Playing WoW with AI companions

Community General Discussion
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I’m sure this has been suggested before and I’m sure there will be people against this atrocity, but perhaps consider it from a loner’s point of view.

First of all, I play World of Warcraft for some me time. I like just setting my brain to zero, read up on some lore, pretending I’m the character I’m playing and just goofing around with quests and leveling.

Normal leveling is fine, but if you actually want to dig deeper into the lore, at some point you`ll have to partake in dungeons and raids. Great, but this is also where you are forced to play with other people.

I can already hear you think, why play an MMO then? Fair enough, but Guild Wars 1 had the brilliant idea of providing players with AI companions. Even WoW had some parts where you are followed by AI controlled companions that fight with you for some time.

Honestly, it wouldn’t be that much of a programmable hell for them to let me create a party of my own choosing and play with this group from the start. Let me do everything to those AI companions, I’d normally do with my playable character. The only difference here is that I can’t command them to do anything. This will all need to be scripted.

I don’t expect this AI to be playing like a highly skilled player, although, AI has come a far way. What I expect the AI to do, is provide me with an opportunity to play this game, with party members of my choosing; using my strategies and doing dungeons and raids when I’ve got the time for it. As an added bonus, as a loner, I get to experience the rich lore of WoW.

My argument is that, WoW is hemorrhaging players. They’re not what they once were. Not only is it getting more difficult to find proper players to play with, if that’s your thing, but it’s also a potentially smart alternative incentive for people like me to continue playing WoW.

I’ve decided to quit my subscription, because I got bored with doing world quests. The dungeons and raids is where it’s at. The tension and difficulty are a breath of fresh air in the otherwise way too easy quests you normally use to level up your character, but being forced to play with people, rather than AI, is something I would like to see altered.

I’m sure my post will not result in this changing how WoW operates at all, but hey, just wanted to add my 2cents.

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Since putting things bluntly is my forte:

Losing players like you is fine. It’s not Blizz’s job, nor should it be to cater to everybody.

Since its a multiplayer game they should be nudging you into group activities, not catering to your desire to play alone all the time.

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Clearly I’ve triggered somebody. “losing players like me is fine”. Oh boy.

My arguments are valid. I don’t want to be nudged into doing anything.

You can play WoW solo for pretty much the entirety of the game.

The only content you’re missing out on is the endgame.

And for the record, playing with elitist like you, is the reason I would rather play solo.

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You already play most of it solo , so perhaps it can be a good feature.
Ah , and dont take that one serious , most toxic one i have ever seen ^^

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Actually, long ago there was an MMO with this concept, Granado Espada. There you had a party of 3 characters which you were choosing and could swap freely for other classes (but you still needed to lvl up each of them)

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You’re telling me that “losing players like me is fine” and then tell me that I’m the toxic one?

Haha.

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I wouldnt mind if it was an option. I’d probably even use it while leveling since i dont do pugging.

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Exactly. It would be a great extra feature. It’s not a if / if situation.

It’s a “why not both” situation. Catering to 2 different types of players is also a financially smart move.

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Yeah, single player games is what you’re looking for. This is a multi player game, hope you understand what that genre implies.

Also there are still millions of players, it’s not like df / guilds are dead or anything.

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Couldn’t agree more and the one of the main reasons why this game is falling apart slowly is because of loud elitist minority because blizzard caters to them too much and alienates the casual playerbase that is more numerous then elitists.

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I already addressed and refuted this argument in the opening post :slight_smile:

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Can you elaborate on this? What does the loud elitist minority do that kills the game?

never mind, saw u edited your post.

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Exactly. I mean, I get that companies are all about money. So, it would make more sense for them to cater to the biggest crowd rather than a couple of elitist that also alienate the new players to the point that they’d rather play something else.

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From a “loner”-perspective I say you are playing the wrong game genre then.

Then you should rather play games like Skyrim or Dragon Age… Or something similar Singleplayer oriented.

Multiplayer games are there to play together, not alone.

You are right, we all think this probably.

While you are right and it wouldn’t be that much of a difference in programming compared to other stuff, you miss out that features like this hurt the “social game experience”, a term rather used rarely these days, since it is only for MMO’s important.

To sum up what “social game experience” means:

Social gaming is much more than just multiplayer games — it’s when the core reason of why a game works is because of the people who play it. They’re not games with bots or AI that you could fight against in singleplayer, but games that just don’t feel the same. It’s when the main reason you play a game is because of who you’re playing it with.

World of Warcraft is such a game since the release in 2004. The core aspects are meant to be played with others. The endgame is just the 2nd priority because what makes WoW good is the (former) social interaction with others, making new friends, enjoying content together and having fun, unique moments.

In fact, I personally see the Dungeon Browser, the Group finding Tool and the Raid-Browser as the main problems why this is so. I am a WoW-Player since mid BfA, so I don’t know how it was before aside from “tales told to me”. But even I realize that the Dungeon-Browser, the Raid-Browser and the group finding tool did dumb down the social interaction to a bare minimum.

That is the reason why people mainly are not “good quality” anymore. Otherwise they would have to socially interact with you before joining your group.

At least your expectations are realistic :wink:

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For one it makes the content more and more unecasable to majority of players because only few can complete it there is no more casual content to do except grinding dailies and weeklies and torghast the rest are blocked from the main content of the game because they make it more difficult each update like:

M+ and Raids Its hard to get in now due to ppl wanting method or echo level skill for low keys and even normal Raids haha.

I play mostly TBC nowadays for the reasons above.

You don’t have to agree but it’s just my opinion and reason i log less now and not to mention ppl are very toxic nowadays too much.

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I do think QoL stuff like random dunegon finder and looking for raid is changes they made to cater to the bigger, casual crowd though.

I get where u are coming from, group content isnt to everyones liking, but its not that it isnt easy accesible for the loner and casual player. It is.

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Ff14 has this, it’s actually really good and fun. You can pick from multiple story companions that have different roles. Like us choosing to do a dungeon with jaina as offensive, anduin as a healer etc. And you get a seperate bar to do basic commands like the tank attack etc.

Could actually be fun for heroics/normal dungeons. Level and train up your AI squad, get them gear and new skills etc as they level. Really good for new players learning mechanics or how to tank/heal.

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MSORPG: massively single player online rpg. I don’t think you should even bother and just unsub if the multiplayer aspect is useless to you.
First of all the lore quality of the game is at best a mediocre LotR ripoff so you’re better off reading books and why pay subs for single.

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Ironically Bungie had a similar problem with Trials of Osiris (high competitive endgame pvp mode) til they said “screw it” and made the mode casual. Now the elitists are all crying because “the game is too hard for them”. And as an part-elitist in Destiny 2 myself I say… “Goooood”.

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Tell that to the millions of players that leveled up their characters entirely solo.

Yes they are, but this is not a situation where both options can’t be offered and it’s also not like your quality of WoW life would suffer beneath it. If it would, it just tells you that people would rather play with AI, than with you :yum:

That’s great, but I don’t want to make friends. I just want to play WoW and not be forced to play it with other people. If, somehow, along the way, I come across somebody that has a similar playstyle like me and plays on pretty much the same hours like me, great, but if not, I won’t lose any sleep over it. You’re forcing an ideology onto people they don’t care about and WoW maybe used to be this great social thing, but today it’s just a cashcow, and slowly losing ground to other MMO’s.

My suggestion would offer people like me a reason to stay subscribed and there are a lot of people like me.

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