick any none ranged DPS healers for this. Solo meta will be most frontload burst classes. Regen will be pointless.

Or make everything unbalanced like it was in original game. Not sure you know, but just recall AoR solo roaming scene with odjira, CW/RD etc. You could literally kite a warband on decked out SnB IB thru few zones. Or kill one on a slayer. AoR was completely NOT BALANCED, to a point of absolute disaster. But! In its chaos, i agree with Sinisterror here, it was mighty fun. But, for example, Sinisterror is one of the very very few lads who is not confusing FUN and BALANCE when talking about AoR/RoR stuff. And you have to pick one here, its not possible to have both so be more precise with your wishes. Unless you, for example, find fun in perfectly balanced chess