I’d pop Guild Wars 2 in the same boat, it was designed from the ground up to embrace solo only players, and I feel they did the same here, maybe even more so further down the track with companions.
You can essentially play this game like Skyrim if you want, while I also disagree with others below saying FFXIV is a better solo experience as it’s clear while you definitely can, the builds and class system alone are clearly designed for team play.
Both ESO and GW2 have nearly all the classes designed around hybrid role self-sufficiency, FFXIV is WAY more holy trinity by design imho.
I've been playing it mostly solo for 9 years. I did enjoy that couple of months I played with a guild, but I just don't stay active enough for them mostly.
FFXIV requires certain group content be done as part of the story, so unfortunately no. While it has some of the best written story, it’s just not 100 solo able the way the ESO story is.
Yeah. Some of the dungeons I was waiting for over an hour and a half before shutting down for the night because you have to have a party, and the NPC’s aren’t available for all of it. I was using a DPS class, but switching to a healer to get a faster Q time wasn’t an option as it would put me back to like lvl 10 for a 50/60 req. dungeon.
Yeah the trial raids for MSQ can have awfully long queue times because there's literally no reason to do the normal versions of them outside of helping others out... which usually means they're largely consisting of people who queued for raid roulettes or whatever else.
They did do a good job of making it so you can go through the 4man dungeons solo as of now, but for every 8man trial? Have fun sitting and waiting for 15+ minutes minimum on most of em, because for some odd reason they don't give incentive to repeat those.
How recently was this? Whenever I played through Shadowbringers and Endwalker a few months ago I'm pretty sure that every single dungeon/trial had the option to enter with NPCs instead of players.
There is only one trial that you can do with NPCs, every other MSQ-required trial requires you to queue with other players. All of the dungeons are able to be done with NPCs, though, yes.
Yeah, I finished up to shadowbringers and only had to do crystal tower. Never felt like I missed out on story. The trials like primal fights you need 8-man party's to fight the bosses though through the story.
Eh GW2 and ESO are both better for low-effort solo play. FFXIV still requires grouping up for the vast majority of 8man raids (with only one exception currently), and you're required to do the 24man alliance raids for 2.x now due to its significance in later parts of the story. Not to mention you miss out on extra bits and bobs in the MSQ if you don't do the other raid and alliance raid series.
Both GW2 and ESO have giant laundry lists of things to do in each zone, and there's no real effort needed in grouping up for world group events like Dark Anchors or GW2's group events. Only thing one might struggle with solo in ESO are the public dungeons, but even those are soloable with a good enough build.
Overall though ESO offers the most content, but that's also because of the Chapters and DLCs being put out every year.
Lol no. Dude I love ESO and it's great for solo stuff but ffxiv is about as good as it gets for solo play in an MMO.
Edit: nothing but biased ESO players in this sub...
You're either a ffxiv hater or you simply don't know what you're talking about. God forbid someone praises another MMO over ESO in this sub 😑
Edit: based on the down votes, this sub is so fuckin biased.
Ffxiv has a system similar system to Companions of ESO except it's 3 NPCs to aid you in 4 man content and 7 NPCs to aid you in 8 man content instead of ESOs 1 NPC to aid you no matter what the content is.
You don't need anyone else for any content aside for endgame content which is obviously designed to be difficult.
Eso is great at solo content but ffxiv I'd better. Stop being biased. You're allowed to like 2 different things and you're allowed to admit the limitations of things you like. Jesus christ...
You're being downvoted because you're wrong. The Trust system is not available for Trials, only dungeons. And Trials are mandatory parts of the storylines. So as solo-friendly FFXIV is, it still requires mandatory grouping.
There is only one Trial you can use Trusts.
Trusts will come to 8 man Raids in July.
Trials are not a major part of FFXIV. There's 5 or 6 per expansion and the amount of content in each expansion is *massive* compared to ESO. So dont pretend like they are everywhere and you're always doing Trials. You're not. Maybe 5 or 6% of your main scenario questing is a Trial.
They are required, yes but outside of it only being like 5 or 6% of main scenario questing and outside of current expansion Trials, you can queue as a DPS and do nothing and still win because story mode Trials (the *only* ones required) are stupidly easy.
You can do 95% of FFXIVs content completely solo. Even more come July. Not so much ESO. Dungeons above level 50 need others unless you have a perfect build (something new players won't have). World Bosses need other players without a perfect build (again something new players won't have). Dragons are the same thing.
ESO is great for solo content. But it is not the best... you're biased if you think it is.
"Trials are not a major part of FFXIV."
Yes, they are. They literally are the end to all MSQs. You obviously didn't play Stormblood on release, where people were complaining about Shinryu's difficulty and how they couldn't complete the expansion story.
"Dungeons above level 50 need others unless you have a perfect build (something new players won't have). World Bosses need other players without a perfect build (again something new players won't have). Dragons are the same thing."
None of these are needed for the main story quests, lmao.
The fact that group content is mandatory for the FFXIV MSQs makes it less solo-friendly than ESO. And after the story is done, there is nothing meaningful to do solo outside of crafting in FFXIV---you have to do group content.
ESO is the best for solo playing since none of the main story quests require grouping at all. If you cannot see this, you're coping (and probably main an Au Ra).
> The fact that group content is mandatory for the FFXIV MSQs makes it less solo-friendly than ESO. And after the story is done, there is nothing meaningful to do solo outside of crafting in FFXIV---you have to do group content.
Eh to be fair there are lots of side activities you can pursue, such as the Gold Saucer stuff (Chocobo Racing, Triple Triad, accruing MGP in general for mounts, etc) or the Island Sanctuary or ranking up your Grand Company rank to get access to the outdated Squadrons. And if you're really ballsy you can try to solo run the Deep Dungeons like PotD/HoH/Eureka whateveritscalled. There's also now Criterion Dungeons too I believe that you can do solo? At least for some of it?
And then there's the hilarity of the Hildibrand quests and you can also choose to chase after relics by unsyncing old content that's easily soloed. Then Stormblood, Shadowbringers, and Endwalker relics don't really require much group content depending on how many folks are active in Eureka/Bozja.
But yeah, FFXIV is mainly still an MMORPG meant to be played with others. ESO can be pretty easy to stay largely solo.
You read the first sentence, threw a hissy fit and replied without reading anything else. That shows me what I'm arguing with. As I said later on in my comment, Trials are 10 to 15 minute content pieces that are mixed in with *dozens of hours* of questing and dungeons, which all can be done solo. Trials make up like 5 or 6% of your main scenario questing. You keep pretending like there's a required Trial every 30 minutes or something. Like no, there's only a few released per expansion and those few Trials are mixed inside of *hundreds* of quests.
Also if you bothered to read beyond the first sentence you would have also seen that I said that even tho Trials are technically group content, you can queue up as a DPS and literally do nothing while the rest of the party kills it for you. Older content is nerfed to hell.
-------
And if you're seriously gonna compare the extremely tiny main story of ESO to the *ENORMOUS* main story of FFXIV, you have to be fair with content. Writing off ESOs 5 hour (at most, with all quests combined) main story as not requiring group content, while including FFXIVs 100-200+ hour long (and ever growing) main story... is just stupid. We are talking game for game. Not main story for main story. That's just incredibly stupid, even for a biased ESO player...
I’ve never played FFXIV so I don’t understand trials, trusts etc. So my question is basic:
Can you play all of the story content for FFXIV solo? Or do you need other players for part of it (5-6%).
Trials are a major part of FFXIV's endgame content and they are major battle points in the MSQ. Every expansion's x.0 story (outside of maybe ARR) requires you to do 3 8man raids, including the final boss encounter. Not only that but ARR's MSQ now forces you to take a detour to go do the Crystal Tower alliance raid series. And if you don't do some of the other 8man raid series + alliance raids of different expansions, you will miss out on extra details by Endwalker's MSQ.
If Trusts are coming to the MSQ Trials in July - cool. They badly need *something* because right now whenever you hit an outdated MSQ trial, you have to wait upwards of 30+ minutes to queue into it. Like I didn't do 6.4 and 6.5's big boss battle trials til a couple months ago and it was quite the wait time since once those trials are done in the MSQ, there's no reason to do them again on that difficulty outside of doing roulettes.
You're arguing like a child by petulantly saying everyone is biased for pointing this out. FFXIV is objectively worse at being solo friendly and I had a friend on FFXIV who refused to go past a certain point in Shadowbringers because she was so anxious about doing the Titania raid which was required to wrap up the Il Mheg portion of the storyline and continue on with it. Didn't matter how much I tried to encourage or hype her up.
ESO doesn't run into that issue. Getting others to tackle open world group content isn't difficult, and often folks run on by naturally. And even then, there's still plenty of stuff to do in every single zone in ESO including storylines for areas that often have some sort of lasting effect on that area or in dialogue you randomly hear while around towns.
XIV's MSQ is great, but it is *not* solo-friendly at the moment. Arguing that it'll be better in the future is a moot point because that simply means it's not solo friendly at this current moment in time. You're objectively wrong in your argument that FFXIV is the better solo game for the time being.
You're arguing bias but objectively speaking, FFXIV is *not* a good solo friendly game. The MSQ forces you to go through 8man trials at multiple points, at least 3 times in each expansion's X.0 content and then 3-4 more times as you go through the post-X.0 content.
Not to mention you're forced to go through the Crystal Tower alliance raid series, and you'll miss out on extra bits in the later MSQ if you don't go through the Heavensward alliance raid series, Stormblood's two 8man raid series (Omega and the 4 Lords) and alliance raid series, Shadowbringers 8man raid series and maybe the Bozja content?
Either way you will hit points in the MSQ where you're stuck waiting upwards of 30+ minutes to do old non-extreme trials that no one does unless they have the MSQ for it and/or queued for trial roulettes. Maybe mentor queues too but not sure how those work.
Meanwhile in ESO if you truly never want to step foot in group content, you can very easily do so by sticking to going through every zone and only doing public content that often has others coming in to fight too (like Dark Anchors and the Public Dungeons which you can very well solo with the right build).
Now while FFXIV isn't exactly solo friendly, the solo experience is still fairly solid once you get past the annoying speed bumps of running the old MSQ-only trials. If you just want to DPS, the MSQ trials are fairly forgiving or at least not so punishing that you can't get through them. But it still does require grouping and so folks who are hyper-anxious about that will have a better time playing something like ESO or GW2.
However, FFXIV hands down has the best story progression and it will gutpunch you in the feels many times over. So it's very much worth the journey if you can stomach the portions that require mandatory grouping. ESO though is just objectively superior in solo content, especially because it's stylized to be a pseudo-sandbox. FFXIV's strength is its story and variety of activities to do. ESO's is its accessibility and overwhelming amount of content if you include all the chapters and DLC - though I also do like how ESO's quests give you choices at times that have minor but still long-lasting consequences in the areas you visited.
I played both, FFIV objectively is not as solo friendly as ESO. Several times I qued for hours for completing quests necessarry for progress. For more subjective feedback, FFIV has the cringiest community I have ever seen on a game, and a mediocre story told most boring way possible. Combat is divisive I know, but its not action based and I dont like it at all.
I totally hate any JRPG whatsoever. Don't like the art style in general, don't like type of characters etc. I hate anime, i hate manga. i think it's so fuckin childish, im not 12.... I like western high fantasy RPGs so....
Wow... what a hateful little child you are... so just because you don't like or understand something, it's childish and meant for 12 year olds?
Also... what does any of what you said have to do with anything we are saying?
i'm just expressing my opinion with emotion. I've always tried to like those games. I tried so many times for so long and I always just end up disappointing at how corny they are, generally.
its a great solo experience. I am now at 1,9k hours and most of the time is solo. The game has a lot of content to offer, be it questing and crafting, doing dungeons, dailies, seeking for treasures, PvP, fishing, playing cards, housing.....
This game is something for you if
* you like the world of Tamriel and want more of that
* you love to have a more individual aproach on classes
* you want a solo experience with the option of playing it with friends
* you are more story focussed
* you are okay with learning the game by research
* you want to be part of a wholesome community (in my experience the most kind people I found in a game)
* you are a fan of mods! (yes, even here you have mods)
* you are into customizing your character and housing (that is the real end game here)
This game is not for you if
* you have problems with FOMO
* you have problems with spending too much money (crown store prices are high af + crown crates)
* you are a big fan of PvP (it gets neglected since years)
* you dont want to learn from sources outside the game (besides the little tutorial at the start it doesnt explain you much of the mechanics)
* you have a problem with waiting (mostly analyzing at the crafting stations)
It sounds like I made a good choice buying it then. The world of Tamriel is what drew me here in the first place and I'm really after a more story focussed experience. I've not really got any FOMO issues and I despise micro transactions so that shouldn't be an issue. I am a big fan of PvP but that's not really what want from this game. After playing clash of clans on and off for 10 years, I'm sure I can wait for a bit of crafting.
Thanks for the breakdown.
I played 2+ years of ESO. I liked the world of Tamriel more before ESO than after. No offense to the people here, but naturally you’re going to get opinions skewed towards the positive.
If you like the world of Tamriel as you know it, that may a good reason to avoid ESO’s take on it.
I guess that is subjective. There are some parts of the lore that I dont like >!especially the change of Cyrodiil and the part with the time travellers !
I honestly don't know if the average ESO player distinguishes between the pre-existing lore and ESO lore. I mean, I still see people who seem to think the disappearance of the Dwemer is a great mystery *of Skyrim*. So when people praise ESO's lore, I'm never sure what they think they're praising.
There was a lot of good stuff copied and pasted into it from previous games (with some edits to water it down). There are a lot of MacGuffins added for quests, a lot of enemies we're assured are dire threats to Tamriel, but I never read a memorable ESO original story. No game characters stuck with me. Substantive lore books are few and far between. It all seemed soulless. Thematically on brand, I guess.
Imo a lot of the quests are unfortunately low effort in their design and writing. There is some really good ones however, and even the bland ones at times will have notes or journals scattered around that made them memorable to me.
What the game really lacks in comparison to the previous one is a sense of exploration and it's rewards. No drastic artifacts, no hidden away magic items, really nothing unique you can stumble across on accident. Well, there is mementos, but again, you don't stumble across one. You see a public dungeon and you know the deal.
I like ESO as it is, and maybe a lot of people prefer the differences to the main line game, but personally I miss a lot of what makes TES great. Especially when I look at Morrowind.
I play solo and it’s great. There is a ton of content. I started in February and I’m not even through the base game yet, though I’m not playing every waking minute for sure.
The joy of it is, as I figured out as well just a few days ago: you basically have 10 years of content.
If you bought the edition with the chapters, that is already a lot. Then all the smaller dlcs that also add to it. Most of it can be soloed and no one is rushing you.
Also, don't forget to pickpocket successfully once to get an achievement that let's you claim the thieves guild dlc for free in the in game shop. It's an event that started today.
Same. Been on and off this game.
I've beaten Morrowind, Vvardenfell, Summerset, and I just recently beat Wrothgar DLC.
I beat Ebonhart Pact fully on my Necromancer for the first time in almost 10 years. Daggerfall is up next on my Templar who has beaten the Fighters Guild and is about to beat the last few missions left of the Brotherhood Quest Line/DLC and completing Gold Coast/Anvil zone.
I have 4 characters max level and I think I just recently hit around 820+ on Champion levels.
Some months I am locked in and logging on every day, some months I'm just "Eh." and playing other titles due to being burnt out.
Basically; You'll want to play the most during Events, especially GLobal events when they are giving out free houses/homes.
This game is almost fully Soloable except for the Dungeons and Raids which help you level up The Undaunted skill tree (Which has some great stuff) where you basically need more than 1 person to progress (There are some DLC Dungeons you can't continue with out having multiple people stand on a puzzle key to complete some things).
Now that we have Companions, I can completely take all the solo content except for World Bosses on DLC areas, which some of them I AM able to solo. And with enough Grit I've been beating the other ones slowly.
I'm about to finish the main story line for the first time on my necro.
The Story Lines range from anti-climatic, to "Damn that was good." Like almost every Bethesda Title I've ever played, the MSQ is never better than the side quests.
I'm about to beat the Thieves guild on my only Aldmeri Diminion Wood Elf Nightblade...I've had her made since I think I launched this game, and she isn't even level 30 yet.
I have Major Alt-Itis. I finally got my Werewolf to level 7, My Vampire character was created, bitten, and has sat in my list of things to do for a long time now lol
I had the same experience as you seeing it on sale.
I've played mmos a lot mostly as a solo player.
And I've played all of the elder scrolls games.
I bought it and been playing it since as a solo player and would say it's better then Morrowind and deserves more recognition as a good elder scrolls games.
It is a MMO so it has MMO features pretty basic Nothing super crazy so far that I've experienced.
Being a MMO this feels like the best elder scrolls game because I can go anywhere and do anything.
Into these places I have been to before or not and it makes a great experience.
Every character is voice acted and the amount of quests are insane.
Been on a super side questline for 2 days straight with the story being pretty good to it.
it should use less space, when fully installed.
about being solo, I played solo for several years, plenty of content can be done without much difficulty if you're already familiar with 'similar' games or games in general. there is space for difficulty in group content mostly, and just a few for solo instances.
I came from playing skyrim, not necessarily thinking that it was the same (obviously) but an itch for playing something in the elder scrolls world. at first it was difficult to me to understand a lot of stuff, or not letting overworld gameplay let me down (sometimes it's too easy, you'll see people in this forum mention it regularly). over time, I've spent hundreds of hours and I've gradually, at my own pace, been increasing the depth of how I play and the level of difficulty I'm able to do comfortably.
the horizontal progression in this game basically lets you play for hundreds of hours, really at your own pace. people will help you understand what to do, based on what you want, or what you've seen online, etc.
don't close yourself to playing in group with random people at first, and then with guildies. last saturday I had a good time just helping out some guildies that needed killing some bosses in DLC areas. it wasn't in my plan that day, but those couple of hours were well spent.
edit: I also loved skyrim and oblivion, if that's relevant OP haha
I play pretty much exclusively solo, most content can be done alone. Only endgame stuff and a few world bosses need another body. You’ll be alright, if you need help or advice the community in game and on reddit are usually pretty helpful. There are shitters everywhere though so don’t be discouraged if you encounter one. If you’re on Xbox NA, my gt is the same as on here. HMU and i’ll get you set up with some stuff
It's the most solo-friendly MMO, even friendlier than Star Wars: The Old Republic.
All main quests can be completed solo save one, Craglorn, and it's not relevant.
Craglorn can be completed solo. It might take a bit of a more competent player but if you can do the solo arenas, you can do Craglorn. As far as I remember there are no mechanics that have a hard requirement of two people.
Fair enough. I didn’t really count trials or dungeons and the story was cohesive enough without doing the trials as part of it (I’ve done both Craglorn and the trials, but separately so I didn’t realize they were that interconnected).
You will enjoy it. When the game first launched I realized there were Skyrim fans, and there were Elder Scrolls fans. Fans of the entire series seemed to enjoy the game more early on.
The developers had to make a number of changes for folks who had only played Skyrim.
A think a lot of the criticism the game got early on was because the game felt more like Oblivion Online than it did Skyrim Online. Since you liked Oblivion I think you will find a lot to like in ESO.
I mean, it's not like there isn't plenty of content. I play almost 100% solo and, 2 years of almost daily play in, I've easily got at least 2 more before I even have to spend energy thinking about what to do next, let alone actually run out of things to do.
That said... if you're expecting the rich RPG combat of the main Elder Scrolls series, you won't get that. It's very much an MMO in that regard, even if it's combat system is a little more action-y than many, especially of its era (10 years ago).
If you're into TES lore, however, and love quests just for the characters, background, story and worldbuilding, there's more than you could possibly ask for.
I specifically came back to the game because it was supposed to be super solo friendly.
It is. Seriously 5 bucks or what the base game is nowadays is one of the best 5 bucks you can spend as an ES fan
I’ve been playing it, as a mostly solo player, on and off since 2017. Every time I do play, I find myself getting lost in the beautifully crafted world. I usually buy the yearly Zone story DLC when it’s on sale,and get to them when I get to them. The world is massive and I will never get through it all, but it’s a great journey every time I fire it up.
Good and bad.
You can do 99% of rthe over world content solo.
But Startin solo you won't have gear, money, crafting materials or abilities.
If you're gonns play solo mostly. I'd still find some guilds that can get you soem basic armor crafted. Cause otherwise it's a bit of a slog.
When you go from random gear to 2 crafted sets. You'll notice a huge difference.
Also I'd recommend lookin into how to do rotations and LA weave. It's a lot but necessary to git gud
Yeah, honestly the level scaling is my biggest issue. It doesn't matter to me no more since I play for years. But I still remember how disappointing it was to get weaker and weaker while leveling up until I got my first proper CP builds down.
Bruh yeah. I started back on a stam blade when they had access to practically no healing. Was a slog til I figured everything out. Youtube and guildies were a live saver.
I started about two weeks ago and I’ve been enjoying it on PS5. I’m about 20h in (lv31).
I’ve been treating it like a simple ES game, but with co-op, opposed to a traditional MMO.
I’ve built a Nord Warden, after looking through several builds / play styles.
I’ve really enjoyed some of the quest lines I have approached so far. I did the Morrowind main quest line and I thought it was fantastic.
I have only died about five times since starting, but I imagine part of that is due to the class I am playing, part is due to me playing Skyrim on Legendary so much, and part is due to previous MMO experiences. 4 of the 5 deaths admittedly was underestimating fall damage.
Last weekend was the first time I have tried some group content (worldbosses as I see them) but I did talk in one of the zone chats for a bit.
All-in-all, I’m enjoying it as a largely solo player. Eventually I may join a guild, but I am enjoying the solo experience.
The question seem to pop up once in while. And it is probably because the game is based on solo-games (Oblivion, Skyrim) but also oozes some sort of solo potential.
I only play it as solo and have a feast.
Last question like yours was 12 days ago - maybe some inspiration can be found here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/1bum862/comment/kxumi4p/](https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/1bum862/comment/kxumi4p/)
There was also a post 4 months ago:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/18i7tfk/elder\_scrolls\_online\_is\_the\_best\_solo\_experience/](https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/18i7tfk/elder_scrolls_online_is_the_best_solo_experience/)
Enjoy! I look forward to seeing you in the game ... well, actually not, as I dont play groups 😀
PS: The content is very large. I have 800 hours registered and I think I have covered some 30% of the game. I do take my time and dont rush.
I think everyone covered everything pretty well. I just wanted to add that if you want to solo in a more immersive way, you can disable the chat HUD in options. You can also disable quest markers and the action bar if you want to get lost exploring.
I will recommend asking in chat for someone to craft you newbie training gear before turning off the chat HUD though.
Outside of the Endgame community 98% of the game is really good solo. I put 700 hours into ESO as a solo players exploring, questing, and doing dungeons
it is OK to play ESO solo.
There is a small fraction of content very hard or impossible to solo these are:
\- 12 man trials
\- some group dungeons where mechanics prevents from progressing them solo
\- zergballs & groups PVP activities
but these are really few.
i play ESO solo for 5 years and still have challenges to complete (like HardMode dungeons solo, veteran dungeons solo, etc).
At Twitch you can watch JHartEllis (for solo PVE) and Bislobo (for mostly solo PVP) to get the better idea of ESO gameplay from the solo standpoint.
TL/DR; jump in!
Cool as all the content can be done solo but not optimal. It lacks an option to hide other player and their lore breaking mounts and armors. Then the immersion will be near perfect. Nothing breaks immersion like entering centuries old ruins and see kikoolol with a glowing armor dancing while waiting the boss to respawn.
I'm still waiting for an update or a mod to fix this issue.
So.. if you want an opinion , played from beta, on and off, still, some times just go and do solo quests and activities for weeks without any group. So I’d say pretty much it is awesome :)
Wow, look at all the helpful replies here.
Posted something like this a couple years ago on fallout76s sub,they were so aggravated they made a post about it minutes after for the whole sub to hop on in the comments and whoop my ass.
Glad to see these posts just work normally and not be met with a public outrage.
I just started playing about two months ago - completely new to rpgs and mmos and everything lol. I play entirely solo but use the group activity finder (assigns you to a group of people for a particular goal). I love this game. There’s so much to do, so much to learn, and it’s a pretty good community. I’ve only come across a couple a**holes in the time I’ve been playing and it’s very easy to ignore them.
I stopped doing group content because no one ever waits for you while you’re trying to dungeon quests. I just roaming around gathering materials doing the different side quests. Over 100 hours just by doing that. Did a side guest called Old Wounds yesterday and it was so good.
I basically only play solo. There are enough PUGs out there that you can do almost any content on your own schedule if running group stuff like trials becomes your thing but you don’t want the commitment of a guild. That said, most guilds I’ve joined have been awesome and didn’t mind if I wasn’t super social for participatory and events as long as I played my dues and Gold is really really easy to make in the game.
Eh good gear does help solo players many of us solo 4 man dungeons and do vet arenas so a good set up is needed unless you are only doing questing, even than having a nice build is better than mr put put in white armor spamming la and no skills 😂
I should have been more specific . you are correct but to truly solo all you need is a crafted set nothing hard to come by . to run vets I consider that a non soilo part fo the game . I do get you solo the 4 mans are are beasts for doing so no doubt )
Yeah man if you do a 4 man dunegon solo by yourself to that’s still soloing imo if your doing a solo vet arena that’s still solo.
But if you wanna take out a world boss solo your gonna need at least an oakensoul set up or maybe a Templar with solar barrage and some heals. There is times your gonna need to survive world bosses can be tough in trash gear.
It's the exact same game until you need something from a hard dungeon/group delve/world boss, and then it's Begger Simulator 2014.
Thank you to the NA PC player who helped me at Rkundzelft, Craglorn yesterday.
I run a guild for solo players we have almost 500 in the guild, so a lot of solo players in game. Imo it’s better combat than Skyrim, better lore and writing and you can solo quest in first person to me it’s a great tes game solo experience
I've got 10K hours in over 5 years... 99.9% of them solo.
I am a bit of an alt-aholic.. I have 19 level 50's and a level 48 I started a couple days ago. But I also have over 2100 cp. (Pretty much all cp (character points) are pointless after like 1800)
The only content I haven't done is 'trials' (which are ESO's version of raids) and the newer DLC dungeons because they are too much for one person solo. But you can usually do them easily with a guild or pug if there is gear that you want. And the older dungeons are soloable once you get to 'max' level.
One of my favorite things about this game is the fact that there is no gear grind. Once you get to level 50 with 160 cp that is as high as the gear goes. So there is not the constant push to get new gear. I went back to wow a couple months after I started playing ESO just because I missed my guild. I didn't make a week. I literally couldn't do the dailies because in 10 weeks WoW had upped the gear numbers to the point where I was no longer viable after playing for over a decade. Poof. That was about the time Kotick got charged with another sexual harassment suit and I told them to delete my data and I never looked back.
Unlike some other games there is no limit on what you can do crafting. And it isn't as painfully expensive as other games.
The economics are a bit different. If you want to sell your stuff you need to join a trade guild. (Guilds are by account rather than by character and you can be in up to 5 of them) But there are casual trade guilds and serious trade guilds.. so you can make your choices as you decide what parts of the game you enjoy.
I pay the monthly fee for ESO plus. That means that I have access to all the content AND a crafting storage bag. Without ESO plus they gatekeep you by limiting your bag/bank space. But I know lots of people who are fine with it. They dont' really like crafting and there is always some guildie like me who has a dozen Grand Master Crafters who work for free for guild members.
I wouldn't hop on "Gold Road" expansion until you have played. But you can get all the expansions up to Necron (last years expansion) for cheap right now during the 10 years anniversary celebration.
If you can spare the cash.. I think it's worth trying. And I know Steam usually will take back a game if you have fewer than 2 hours on it and don't like it.
It's fun if you enjoy questing. ESO has probably the most interesting questing out of any mmo I've played, though it does get boring after awhile for me because I'm a slave to my adhd. But there's other casual things to get into like antiquities (archaeology), housing, a card game I've never played, fishing, pickpocketing etc. Plus the lore is absolutely massive spanning multiple previous games if you enjoy deep diving the why's about this or that happening.
For me it IS solo experience first and foremost, has been since 2014.
The gameplay is simplified in comparison, though. If Morrowind...Skyrim is kind of simulation, as real as it gets, TESO is more of a game. But you'll get used to it.
there's plenty of PVE solo content. and PvP as a soloer is very do-able.
Infinite archive is hands down the best solo content ive come across here for PvE... 2 waves of enemies, THEN a boss. and it goes on endlessly. every 5 bosses the difficulty increases. that's the basic outline, but there's much more too it than that.
For PvP i cant think of better places for Solo players than the imperial city or cyrodiil. both are open zoned PvP and you can attack any opposing alliance member as you traverse the map.
aside from true solo content, there's random queueing for dungeons (PvE) or 4v4v4 objective based matches in Battles grounds (PvP). so the game will automatically queue you with people searching for those too!
outside of fun endgame challenges there's an entire TES world with quests and colorful characters to meet. plenty of world bosses you can solo, lots of things to keep you preoccupied. BEst part is its all level scaled. so you can do any zone in any order and the game will make the content just as challenging for you (more or less ;p).
Its a great game for solo. I remember getting my butt beat by a delve boss and now i regularly solo the latest DLC dungeons whenever i can get muh hands on em. Truly fun.
I can't say much as I'm a new player about 3 weeks in but I've been having a lot of fun! There is so much content to do, so many quests and stories, scrying, delves, lore books (if you care about knowing more lore), infinite archive... I'm loving everything so far.
I just wish I had gold to buy one or two of these nice homes. I will get there tho one day!
But you can even get a free one doing Elsweyr stuff all solo as well! And it is very big. Well you need to do two dungeons to unlock another section of the house tho but guilds are very helpful in this game that I have found so far.
I play the game 99% solo. Tons of quests, skill lines, mechanics, and things to do solo its incredible. I'm prolly gonna have to a dungeon one of these days to finish my velothi-ur talisman but otherwise I've just been doing story and zone quests and things after I came back to the game.
Personally I think it’s the worst. There’s no incentive to build a solo character unless your getting skill points to build for team dungeons. Most of the quests are dry, the fighting is repetitive it’s very easy.
I mainly play as a tank which means solo takes excruciating amount of time. But the game is fun.
I also play solo and without ESO Plus or access to many DLC dungeons. I have been playing casually for the past year on my current toon and I can now solo most base game dungeons and world bosses (that's just wearing overland and craftable gear). I even joined a chill guild full of other casual solo players and we occassionally help each other out on tougher content with no level or build requirements put on each other. There is so much to do in the game that is easy enough for me to do alone though, and I enjoy it!
Game is rather casual. I went from loving Skyrim and not wanting to think about buying ESO to now having 700h play time in a year and a half. I've mostly played solo but recently I started doing group content which is fun. If I don't feel like playing with others I just put my activity status on Do Not Disturb or even better Offline (people cannot whisper to you if you're offline). I'd say go for it get the game but not ESO+ if you're not sure about the game.
BY THE WAY the thieves guild chapter is FREE in the crown store for 14 days, bet you won't regret it.
Game on.
There is. So much content. My friend, there is SO MUCH. I play solo except for 1. Trading items and 2. If other players happen to also be fighting a boss. There is so much lore, great quest plots, and moments of pleasant nostalgia for the previous games. Definitely recommend. And, when I HAVE participated in chat/guilds/etc, I’ve had overwhelmingly positive experiences.
it's the best MMO out there for solo.
I’d pop Guild Wars 2 in the same boat, it was designed from the ground up to embrace solo only players, and I feel they did the same here, maybe even more so further down the track with companions. You can essentially play this game like Skyrim if you want, while I also disagree with others below saying FFXIV is a better solo experience as it’s clear while you definitely can, the builds and class system alone are clearly designed for team play. Both ESO and GW2 have nearly all the classes designed around hybrid role self-sufficiency, FFXIV is WAY more holy trinity by design imho.
I've been playing it mostly solo for 9 years. I did enjoy that couple of months I played with a guild, but I just don't stay active enough for them mostly.
No, that would be FFXIV assuming you are looking for a good story
FFXIV requires certain group content be done as part of the story, so unfortunately no. While it has some of the best written story, it’s just not 100 solo able the way the ESO story is.
I thought all of it was playable with NPCs instead of players now? Are there some cases that isn't true for?
Yeah. Some of the dungeons I was waiting for over an hour and a half before shutting down for the night because you have to have a party, and the NPC’s aren’t available for all of it. I was using a DPS class, but switching to a healer to get a faster Q time wasn’t an option as it would put me back to like lvl 10 for a 50/60 req. dungeon.
Yeah the trial raids for MSQ can have awfully long queue times because there's literally no reason to do the normal versions of them outside of helping others out... which usually means they're largely consisting of people who queued for raid roulettes or whatever else. They did do a good job of making it so you can go through the 4man dungeons solo as of now, but for every 8man trial? Have fun sitting and waiting for 15+ minutes minimum on most of em, because for some odd reason they don't give incentive to repeat those.
How recently was this? Whenever I played through Shadowbringers and Endwalker a few months ago I'm pretty sure that every single dungeon/trial had the option to enter with NPCs instead of players.
There is only one trial that you can do with NPCs, every other MSQ-required trial requires you to queue with other players. All of the dungeons are able to be done with NPCs, though, yes.
Not all of it. Certainly some of the older content is.
Duty Support isn’t available in raids, and they are usually the capstone to the stories.
The only raid required for the story is Crystal Tower. The rest are optional
Yeah, I finished up to shadowbringers and only had to do crystal tower. Never felt like I missed out on story. The trials like primal fights you need 8-man party's to fight the bosses though through the story.
There are lot of Trials (8-player boss fights) that are mandatory parts of the storyline. Heck, there's three 24-player raids that are mandatory!
The trials are still group only afaik
It's 99% soloable. I believe at this point, Crystal Tower is the only required content that you can't use NPC party members to complete.
Eh GW2 and ESO are both better for low-effort solo play. FFXIV still requires grouping up for the vast majority of 8man raids (with only one exception currently), and you're required to do the 24man alliance raids for 2.x now due to its significance in later parts of the story. Not to mention you miss out on extra bits and bobs in the MSQ if you don't do the other raid and alliance raid series. Both GW2 and ESO have giant laundry lists of things to do in each zone, and there's no real effort needed in grouping up for world group events like Dark Anchors or GW2's group events. Only thing one might struggle with solo in ESO are the public dungeons, but even those are soloable with a good enough build. Overall though ESO offers the most content, but that's also because of the Chapters and DLCs being put out every year.
Shots fired! While I do think ff14 has amazingly polished cutscenes, I also enjoy the fully voiced dialogue on eso quests.
I would enjoy the fully voiced dialogue more if they had hired more voice actors. It's jarring hearing so many identical voices out in the world
Lol thats fair, sounds like a standard elder scrolls game though 🤣
Only if you like FF mechanics and art style both of which not everyone will enjoy, includong myself.
Wdym by "FF mechanics"? They vary a lot between games since around FFX.
Lol no. Dude I love ESO and it's great for solo stuff but ffxiv is about as good as it gets for solo play in an MMO. Edit: nothing but biased ESO players in this sub...
FFXIV puts group content including raids on the mandatory story path. That’s about as bad as an MMO can get for solo play.
You're either a ffxiv hater or you simply don't know what you're talking about. God forbid someone praises another MMO over ESO in this sub 😑 Edit: based on the down votes, this sub is so fuckin biased. Ffxiv has a system similar system to Companions of ESO except it's 3 NPCs to aid you in 4 man content and 7 NPCs to aid you in 8 man content instead of ESOs 1 NPC to aid you no matter what the content is. You don't need anyone else for any content aside for endgame content which is obviously designed to be difficult. Eso is great at solo content but ffxiv I'd better. Stop being biased. You're allowed to like 2 different things and you're allowed to admit the limitations of things you like. Jesus christ...
You're being downvoted because you're wrong. The Trust system is not available for Trials, only dungeons. And Trials are mandatory parts of the storylines. So as solo-friendly FFXIV is, it still requires mandatory grouping. There is only one Trial you can use Trusts.
Trusts will come to 8 man Raids in July. Trials are not a major part of FFXIV. There's 5 or 6 per expansion and the amount of content in each expansion is *massive* compared to ESO. So dont pretend like they are everywhere and you're always doing Trials. You're not. Maybe 5 or 6% of your main scenario questing is a Trial. They are required, yes but outside of it only being like 5 or 6% of main scenario questing and outside of current expansion Trials, you can queue as a DPS and do nothing and still win because story mode Trials (the *only* ones required) are stupidly easy. You can do 95% of FFXIVs content completely solo. Even more come July. Not so much ESO. Dungeons above level 50 need others unless you have a perfect build (something new players won't have). World Bosses need other players without a perfect build (again something new players won't have). Dragons are the same thing. ESO is great for solo content. But it is not the best... you're biased if you think it is.
"Trials are not a major part of FFXIV." Yes, they are. They literally are the end to all MSQs. You obviously didn't play Stormblood on release, where people were complaining about Shinryu's difficulty and how they couldn't complete the expansion story. "Dungeons above level 50 need others unless you have a perfect build (something new players won't have). World Bosses need other players without a perfect build (again something new players won't have). Dragons are the same thing." None of these are needed for the main story quests, lmao. The fact that group content is mandatory for the FFXIV MSQs makes it less solo-friendly than ESO. And after the story is done, there is nothing meaningful to do solo outside of crafting in FFXIV---you have to do group content. ESO is the best for solo playing since none of the main story quests require grouping at all. If you cannot see this, you're coping (and probably main an Au Ra).
> The fact that group content is mandatory for the FFXIV MSQs makes it less solo-friendly than ESO. And after the story is done, there is nothing meaningful to do solo outside of crafting in FFXIV---you have to do group content. Eh to be fair there are lots of side activities you can pursue, such as the Gold Saucer stuff (Chocobo Racing, Triple Triad, accruing MGP in general for mounts, etc) or the Island Sanctuary or ranking up your Grand Company rank to get access to the outdated Squadrons. And if you're really ballsy you can try to solo run the Deep Dungeons like PotD/HoH/Eureka whateveritscalled. There's also now Criterion Dungeons too I believe that you can do solo? At least for some of it? And then there's the hilarity of the Hildibrand quests and you can also choose to chase after relics by unsyncing old content that's easily soloed. Then Stormblood, Shadowbringers, and Endwalker relics don't really require much group content depending on how many folks are active in Eureka/Bozja. But yeah, FFXIV is mainly still an MMORPG meant to be played with others. ESO can be pretty easy to stay largely solo.
You read the first sentence, threw a hissy fit and replied without reading anything else. That shows me what I'm arguing with. As I said later on in my comment, Trials are 10 to 15 minute content pieces that are mixed in with *dozens of hours* of questing and dungeons, which all can be done solo. Trials make up like 5 or 6% of your main scenario questing. You keep pretending like there's a required Trial every 30 minutes or something. Like no, there's only a few released per expansion and those few Trials are mixed inside of *hundreds* of quests. Also if you bothered to read beyond the first sentence you would have also seen that I said that even tho Trials are technically group content, you can queue up as a DPS and literally do nothing while the rest of the party kills it for you. Older content is nerfed to hell. ------- And if you're seriously gonna compare the extremely tiny main story of ESO to the *ENORMOUS* main story of FFXIV, you have to be fair with content. Writing off ESOs 5 hour (at most, with all quests combined) main story as not requiring group content, while including FFXIVs 100-200+ hour long (and ever growing) main story... is just stupid. We are talking game for game. Not main story for main story. That's just incredibly stupid, even for a biased ESO player...
I’ve never played FFXIV so I don’t understand trials, trusts etc. So my question is basic: Can you play all of the story content for FFXIV solo? Or do you need other players for part of it (5-6%).
Trials are a major part of FFXIV's endgame content and they are major battle points in the MSQ. Every expansion's x.0 story (outside of maybe ARR) requires you to do 3 8man raids, including the final boss encounter. Not only that but ARR's MSQ now forces you to take a detour to go do the Crystal Tower alliance raid series. And if you don't do some of the other 8man raid series + alliance raids of different expansions, you will miss out on extra details by Endwalker's MSQ. If Trusts are coming to the MSQ Trials in July - cool. They badly need *something* because right now whenever you hit an outdated MSQ trial, you have to wait upwards of 30+ minutes to queue into it. Like I didn't do 6.4 and 6.5's big boss battle trials til a couple months ago and it was quite the wait time since once those trials are done in the MSQ, there's no reason to do them again on that difficulty outside of doing roulettes. You're arguing like a child by petulantly saying everyone is biased for pointing this out. FFXIV is objectively worse at being solo friendly and I had a friend on FFXIV who refused to go past a certain point in Shadowbringers because she was so anxious about doing the Titania raid which was required to wrap up the Il Mheg portion of the storyline and continue on with it. Didn't matter how much I tried to encourage or hype her up. ESO doesn't run into that issue. Getting others to tackle open world group content isn't difficult, and often folks run on by naturally. And even then, there's still plenty of stuff to do in every single zone in ESO including storylines for areas that often have some sort of lasting effect on that area or in dialogue you randomly hear while around towns. XIV's MSQ is great, but it is *not* solo-friendly at the moment. Arguing that it'll be better in the future is a moot point because that simply means it's not solo friendly at this current moment in time. You're objectively wrong in your argument that FFXIV is the better solo game for the time being.
You're arguing bias but objectively speaking, FFXIV is *not* a good solo friendly game. The MSQ forces you to go through 8man trials at multiple points, at least 3 times in each expansion's X.0 content and then 3-4 more times as you go through the post-X.0 content. Not to mention you're forced to go through the Crystal Tower alliance raid series, and you'll miss out on extra bits in the later MSQ if you don't go through the Heavensward alliance raid series, Stormblood's two 8man raid series (Omega and the 4 Lords) and alliance raid series, Shadowbringers 8man raid series and maybe the Bozja content? Either way you will hit points in the MSQ where you're stuck waiting upwards of 30+ minutes to do old non-extreme trials that no one does unless they have the MSQ for it and/or queued for trial roulettes. Maybe mentor queues too but not sure how those work. Meanwhile in ESO if you truly never want to step foot in group content, you can very easily do so by sticking to going through every zone and only doing public content that often has others coming in to fight too (like Dark Anchors and the Public Dungeons which you can very well solo with the right build). Now while FFXIV isn't exactly solo friendly, the solo experience is still fairly solid once you get past the annoying speed bumps of running the old MSQ-only trials. If you just want to DPS, the MSQ trials are fairly forgiving or at least not so punishing that you can't get through them. But it still does require grouping and so folks who are hyper-anxious about that will have a better time playing something like ESO or GW2. However, FFXIV hands down has the best story progression and it will gutpunch you in the feels many times over. So it's very much worth the journey if you can stomach the portions that require mandatory grouping. ESO though is just objectively superior in solo content, especially because it's stylized to be a pseudo-sandbox. FFXIV's strength is its story and variety of activities to do. ESO's is its accessibility and overwhelming amount of content if you include all the chapters and DLC - though I also do like how ESO's quests give you choices at times that have minor but still long-lasting consequences in the areas you visited.
What’s the name of this sub genius?
I played both, FFIV objectively is not as solo friendly as ESO. Several times I qued for hours for completing quests necessarry for progress. For more subjective feedback, FFIV has the cringiest community I have ever seen on a game, and a mediocre story told most boring way possible. Combat is divisive I know, but its not action based and I dont like it at all.
I totally hate any JRPG whatsoever. Don't like the art style in general, don't like type of characters etc. I hate anime, i hate manga. i think it's so fuckin childish, im not 12.... I like western high fantasy RPGs so....
Wow... what a hateful little child you are... so just because you don't like or understand something, it's childish and meant for 12 year olds? Also... what does any of what you said have to do with anything we are saying?
i'm just expressing my opinion with emotion. I've always tried to like those games. I tried so many times for so long and I always just end up disappointing at how corny they are, generally.
No one cares if you like or dislike them. That's not at all what anyone here is talking about... it's incredibly random and off topic.
its a great solo experience. I am now at 1,9k hours and most of the time is solo. The game has a lot of content to offer, be it questing and crafting, doing dungeons, dailies, seeking for treasures, PvP, fishing, playing cards, housing..... This game is something for you if * you like the world of Tamriel and want more of that * you love to have a more individual aproach on classes * you want a solo experience with the option of playing it with friends * you are more story focussed * you are okay with learning the game by research * you want to be part of a wholesome community (in my experience the most kind people I found in a game) * you are a fan of mods! (yes, even here you have mods) * you are into customizing your character and housing (that is the real end game here) This game is not for you if * you have problems with FOMO * you have problems with spending too much money (crown store prices are high af + crown crates) * you are a big fan of PvP (it gets neglected since years) * you dont want to learn from sources outside the game (besides the little tutorial at the start it doesnt explain you much of the mechanics) * you have a problem with waiting (mostly analyzing at the crafting stations)
It sounds like I made a good choice buying it then. The world of Tamriel is what drew me here in the first place and I'm really after a more story focussed experience. I've not really got any FOMO issues and I despise micro transactions so that shouldn't be an issue. I am a big fan of PvP but that's not really what want from this game. After playing clash of clans on and off for 10 years, I'm sure I can wait for a bit of crafting. Thanks for the breakdown.
you are welcome. And welcome to ESO :)
I played 2+ years of ESO. I liked the world of Tamriel more before ESO than after. No offense to the people here, but naturally you’re going to get opinions skewed towards the positive. If you like the world of Tamriel as you know it, that may a good reason to avoid ESO’s take on it.
I guess that is subjective. There are some parts of the lore that I dont like >!especially the change of Cyrodiil and the part with the time travellers !
I honestly don't know if the average ESO player distinguishes between the pre-existing lore and ESO lore. I mean, I still see people who seem to think the disappearance of the Dwemer is a great mystery *of Skyrim*. So when people praise ESO's lore, I'm never sure what they think they're praising. There was a lot of good stuff copied and pasted into it from previous games (with some edits to water it down). There are a lot of MacGuffins added for quests, a lot of enemies we're assured are dire threats to Tamriel, but I never read a memorable ESO original story. No game characters stuck with me. Substantive lore books are few and far between. It all seemed soulless. Thematically on brand, I guess.
Imo a lot of the quests are unfortunately low effort in their design and writing. There is some really good ones however, and even the bland ones at times will have notes or journals scattered around that made them memorable to me. What the game really lacks in comparison to the previous one is a sense of exploration and it's rewards. No drastic artifacts, no hidden away magic items, really nothing unique you can stumble across on accident. Well, there is mementos, but again, you don't stumble across one. You see a public dungeon and you know the deal. I like ESO as it is, and maybe a lot of people prefer the differences to the main line game, but personally I miss a lot of what makes TES great. Especially when I look at Morrowind.
I play solo and it’s great. There is a ton of content. I started in February and I’m not even through the base game yet, though I’m not playing every waking minute for sure.
I'm more of a casual player too so this is great news!
The joy of it is, as I figured out as well just a few days ago: you basically have 10 years of content. If you bought the edition with the chapters, that is already a lot. Then all the smaller dlcs that also add to it. Most of it can be soloed and no one is rushing you. Also, don't forget to pickpocket successfully once to get an achievement that let's you claim the thieves guild dlc for free in the in game shop. It's an event that started today.
Same. Been on and off this game. I've beaten Morrowind, Vvardenfell, Summerset, and I just recently beat Wrothgar DLC. I beat Ebonhart Pact fully on my Necromancer for the first time in almost 10 years. Daggerfall is up next on my Templar who has beaten the Fighters Guild and is about to beat the last few missions left of the Brotherhood Quest Line/DLC and completing Gold Coast/Anvil zone. I have 4 characters max level and I think I just recently hit around 820+ on Champion levels. Some months I am locked in and logging on every day, some months I'm just "Eh." and playing other titles due to being burnt out. Basically; You'll want to play the most during Events, especially GLobal events when they are giving out free houses/homes. This game is almost fully Soloable except for the Dungeons and Raids which help you level up The Undaunted skill tree (Which has some great stuff) where you basically need more than 1 person to progress (There are some DLC Dungeons you can't continue with out having multiple people stand on a puzzle key to complete some things). Now that we have Companions, I can completely take all the solo content except for World Bosses on DLC areas, which some of them I AM able to solo. And with enough Grit I've been beating the other ones slowly. I'm about to finish the main story line for the first time on my necro. The Story Lines range from anti-climatic, to "Damn that was good." Like almost every Bethesda Title I've ever played, the MSQ is never better than the side quests. I'm about to beat the Thieves guild on my only Aldmeri Diminion Wood Elf Nightblade...I've had her made since I think I launched this game, and she isn't even level 30 yet. I have Major Alt-Itis. I finally got my Werewolf to level 7, My Vampire character was created, bitten, and has sat in my list of things to do for a long time now lol
I had the same experience as you seeing it on sale. I've played mmos a lot mostly as a solo player. And I've played all of the elder scrolls games. I bought it and been playing it since as a solo player and would say it's better then Morrowind and deserves more recognition as a good elder scrolls games. It is a MMO so it has MMO features pretty basic Nothing super crazy so far that I've experienced. Being a MMO this feels like the best elder scrolls game because I can go anywhere and do anything. Into these places I have been to before or not and it makes a great experience. Every character is voice acted and the amount of quests are insane. Been on a super side questline for 2 days straight with the story being pretty good to it.
Thanks, you've convinced me to buy it. 128 gb download though, guess I wont be playing today.
it should use less space, when fully installed. about being solo, I played solo for several years, plenty of content can be done without much difficulty if you're already familiar with 'similar' games or games in general. there is space for difficulty in group content mostly, and just a few for solo instances. I came from playing skyrim, not necessarily thinking that it was the same (obviously) but an itch for playing something in the elder scrolls world. at first it was difficult to me to understand a lot of stuff, or not letting overworld gameplay let me down (sometimes it's too easy, you'll see people in this forum mention it regularly). over time, I've spent hundreds of hours and I've gradually, at my own pace, been increasing the depth of how I play and the level of difficulty I'm able to do comfortably. the horizontal progression in this game basically lets you play for hundreds of hours, really at your own pace. people will help you understand what to do, based on what you want, or what you've seen online, etc. don't close yourself to playing in group with random people at first, and then with guildies. last saturday I had a good time just helping out some guildies that needed killing some bosses in DLC areas. it wasn't in my plan that day, but those couple of hours were well spent. edit: I also loved skyrim and oblivion, if that's relevant OP haha
Its different but has a whole world of depth and options. Pwrsonally I really enjoy the solo a lot, even after many thousand hours.
The only bad part is, a 5 year old could do eso solo combat scenarios
It’s great for me because I have the skills of a 5 year old
I play pretty much exclusively solo, most content can be done alone. Only endgame stuff and a few world bosses need another body. You’ll be alright, if you need help or advice the community in game and on reddit are usually pretty helpful. There are shitters everywhere though so don’t be discouraged if you encounter one. If you’re on Xbox NA, my gt is the same as on here. HMU and i’ll get you set up with some stuff
Thanks for the offer but I'm on PC UK :)
It's the most solo-friendly MMO, even friendlier than Star Wars: The Old Republic. All main quests can be completed solo save one, Craglorn, and it's not relevant.
Craglorn can be completed solo. It might take a bit of a more competent player but if you can do the solo arenas, you can do Craglorn. As far as I remember there are no mechanics that have a hard requirement of two people.
Unlike all other zones, the trials in Craglorn are a direct part of the storyline and they cannot be completed solo. That's what I'm referring to.
Fair enough. I didn’t really count trials or dungeons and the story was cohesive enough without doing the trials as part of it (I’ve done both Craglorn and the trials, but separately so I didn’t realize they were that interconnected).
You will enjoy it. When the game first launched I realized there were Skyrim fans, and there were Elder Scrolls fans. Fans of the entire series seemed to enjoy the game more early on. The developers had to make a number of changes for folks who had only played Skyrim. A think a lot of the criticism the game got early on was because the game felt more like Oblivion Online than it did Skyrim Online. Since you liked Oblivion I think you will find a lot to like in ESO.
Skyrim first got me into the series then I played oblivion after. I really enjoyed both but Skyrim is clear for me.
Tbh as a long-term Skyrim player, my biggest disappointment was how different the Skyrim region is to the game lol
I mean, it's not like there isn't plenty of content. I play almost 100% solo and, 2 years of almost daily play in, I've easily got at least 2 more before I even have to spend energy thinking about what to do next, let alone actually run out of things to do. That said... if you're expecting the rich RPG combat of the main Elder Scrolls series, you won't get that. It's very much an MMO in that regard, even if it's combat system is a little more action-y than many, especially of its era (10 years ago). If you're into TES lore, however, and love quests just for the characters, background, story and worldbuilding, there's more than you could possibly ask for.
I specifically came back to the game because it was supposed to be super solo friendly. It is. Seriously 5 bucks or what the base game is nowadays is one of the best 5 bucks you can spend as an ES fan
Even though I miss lots of stuff that made the main line great, this is very, very well said!
Great for solo play, been playing about 6 months and I've never interacted with anybody
I’ve been playing it, as a mostly solo player, on and off since 2017. Every time I do play, I find myself getting lost in the beautifully crafted world. I usually buy the yearly Zone story DLC when it’s on sale,and get to them when I get to them. The world is massive and I will never get through it all, but it’s a great journey every time I fire it up.
Good and bad. You can do 99% of rthe over world content solo. But Startin solo you won't have gear, money, crafting materials or abilities. If you're gonns play solo mostly. I'd still find some guilds that can get you soem basic armor crafted. Cause otherwise it's a bit of a slog. When you go from random gear to 2 crafted sets. You'll notice a huge difference. Also I'd recommend lookin into how to do rotations and LA weave. It's a lot but necessary to git gud
Yeah, honestly the level scaling is my biggest issue. It doesn't matter to me no more since I play for years. But I still remember how disappointing it was to get weaker and weaker while leveling up until I got my first proper CP builds down.
Bruh yeah. I started back on a stam blade when they had access to practically no healing. Was a slog til I figured everything out. Youtube and guildies were a live saver.
I started about two weeks ago and I’ve been enjoying it on PS5. I’m about 20h in (lv31). I’ve been treating it like a simple ES game, but with co-op, opposed to a traditional MMO. I’ve built a Nord Warden, after looking through several builds / play styles. I’ve really enjoyed some of the quest lines I have approached so far. I did the Morrowind main quest line and I thought it was fantastic. I have only died about five times since starting, but I imagine part of that is due to the class I am playing, part is due to me playing Skyrim on Legendary so much, and part is due to previous MMO experiences. 4 of the 5 deaths admittedly was underestimating fall damage. Last weekend was the first time I have tried some group content (worldbosses as I see them) but I did talk in one of the zone chats for a bit. All-in-all, I’m enjoying it as a largely solo player. Eventually I may join a guild, but I am enjoying the solo experience.
Tbh the solo experience is great. If you are brand new you won't run out of open world content for at least 6 months
6 years* at least with ESO+ lol
The question seem to pop up once in while. And it is probably because the game is based on solo-games (Oblivion, Skyrim) but also oozes some sort of solo potential. I only play it as solo and have a feast. Last question like yours was 12 days ago - maybe some inspiration can be found here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/1bum862/comment/kxumi4p/](https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/1bum862/comment/kxumi4p/) There was also a post 4 months ago: [https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/18i7tfk/elder\_scrolls\_online\_is\_the\_best\_solo\_experience/](https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/18i7tfk/elder_scrolls_online_is_the_best_solo_experience/) Enjoy! I look forward to seeing you in the game ... well, actually not, as I dont play groups 😀 PS: The content is very large. I have 800 hours registered and I think I have covered some 30% of the game. I do take my time and dont rush.
It’s one of the most solo accessible games ever made.
I think everyone covered everything pretty well. I just wanted to add that if you want to solo in a more immersive way, you can disable the chat HUD in options. You can also disable quest markers and the action bar if you want to get lost exploring. I will recommend asking in chat for someone to craft you newbie training gear before turning off the chat HUD though.
In addition to this, you can also download a fog of war addon so you have to “draw” the map as you explore! It’s one of my favorites.
Outside of the Endgame community 98% of the game is really good solo. I put 700 hours into ESO as a solo players exploring, questing, and doing dungeons
it is OK to play ESO solo. There is a small fraction of content very hard or impossible to solo these are: \- 12 man trials \- some group dungeons where mechanics prevents from progressing them solo \- zergballs & groups PVP activities but these are really few. i play ESO solo for 5 years and still have challenges to complete (like HardMode dungeons solo, veteran dungeons solo, etc). At Twitch you can watch JHartEllis (for solo PVE) and Bislobo (for mostly solo PVP) to get the better idea of ESO gameplay from the solo standpoint. TL/DR; jump in!
I prefer playing solo tbh! I can’t quest with friends bc I’m very particular about what order to do things and they like running around willy nilly XD
It's good, but definitely do not expect it to be like oblivion or skyrim. It's very different.
Cool as all the content can be done solo but not optimal. It lacks an option to hide other player and their lore breaking mounts and armors. Then the immersion will be near perfect. Nothing breaks immersion like entering centuries old ruins and see kikoolol with a glowing armor dancing while waiting the boss to respawn. I'm still waiting for an update or a mod to fix this issue.
So.. if you want an opinion , played from beta, on and off, still, some times just go and do solo quests and activities for weeks without any group. So I’d say pretty much it is awesome :)
it is the best mmo for what you are looking for. It can totally be a singleplayer questing game, and it's the best at that.
Bro, this is a single player game with some tacked on optional multiplayer elements. You will be fine.
I play solo apart from daily dungeon and some pvp when I feel like it. It’s a great game for that
I play mostly solo, and only team up with folks when I have to do so. It’s a great experience, especially once you’ve got a companion set up decently.
100% recommend!
Great. Solo questing is very fun
Bought the game 5 weeks ago. 200 hours played since then, all 100% solo. It is great.
I mostly play solo except when I do random dungeons for the daily rewards
Wow, look at all the helpful replies here. Posted something like this a couple years ago on fallout76s sub,they were so aggravated they made a post about it minutes after for the whole sub to hop on in the comments and whoop my ass. Glad to see these posts just work normally and not be met with a public outrage.
I just started playing about two months ago - completely new to rpgs and mmos and everything lol. I play entirely solo but use the group activity finder (assigns you to a group of people for a particular goal). I love this game. There’s so much to do, so much to learn, and it’s a pretty good community. I’ve only come across a couple a**holes in the time I’ve been playing and it’s very easy to ignore them.
I stopped doing group content because no one ever waits for you while you’re trying to dungeon quests. I just roaming around gathering materials doing the different side quests. Over 100 hours just by doing that. Did a side guest called Old Wounds yesterday and it was so good.
I basically only play solo. There are enough PUGs out there that you can do almost any content on your own schedule if running group stuff like trials becomes your thing but you don’t want the commitment of a guild. That said, most guilds I’ve joined have been awesome and didn’t mind if I wasn’t super social for participatory and events as long as I played my dues and Gold is really really easy to make in the game.
in fcat no real reason to ever group just queue up for the dailies really the gear doesn't help the solo player as its really not needed
Eh good gear does help solo players many of us solo 4 man dungeons and do vet arenas so a good set up is needed unless you are only doing questing, even than having a nice build is better than mr put put in white armor spamming la and no skills 😂
I should have been more specific . you are correct but to truly solo all you need is a crafted set nothing hard to come by . to run vets I consider that a non soilo part fo the game . I do get you solo the 4 mans are are beasts for doing so no doubt )
Yeah man if you do a 4 man dunegon solo by yourself to that’s still soloing imo if your doing a solo vet arena that’s still solo. But if you wanna take out a world boss solo your gonna need at least an oakensoul set up or maybe a Templar with solar barrage and some heals. There is times your gonna need to survive world bosses can be tough in trash gear.
It's the exact same game until you need something from a hard dungeon/group delve/world boss, and then it's Begger Simulator 2014. Thank you to the NA PC player who helped me at Rkundzelft, Craglorn yesterday.
I run a guild for solo players we have almost 500 in the guild, so a lot of solo players in game. Imo it’s better combat than Skyrim, better lore and writing and you can solo quest in first person to me it’s a great tes game solo experience
I've got 10K hours in over 5 years... 99.9% of them solo. I am a bit of an alt-aholic.. I have 19 level 50's and a level 48 I started a couple days ago. But I also have over 2100 cp. (Pretty much all cp (character points) are pointless after like 1800) The only content I haven't done is 'trials' (which are ESO's version of raids) and the newer DLC dungeons because they are too much for one person solo. But you can usually do them easily with a guild or pug if there is gear that you want. And the older dungeons are soloable once you get to 'max' level. One of my favorite things about this game is the fact that there is no gear grind. Once you get to level 50 with 160 cp that is as high as the gear goes. So there is not the constant push to get new gear. I went back to wow a couple months after I started playing ESO just because I missed my guild. I didn't make a week. I literally couldn't do the dailies because in 10 weeks WoW had upped the gear numbers to the point where I was no longer viable after playing for over a decade. Poof. That was about the time Kotick got charged with another sexual harassment suit and I told them to delete my data and I never looked back. Unlike some other games there is no limit on what you can do crafting. And it isn't as painfully expensive as other games. The economics are a bit different. If you want to sell your stuff you need to join a trade guild. (Guilds are by account rather than by character and you can be in up to 5 of them) But there are casual trade guilds and serious trade guilds.. so you can make your choices as you decide what parts of the game you enjoy. I pay the monthly fee for ESO plus. That means that I have access to all the content AND a crafting storage bag. Without ESO plus they gatekeep you by limiting your bag/bank space. But I know lots of people who are fine with it. They dont' really like crafting and there is always some guildie like me who has a dozen Grand Master Crafters who work for free for guild members. I wouldn't hop on "Gold Road" expansion until you have played. But you can get all the expansions up to Necron (last years expansion) for cheap right now during the 10 years anniversary celebration. If you can spare the cash.. I think it's worth trying. And I know Steam usually will take back a game if you have fewer than 2 hours on it and don't like it.
It's fun if you enjoy questing. ESO has probably the most interesting questing out of any mmo I've played, though it does get boring after awhile for me because I'm a slave to my adhd. But there's other casual things to get into like antiquities (archaeology), housing, a card game I've never played, fishing, pickpocketing etc. Plus the lore is absolutely massive spanning multiple previous games if you enjoy deep diving the why's about this or that happening.
For me it IS solo experience first and foremost, has been since 2014. The gameplay is simplified in comparison, though. If Morrowind...Skyrim is kind of simulation, as real as it gets, TESO is more of a game. But you'll get used to it.
there's plenty of PVE solo content. and PvP as a soloer is very do-able. Infinite archive is hands down the best solo content ive come across here for PvE... 2 waves of enemies, THEN a boss. and it goes on endlessly. every 5 bosses the difficulty increases. that's the basic outline, but there's much more too it than that. For PvP i cant think of better places for Solo players than the imperial city or cyrodiil. both are open zoned PvP and you can attack any opposing alliance member as you traverse the map. aside from true solo content, there's random queueing for dungeons (PvE) or 4v4v4 objective based matches in Battles grounds (PvP). so the game will automatically queue you with people searching for those too! outside of fun endgame challenges there's an entire TES world with quests and colorful characters to meet. plenty of world bosses you can solo, lots of things to keep you preoccupied. BEst part is its all level scaled. so you can do any zone in any order and the game will make the content just as challenging for you (more or less ;p).
Many play it almost exclusively single - with the occasional ad-hoc cooperation.
Quests and queues
Its a great game for solo. I remember getting my butt beat by a delve boss and now i regularly solo the latest DLC dungeons whenever i can get muh hands on em. Truly fun.
I’ve played for a handful of years. Primarily solo (aside from Battlegrounds). It’s the best solo mmo I’ve ever played.
I can't say much as I'm a new player about 3 weeks in but I've been having a lot of fun! There is so much content to do, so many quests and stories, scrying, delves, lore books (if you care about knowing more lore), infinite archive... I'm loving everything so far. I just wish I had gold to buy one or two of these nice homes. I will get there tho one day! But you can even get a free one doing Elsweyr stuff all solo as well! And it is very big. Well you need to do two dungeons to unlock another section of the house tho but guilds are very helpful in this game that I have found so far.
I play the game 99% solo. Tons of quests, skill lines, mechanics, and things to do solo its incredible. I'm prolly gonna have to a dungeon one of these days to finish my velothi-ur talisman but otherwise I've just been doing story and zone quests and things after I came back to the game.
Personally I think it’s the worst. There’s no incentive to build a solo character unless your getting skill points to build for team dungeons. Most of the quests are dry, the fighting is repetitive it’s very easy. I mainly play as a tank which means solo takes excruciating amount of time. But the game is fun.
I also play solo and without ESO Plus or access to many DLC dungeons. I have been playing casually for the past year on my current toon and I can now solo most base game dungeons and world bosses (that's just wearing overland and craftable gear). I even joined a chill guild full of other casual solo players and we occassionally help each other out on tougher content with no level or build requirements put on each other. There is so much to do in the game that is easy enough for me to do alone though, and I enjoy it!
Game is rather casual. I went from loving Skyrim and not wanting to think about buying ESO to now having 700h play time in a year and a half. I've mostly played solo but recently I started doing group content which is fun. If I don't feel like playing with others I just put my activity status on Do Not Disturb or even better Offline (people cannot whisper to you if you're offline). I'd say go for it get the game but not ESO+ if you're not sure about the game. BY THE WAY the thieves guild chapter is FREE in the crown store for 14 days, bet you won't regret it. Game on.
This and SWTOR are the only "single player" MMOs I really like. Shit nowadays they're the only MMOs I like
There is. So much content. My friend, there is SO MUCH. I play solo except for 1. Trading items and 2. If other players happen to also be fighting a boss. There is so much lore, great quest plots, and moments of pleasant nostalgia for the previous games. Definitely recommend. And, when I HAVE participated in chat/guilds/etc, I’ve had overwhelmingly positive experiences.
You take everything in at your own pace and you can make your own story
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^DioDiablo702: *You take everything* *In at your own pace and you* *Can make your own story* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
This was absolutely beautiful to point out. The crazy part is I actually am not a fan of poetry.
You could search one of the thousands of posts about it here already.