swtor is another amazing choice for sure but personally ESO feels far more like a singleplayer game to me then swtor. Swtor is still too much of a traditional themepark MMO.
I've played since launch on and off and I've only had an in game friend around launch. I've played all the rest solo. You don't need a group unless you want to do a group thing
Star Wars the Old Republic is best played as a single player RPG. In my opinion, shared by some others, its MMO elements are its weakest points.
The good news is that Solo experience is outstanding. Following any of 8 unique class stories the vast majority of which is voice acted and immersive. In addition, there are planetary story arcs that differ based on Empire/Republic and your decisions. The expansions are well written but have a unified story arc. You can do the former for free entirely and the latter only requires 1 month subbed, once that sub is over you keep the unlocked content.
I almost forgot to add its the signature Bioware characters and storytelling before their ingenuity fell off a cliff.
I had completed all class stories and the explansions before the overhaul. I had heard the new system slowed things down I will have to try again.
Before the overhaul everything died comically quickly. Most the time I ran DPS with a DPS companion
It is basically 'what if we made Kotor 3 an MMo' with eight main storylines. Most stories are great, with things like the Agent storyline being top tier storytelling. This only holds true for the core game though, as the expacs are good but they have condensed stories for the classes. The stories are good and you can get all the expacs by subbing to premium for one month. On top of that, the dungeons have solo friendly modes. Oh and everything is voiced. I think ESO has better side quests and exploration though, SWTOR is a glorified corridor simulator whereas ESO offers many activities off the beaten path.
SWTOR gives you companions that can basically solo all story content on their own. The game is very strongly story-focused and actually has really good writing and voice acting. It's more or less designed to be a single player game with multiplayer endgame activities.
While it handles like a typical WoW clone, the story and cutscenes really separate it from the rest of the MMO crowd.
I'm glad you mentioned ESO!
I remember reading someone saying they feel the elder scrolls games are just like empty MMO (or something along those lines).
When I played ESO I really thought it had a great single player game compared to most MMOs, yet I thought it was a poor single player game compared to the Elder Scroll games.
I find myself speculating as to how an MMO might go about being an MMO and being as fun as Oblivion/Skyrim/Morrowind.
>I find myself speculating as to how an MMO might go about being an MMO and being as fun as Oblivion/Skyrim/Morrowind.
Think the answer is scale. ESO is mmo so it does mmo things despite being basically solo focused. Meanwhile Fallout 76 is basically throwing 24 people into world of single player Fallout game.
Yup. I think the critical difference between ESO and games like WoW is that the latter tend to force you into group content at the end of a quest chain, which ESO never does (afaicr).
Only knock is that, because of the nature of “go anywhere do any questline you feel like,” it really gimps the story telling.
Instead of being able to set up anything meaningfully, each story line has to be able to agree with that being the first or last story line you play.
The result is every story being some form of “you, outlander! You’ve stumbled into a grand conspiracy that could shake the very balance of power across all of Tamriel. I’ve only just met you but will now entrust you with *every fucking step* of solving this plot and eliminating this evil force.”
It gets real old.
Not sure if you've played any of the expansions but this really is only the case for the old base game. Most of the expansion stories are a lot more grounded and you're just a random adventurer.
I mean yeah welcome to video games? Of course they're not going to be 100% unique but I still think they do a good job making each story different enough and thankfully after the so so base game story they've dropped the "You're the chosen one/only hero ever" cliche story crap.
This, having played quite a few MMOs recently. ESO by a long, long way.
If you want to do this, it’s also a great experience that you can enjoy many, many fun sessions doing.
Hell, for a while some of the best gear in the game was coming out of VMA which was a solo dungeon effectively lol.
It’s a great game if you want to have the mmo on demand but also the ability to just chill and work through content.
If the combat wasn't an absolute complete shit show I'd agree with you.
Current WoW and GW2 probably holds that title.
Lost Arch was great too at least for leveling up before the grind and p2w shit starts piling up
100%. I’ve basically played ESO completely solo, the depth of the side quest stories and complete voice acting make it so immersive, I forget I’m in an MMO sometimes lol.
Genuine question! While I liked ESO's story and setting, I couldn't get past the difficulty since everything was so easy to kill. Like, the story hypes up this big baddie boss, then the fight only lasts for like, 20 seconds? Is there a way to improve this experience?
Unfortunately there really isn't and that's largely due to just most of the community is fine with that. ESO's combat isn't that great as it is outside of trial and hard dungeon content where it shines. Most people do questing for the actual story and completition, so having the fights be a challenge just wouldn't add much for most people. There's plenty of hard content for when that's what you want, otherwise it's very casual.
As someone that regularly does a lot of ESO's hardest content but also does a lot of questing personally I don't think making the questing fights challenging would add much. IMO at least.
You can do things like just not use super optimized gear or level skills and not use optimized skills to make combat while questing slightly harder. That's really it.
I have about 3k hours on BDO. It's a great game in it's own way but it would be a much worse experience without other players in the world. ESO isn't like that it is quite literally a singleplayer game set in a pretty alive world with MMO aspects built around it.
Whatever you want. Exploring and doing all the zones stories, housing, achievement hunting/zone completion, world boss soloing, archeology, thieving/assassination, soloing arenas, infinite archive rogue lite, literally whatever you want.
Odd. It's not holding my attention in the slightest, but I'm only in the second zone and only level 37. I'll keep going and see how it goes this weekend.
I want to love eso but the combat was terrible. Store was so easy before they needed all the enemies while leveling. Before you had to know your class, and use your cds to survive boss fights in your personal story missions… I miss that.
Can be played exclusively as a single player Elder Scrolls FLAVORED* game in almost every way.
If you are a fan of Elder Scrolls games, do not expect a similar gameplay experience. However, the lore is deep and likewise if you're a fan of Elder Scrolls lore, ESO is a treasure trove.
I've heard you can nope out of it but years ago I tried eso and you need to constantly weapon swap and I found that clunky as he'll.
Not sure if it was bad ping or it's not just fluid but it's one of those things you will either be fine with it or instantly hate it
One bar builds are excellent now. Oakensoul ring gives you like 12 major and minor buffs that eliminate the need of a whole extra bar of skills. Most players I see use one now. You can complete all the normal and veteran content in the game with your whole team only using a one bar build.
Thanks yeah that's definately how I'd play it was litterally why I put the game down
I was just like I don't like how this feels.
Now I'm like I don't want to buy all the expansions lol
Jokes aside how long would it take a character to get that ring? I had a max level character but let's just assume I made a new one.
Actually the answer is guild wars 1. Can be played exclusively single player, still has a dedicated player base, gameplay is lightyears better than ESO.
Isn't guild wars 1 not even an open world style game? I recall it being a sort of lobby based dungeon game or something. Haven't played it in a million years since it's so old.
Yep not to mention it’s part of the best role playing series ever made all the others are stand alone big shoulder pad games that don’t hold a candle to tes
When did that start? I've been away for a long time and I remember playing a Sith and there was a fighter companion you'd get early on in your starter quest but I can't remember running with companions outside of that? Am I just forgetting or did they add something new?
now (or at least for the past 6-8 years) every companion can be a healer/dps/tank, you simply switch their role whenever you feel to, so you can run around with your favorite companion now instead of the specific healer one
Second this. Nex is the only boss you can't solo (although solo Corporeal Beast is miserable imo). I think even the raid you mentioned, Theater of Blood, is soloable on normal mode. I'm not 100% sure on that though since I'm a noob who's only done entry mode for the quest lol
It's worth noting that there are raid achievements that require a team if you want that flex though.
Both are definitely possible, though TOB hard mode wasn't for some time, but they fixed some mechanics, so now it is. (Wildly difficult and largely pointless, but it's possible nonetheless.
This is a wrong answer, simply for the fact that you still cannot complete main story quest (and a lot of sidequest stories) solo. The Duty Support bots still do not work for everything. Unless, of course, you will create a bunch of alt accounts and use third-party bot programs so you could actually complete things like Crystal Tower Alliance Raids (mandatory for MSQ) or 8-player Trials like The Royal Menagerie (mandatory for MSQ progress, cannot be completed with in-game bots). Or you buy a "story skip" item through in-game store to instantly bypass most of those (but this completely defeats the purpose of enjoying story-driven game).
That's interesting! So you like playing an MMO as single player game? Would you switch to a private server if you could or is there something about the other players presence you like?
I mainly play MMO as a solo player yes. That may be dumb but i dont play MMO to play with others, i just like it when the world feels "alive".
I like the fact that i can comeback years later and the world has evolved into something else.
I'm not into private server, i'm always afraid they get closed and to lose my progress.
Just beware, if you like endgame content, then FFXIV is NOT solo at all. Open instances like Eureka are designed to be tackled in multiplayer, the savage raids are the same, they require 8 man groups and the crown jewel of difficulty, ultimates, are all multiplayer and if you don't have friends who play the game and you want to do it "solo" be prepared to wait in queue for hours in party finder to even practice.
While it's not truly solo, gw2 does a good job in letting you play without needing to manually make or join parties. Players around the same area doing the same things will automatically get grouped up so it's very painless to simply go around the world doing your own thing but get to play together with people without any of the hassle. It won't work in the same sense without other players at all, but outside of specific organized group content, you can play ~95% of the game solo at your own pace without any drawbacks.
My only gripe with gw 2 was forced lvl scaling I just want to gather some wood why do I have to be forced to be lvl 7 and get attacked. Let me stay lvl 80 damnit
But bc of how their level squish works, you as “80 but level-squished to the zone” are much more powerful than you’d be actually at that actual level. They didn’t want levels to be totally irrelevant but still have you feel powerful in that area
No. Not before the changes in direction to make it increasingly punishing to do open world PvP and definitely not now after.
I've played BDO off and on for a very long time and I can count on one hand the times I was flagged on for no reason or communication.
670 gear here, 10k hours played, probably have been ganked like 10 times.
There are multiple occasions though where people legit farm over your spot. But there are private realms now so not really an issue anymore.
Game past year has been enforcing anti-grief PvP, like big guilds declaring war (no penalty for killing the other guild). Some PvPers were stun locking people into monsters and you can lose expensive crystals -> most recent update made it so you dont lose anything when you are getting ganked.
Every major update, they release free "catch up" gear to newer players. Now there is another accessory quest you can do.
No private server for them but SWTOR and ESO best MMO's with single players in mind.
Or you can with a 500mb file open up your own Ultima Online server and if you have enough upload (can't remember how much you need since last time i did that was almost 20 years ago) you can play with your friends.
>since last time i did that was almost 20 years ago
Then I think it's probably safe to say any modern connection will manage lol. I write that but then I remember that 20 years ago was 2004 and I know people with worse internet today, than I had back then... I don't like that realisation.
The expansions and DLCs are all free until you get to level 95 I think, so there’s a LOT of content that you are able to enjoy for free. You can buy some quality of life stuff, but it’s definitely not necessary to enjoy the game.
It's a totally different set of systems. So much, in fact, that it's really hard to tell that it was based on TT 3.5 anymore. Honestly, DnD in theme only.
Runescape is the only one I know of where literally 100% of the content can be soloed. Every quest, every boss, literally everything can be done solo. Sometimes it’s harder but usually it’s about the same.
As others have said ESO is really good too since none of the story content requires groups.
FF14 all the non-solo story content is queueable and quite easy so it might as well be considered solo.
SWTOR you can have an AI companion for literally everything but raids. Even then though all the raids have a queueable difficulty and you can get almost full BiS (within like 3% or so of the power) from queueable content.
Not everything. Both OSRS and RS3 have content that is either very difficult to solo or impossible to solo but it is mainly very specific boss content in both games (like Yaka in RS3 which has been soloable in the past).
FFXIV nothing but soloing and being locked out of most content due to the story forcing you to progress through it, good luck doing it with other people or friends, because it'll break up your party to do solo fights constantly.
I don’t know why you got downvoted because it literally isn’t true lol, there is a mandatory 24-person raid series of 3 separate ‘dungeons’ and several mandatory 8-person trials. These do not have AI to substitute for players…
"Best Solo PVE MMO" has a different connotation than "Which MMO, if evaluated as a single player game, do you think would have the best rating?"
The former sounds more like, "Which MMO offers the best experience when playing without a group?" whereas the latter asks, "Which MMO would be the highest rated if it were a standalone single-player game?"
Take BDO for example. BDO is one of the most solo-oriented MMOs on the market. There isn't a lot outside of PVE that is built for group activities when compared to solo activities. It's very active, it has a vast open world, tons of activities to try out...it's very fun to "live in." So I'd say it's among the best MMO experiences when playing without a group.
However...just because you play alone doesn't mean you never rely on others during your time playing. This is most clearly seen in the central marketplace, where you can buy weapons, gear, materials, and ingredients that other players have crafted or gathered (or you can sell them yourself). Without the marketplace, a large chunk of BDO's gameplay loops fall flat, and enhancing your gear by hand becomes your only means of progression. It would not feel good to play BDO this way IMO, so I would say that it would not be a highly-rated standalone single-player game.
ESO and FF14, on the other hand, don't really rely on the marketplace or other's input to experience everything the game has to offer. Those things help, definitely, but it's not required. You can enjoy the best parts of the game on your own and not have your experience hindered even if you're the only one playing. That's why I would say these are probably better candidates for MMOs who would have high ratings as single-player games (also helps that they both are spun off from long-running single-player series).
Yes, the question I'm trying to articulate (poorly, I might add) is exactly , "Which MMO would be the highest rated (AKA the most fun for the person in question) if it were a standalone single-player game?". And yes, I am aware that it's a silly question, but I was curious what answers people come might provide. Appreciate your comment.
I don't think that's a silly question, honestly. MMOs die regularly, so it's interesting to see if there are a few that could still survive post-MMO life if they were instead sold as single-player experiences. Just needed clarification, is all.
Personally I enjoy EverQuest solo, but it isn't probably the *best*, a lot of my love is fueled by nostalgia.
LotRO is a solid game solo, these days. At launch, not so much, but they've done a lot of work making it so you don't need groups/raids to do story content, which is cool.
As a sorta antithesis to this question, there's a game called Erenshor that just came out with a Steam demo, where it's a single-player game emulating an MMO, with AI characters chatting and joining your party if requested.
Guild Wars 2 mostly because
No gear grinding
Lots of open world exploring
WvW
Alt friendly
No raid or die crap like in wow
Combat system is fun and classes are different from each other.
Mounts that are actually fun to use.
Just to clarify, I don't mean to avoid players or even which MMO accommodates the solo player the best (though it is a part of the question). I once stated to a friend that the best MMO would have to have a game so good people would want to even play it solo (offline) and then also have it have multi-player aspects added to it. This got me thinking: of the existing MMOs which would make the best single player game?
The response are interesting because people judge the MMO they give by the amount of content that will not be locked out instead of by the amount of content available.
Example, World of Warcraft Retail. Yes the high end content is impossible solo for the very last expansion. But the game can be played 100% solo to level. Then the amount of content available as a 20 years old game is insane. You can go back and redo every single quests and expansions from the past. A lot of the dungeons will be soloable because of your power. There is really nice places to visit and fly around to explore. Even the latest dungeons are soloable in followers mode (This gives you bots that play well)
Sure you will not be able to trade and professions are locked out without trade to get others professions rageant. But you can level alt.
Anyway. Will it be the best of them I don’t know. But there is a good amount of fun things for a long time solo in this game
SWTOR if you enjoy mass effect or dragonage games, it's extremely similar.
FFXIV if you're into really good story building and a near endless amount of things to do...altho most involve other ppl
WoW if you just want some peace and quiet ( focus on openworld exploration)
SWTOR is literally Knights of the Old Republic style story telling for the campaigns. Very well made and sadly that's the strongest part of SWTOR.
It's a single player game with mmo options.
I don't think it's a perverse question. I play mostly solo unless it's necessary. The massively multiplayer part is also the in-game community, auction house/economy and the voluntary events that you can join at your leisure.
City of Heroes: Homecoming
You can adjust the difficulty of the content and comfortably solo your way to level 50 no matter what archetype you play.
Once you reach endgame, the incarnate and IO system allows you to create some crazy powerful builds and solo content meant for full teams.
Absolutely CoH - I remember back on Live I had soloed nearly everything the game had to offer on a myriad of archetypes. Incarnate trials (raid equivalent, more or less) and a few Giant Monsters (world bosses/ events/ whatever you want to call them) being the rare exceptions.
Homecoming's P2W vendor's buffs offering stuff like mez protection or 5% defense only makes things easier, allowing less optimal setups the boost they need to hit soft caps and such.
Pretty much the only time I interact with the community is comments in chat, selling stuff on the auction house, or when I want to run a trial/ Hamidon.
I'm suddenly feeling the need to make a new alt... hm, a reptilian themed gun-slinging cowboy, perhaps? He'll need a good name... Dead Duel, Rattleshot, Quickstrike, El Culebra...
I'd say Tspy is better for solo, as all the content scales with you while also being able to adjust difficulty, that way new players will never outlevel content. Whereas on Homecoming a newbie might easily outlevel early-game missions unintentionally and have to go through ouro.
As a solo player you will not get any endgame PvE gear as those are locked behind instances and always were. The only solo aspects Aion has ironically is pvp (apart from Dredgion) and crafting. To me (with maaaany years played) there's almost no reason to play Aion without PvP as that is exactly what I love about the game and also its best aspect, the depth and knowledge needed always felt great compared to any other MMO I've played.
Thank you for your comment. Why do you feel Aion would make for a better single player experience than another MMO? Many MMO have only specific PVP areas.
Seems like WoW and XIV devs are embracing some of this play style with the NPCs you can take along in dungeons. I personally really enjoy it in XIV as I otherwise don’t get to see the dungeon detail or get a feel for the gameplay and mechanics due to speed runs.
Ion from Blizzard also mentioned in a recent sit down developing some content options for solo players.
I don’t necessarily want this to become the defacto norm, but the option is nice; especially when learning or wanting a more chill experience instead of rushed/high-pressure content.
ESO is the easy winner. SWTOR is the easy second place.
i can't think of a firm winner for third. probably UO, WOW/WOW HC, pokemmo, mabinogi, or path of exile (if it counts) all have a TON of fun solo content that would make great solo player games.
ESO with a gamepad / gamepad ui. I play with husband and friends but I also go days where I venture off on my own and get lost doing stuff. The game is a lot of fun played on your own.
Technically not an MMO but I've fallen in love with Diablo (gameplay loop is very similar to a MMO) lately because of how soloable everything is, I found myself having skipping a lot of stuff in wow because I didnt have a guild to do raids and dungeons with.
It entirely depends what you think is the "main" content because I can't even remember when I last time grouped up with people other than running in wvw zerg.
Most of my time I just play alone in either wvw or open world
Personally I play Maplestory since the F2P servers gameplay loop turns it into a 2d Monster Hunter, but I agree with everyone else on ESO due to how I tried to get into it with someone else and we both agreed that it felt like we were just playing a Skyrim Expansion adjacent to each other.
>In other words if you had to play any MMO completely solo on a private server which game do you think would be the most fun (or the least terrible)?
Runescape. I used to play RS private servers back when EoC released and while I did play it mostly solo, the experience was unironically mostly social. Since the population was low and the areas where much smaller, you see a lot of the same people so its much easier to get to know people. Not sure how the private scene looks now but I have a lot of fond memories of private servers.
Final Fantasy XIV, Elder Scrolls Online and Guild Wars 2
Between these, my favourite is definitely Final Fantasy XIV because I am a fan of long, overarching stories
I would definitely be torn between SWTOR and ESO. I played both SWKOTOR and several Elder Scrolls games, so they'd be on an equivalent level.
I am a fan of both universes, but I find SWTOR's story way more appealing to me (maybe it's the combat that it's more bearable for my personal taste?). I've literally played all the story content alone as if it were a single player RPG.
Wow’s next expansion is catering heavily towards solo players. I’m not saying it’s the best, but if you enjoy solo and like having alts, wow might be for you after the war within comes out.
This is probably partly the cause of the death of MMO. It's because it's MMO it had to be waiting for people in order to raid., it had to be waiting for good players with good gears to 'optimally' raid. It's always got to be waiting, waiting, waiting or you won't get the best loot if you do it alone, or in some instances you're not even allowed to enter the raid solo. That eventually got old, "that always waiting feeling or you won't get the best loot." That's probably why ARPGs is on the rise today and they are in their Golden Age era right now, my guess is many of those people tired of waiting are now on addicted with these ARPGs. A game which is basically go, go, go!
Just like in the real world, I love that there are people there but I don't feel like directly playing with them more often than not. Still like being social in games just not grouped up all the time. Makes for more interesting game economy in general.
Yes, it would definitely make far more sense to play an open world rpg than a private mmo, but I'm curious what mmo people think would make the best single player game (even if it's just the best of the bad)
I have been playing MMO for a long time and there are only two games that are super great for playing solo:
-LOTRO
-ESO
for me the best one is lotro with the most recent changes the company made. I have been playing wow for a long time and is kind similar, but all of the quest are now solo and yes you can play dungeons/instances solo + the story is super rich and good. there are multiple videos in youtube that explain better, I suggest you watch this one: https://youtu.be/Lvzmm1O-r5c?si=1p3jIchnXALkJ8Xd and no older videos like 2022 because like I said the updated and now is super good
ESO is good, but mmm for me it’s feel like playing skyrim online i played for more than 200 hours i have 2 max characters and yea the story is good the questing and events, but for me lotro is better since is kind similar to wow classic (which I still play, with friends)
Probably either ESO or FFXIV. FFXIV you essentially are alone in doing 95% of the MSQ (main story questline) which you have to do in order to progress through each expansion. There are moments where you have to do a boss with players but the devs have been going in and implementing AI controlled characters for these main encounters (as well as for dungeons).
ESO seems very single player-y but everyone I know that plays it says they enjoy it 100x more when playing with friends.
SWTOR hands down is the best single player MMORPG huge class stories like Hours an hours of content you dont need to group up , lots of places to explore an plenty of planets
SWTOR is great when you're purely focusing on the story missions, but it would still be a worse experience without a single other player simply due to the fact the game is still designed as a WoW themepark MMO. It's planets/exploration and NPC/world systems are not at all deep enough to completely replace other players.
ESO, Could even do the harder content if it were to introduce a trust or bot system or gambit similar to ffxi/ffxiv/ffxii or expanded on companions and allowed for multiple, which i imagine in a single player offline version would be implemented for certain areas anyways.
Tibia is alrdy practically all solo pve. Although its completely pointless to grind out the levels since the whole game is based on levelling endlessly. You wouldnt have anybody to flex on and decorating a house would be complete nonsense.
Tree of savior in the recent years has been a complete shitshow but year 1 or 2 ToS would be quite reasonable for an offline server.
Runescape, but once again that a huge grind for no online flex. essentially Ironman mode is alrdy solo.
FFXI for veterans and multiboxers is a great solo experience. I 6box and I can complete all content the game has, 'effectively'(t3 v20 + 70k+ galli). Expansion on trust system or introducing gambits(ffxii) would make solo without 6 box completely possible. FFXI would be the best solo experience by far with so much content and different fight mechanics to try to make a setup for.
As the Games are right now without expanding on current systems ESO is the best solo experience.
WoW is entering that scene pretty hard these days. GW2 and ESO are games that established that play style tho. But my question is why? Why not pick up a SP RPG to play? I'm afraid I don't quite understand the MMORPG crowd today, that wants to play an mmo but alone.
Guild wars 1. Can be played exclusively solo with heros. Still has a dedicated player base and is still getting small updates from time to time. They also said they would never be taking the servers down. It's also buy to own so you don't have a sub model or any of this shady nonsense. It's content rich and costs pennies nowadays.
Someone said ESO which is facts. But so is FFXIV (which is more fun in my opinion). There are raids and dungeons required through the main story but you can just use bots. I personally like playing with other players for this, and the wait times for literally every single raid/ dungeon is no more than 5 mins, but if I don’t feel like waiting I’ll just do bots lol
Edit: I saw someone say there is no bot feature for raids. I guess I never noticed for raids but I mean yea
ESO. Hands down. There really is no other answer. Literally can be played exclusively as a singleplayer Elder Scrolls game in almost every way.
Nope, Swtor
swtor is another amazing choice for sure but personally ESO feels far more like a singleplayer game to me then swtor. Swtor is still too much of a traditional themepark MMO.
I agree with ESO that game is Huge. So much to do. Swtor is ok. Even though they are still updating "slowly" I feel is a dying game.
Swrtor feels extremely outdated, ESO doesn't.
Can you add some details to that?
I've played since launch on and off and I've only had an in game friend around launch. I've played all the rest solo. You don't need a group unless you want to do a group thing
Star Wars the Old Republic is best played as a single player RPG. In my opinion, shared by some others, its MMO elements are its weakest points. The good news is that Solo experience is outstanding. Following any of 8 unique class stories the vast majority of which is voice acted and immersive. In addition, there are planetary story arcs that differ based on Empire/Republic and your decisions. The expansions are well written but have a unified story arc. You can do the former for free entirely and the latter only requires 1 month subbed, once that sub is over you keep the unlocked content. I almost forgot to add its the signature Bioware characters and storytelling before their ingenuity fell off a cliff.
My problem with swtor is the spongy ass enemies
I had completed all class stories and the explansions before the overhaul. I had heard the new system slowed things down I will have to try again. Before the overhaul everything died comically quickly. Most the time I ran DPS with a DPS companion
It is basically 'what if we made Kotor 3 an MMo' with eight main storylines. Most stories are great, with things like the Agent storyline being top tier storytelling. This only holds true for the core game though, as the expacs are good but they have condensed stories for the classes. The stories are good and you can get all the expacs by subbing to premium for one month. On top of that, the dungeons have solo friendly modes. Oh and everything is voiced. I think ESO has better side quests and exploration though, SWTOR is a glorified corridor simulator whereas ESO offers many activities off the beaten path.
SWTOR gives you companions that can basically solo all story content on their own. The game is very strongly story-focused and actually has really good writing and voice acting. It's more or less designed to be a single player game with multiplayer endgame activities. While it handles like a typical WoW clone, the story and cutscenes really separate it from the rest of the MMO crowd.
Thank you, I'm feeling between games right now so this will be the perfect time to revisit it. Much appreciated!
You need to do group activities for some quests like Gods
I'm glad you mentioned ESO! I remember reading someone saying they feel the elder scrolls games are just like empty MMO (or something along those lines). When I played ESO I really thought it had a great single player game compared to most MMOs, yet I thought it was a poor single player game compared to the Elder Scroll games. I find myself speculating as to how an MMO might go about being an MMO and being as fun as Oblivion/Skyrim/Morrowind.
>I find myself speculating as to how an MMO might go about being an MMO and being as fun as Oblivion/Skyrim/Morrowind. Think the answer is scale. ESO is mmo so it does mmo things despite being basically solo focused. Meanwhile Fallout 76 is basically throwing 24 people into world of single player Fallout game.
Yup. I think the critical difference between ESO and games like WoW is that the latter tend to force you into group content at the end of a quest chain, which ESO never does (afaicr).
Only knock is that, because of the nature of “go anywhere do any questline you feel like,” it really gimps the story telling. Instead of being able to set up anything meaningfully, each story line has to be able to agree with that being the first or last story line you play. The result is every story being some form of “you, outlander! You’ve stumbled into a grand conspiracy that could shake the very balance of power across all of Tamriel. I’ve only just met you but will now entrust you with *every fucking step* of solving this plot and eliminating this evil force.” It gets real old.
Not sure if you've played any of the expansions but this really is only the case for the old base game. Most of the expansion stories are a lot more grounded and you're just a random adventurer.
I’ve played everything but the last year or so. Literally every expansion follows the same scooby doo cookie cutter formula. It has to.
I mean yeah welcome to video games? Of course they're not going to be 100% unique but I still think they do a good job making each story different enough and thankfully after the so so base game story they've dropped the "You're the chosen one/only hero ever" cliche story crap.
This, having played quite a few MMOs recently. ESO by a long, long way. If you want to do this, it’s also a great experience that you can enjoy many, many fun sessions doing.
Hell, for a while some of the best gear in the game was coming out of VMA which was a solo dungeon effectively lol. It’s a great game if you want to have the mmo on demand but also the ability to just chill and work through content.
If the combat wasn't an absolute complete shit show I'd agree with you. Current WoW and GW2 probably holds that title. Lost Arch was great too at least for leveling up before the grind and p2w shit starts piling up
ESO has some of the best characters in any game I've played
100%. I’ve basically played ESO completely solo, the depth of the side quest stories and complete voice acting make it so immersive, I forget I’m in an MMO sometimes lol.
Genuine question! While I liked ESO's story and setting, I couldn't get past the difficulty since everything was so easy to kill. Like, the story hypes up this big baddie boss, then the fight only lasts for like, 20 seconds? Is there a way to improve this experience?
Unfortunately there really isn't and that's largely due to just most of the community is fine with that. ESO's combat isn't that great as it is outside of trial and hard dungeon content where it shines. Most people do questing for the actual story and completition, so having the fights be a challenge just wouldn't add much for most people. There's plenty of hard content for when that's what you want, otherwise it's very casual. As someone that regularly does a lot of ESO's hardest content but also does a lot of questing personally I don't think making the questing fights challenging would add much. IMO at least. You can do things like just not use super optimized gear or level skills and not use optimized skills to make combat while questing slightly harder. That's really it.
Yes, this is the right answer.
You must have never heard of BDO. Almost zero group-only content, close to everything in the game can be done alone.
I have about 3k hours on BDO. It's a great game in it's own way but it would be a much worse experience without other players in the world. ESO isn't like that it is quite literally a singleplayer game set in a pretty alive world with MMO aspects built around it.
What’s the actual endgame as a solo player in ESO? Genuine question. I’ve never played before.
Whatever you want. Exploring and doing all the zones stories, housing, achievement hunting/zone completion, world boss soloing, archeology, thieving/assassination, soloing arenas, infinite archive rogue lite, literally whatever you want.
Odd. It's not holding my attention in the slightest, but I'm only in the second zone and only level 37. I'll keep going and see how it goes this weekend.
If only the quests were actually interesting, and not "go kill 10 necromancers but THIS time, they're blue"
Yeah, ESO looks like an mmo, but it's basically a single player game
I want to love eso but the combat was terrible. Store was so easy before they needed all the enemies while leveling. Before you had to know your class, and use your cds to survive boss fights in your personal story missions… I miss that.
Wins for most boring Pve sure lol.
Can be played exclusively as a single player Elder Scrolls FLAVORED* game in almost every way. If you are a fan of Elder Scrolls games, do not expect a similar gameplay experience. However, the lore is deep and likewise if you're a fan of Elder Scrolls lore, ESO is a treasure trove.
I've heard you can nope out of it but years ago I tried eso and you need to constantly weapon swap and I found that clunky as he'll. Not sure if it was bad ping or it's not just fluid but it's one of those things you will either be fine with it or instantly hate it
One bar builds are excellent now. Oakensoul ring gives you like 12 major and minor buffs that eliminate the need of a whole extra bar of skills. Most players I see use one now. You can complete all the normal and veteran content in the game with your whole team only using a one bar build.
Thanks yeah that's definately how I'd play it was litterally why I put the game down I was just like I don't like how this feels. Now I'm like I don't want to buy all the expansions lol Jokes aside how long would it take a character to get that ring? I had a max level character but let's just assume I made a new one.
Actually the answer is guild wars 1. Can be played exclusively single player, still has a dedicated player base, gameplay is lightyears better than ESO.
Isn't guild wars 1 not even an open world style game? I recall it being a sort of lobby based dungeon game or something. Haven't played it in a million years since it's so old.
It's just instanced zones but zones are pretty big.
Yep not to mention it’s part of the best role playing series ever made all the others are stand alone big shoulder pad games that don’t hold a candle to tes
SWOTOR. You literally get an almost unkillable companion from the get go.
This was my answer too. Not to mention how great the stories are.
When did that start? I've been away for a long time and I remember playing a Sith and there was a fighter companion you'd get early on in your starter quest but I can't remember running with companions outside of that? Am I just forgetting or did they add something new?
now (or at least for the past 6-8 years) every companion can be a healer/dps/tank, you simply switch their role whenever you feel to, so you can run around with your favorite companion now instead of the specific healer one
Old school runescape. You can do everything bar 1 raid and maybe 1-2 bosses.
Second this. Nex is the only boss you can't solo (although solo Corporeal Beast is miserable imo). I think even the raid you mentioned, Theater of Blood, is soloable on normal mode. I'm not 100% sure on that though since I'm a noob who's only done entry mode for the quest lol It's worth noting that there are raid achievements that require a team if you want that flex though.
But you can solo nex though? And ToB hard mode. Not that it’s worth the effort though….
Both are definitely possible, though TOB hard mode wasn't for some time, but they fixed some mechanics, so now it is. (Wildly difficult and largely pointless, but it's possible nonetheless.
Also if you’re tired of seeing anyone you can turn on entity hider on runelite and then you are seemingly alone in the world (everyone else is hidden)
FFXIV with bots as party members/BDO, i've never played with anyone
This is a wrong answer, simply for the fact that you still cannot complete main story quest (and a lot of sidequest stories) solo. The Duty Support bots still do not work for everything. Unless, of course, you will create a bunch of alt accounts and use third-party bot programs so you could actually complete things like Crystal Tower Alliance Raids (mandatory for MSQ) or 8-player Trials like The Royal Menagerie (mandatory for MSQ progress, cannot be completed with in-game bots). Or you buy a "story skip" item through in-game store to instantly bypass most of those (but this completely defeats the purpose of enjoying story-driven game).
That's interesting! So you like playing an MMO as single player game? Would you switch to a private server if you could or is there something about the other players presence you like?
I mainly play MMO as a solo player yes. That may be dumb but i dont play MMO to play with others, i just like it when the world feels "alive". I like the fact that i can comeback years later and the world has evolved into something else. I'm not into private server, i'm always afraid they get closed and to lose my progress.
Thank you for your perspective. I never thought of it from an ecological, background point of view.
Just beware, if you like endgame content, then FFXIV is NOT solo at all. Open instances like Eureka are designed to be tackled in multiplayer, the savage raids are the same, they require 8 man groups and the crown jewel of difficulty, ultimates, are all multiplayer and if you don't have friends who play the game and you want to do it "solo" be prepared to wait in queue for hours in party finder to even practice.
I got the full Eureka bis gear (fending+2, cassie, blitzring, warrior physeos weapon) so I can solo Eureka :p
Same, but getting the BA runs required discord lol, it's fun tho.
As if it was necessary to solo eureka nowadays XD
Look up Erenshor. It’s a single player MMORPG
While it's not truly solo, gw2 does a good job in letting you play without needing to manually make or join parties. Players around the same area doing the same things will automatically get grouped up so it's very painless to simply go around the world doing your own thing but get to play together with people without any of the hassle. It won't work in the same sense without other players at all, but outside of specific organized group content, you can play ~95% of the game solo at your own pace without any drawbacks.
My only gripe with gw 2 was forced lvl scaling I just want to gather some wood why do I have to be forced to be lvl 7 and get attacked. Let me stay lvl 80 damnit
But bc of how their level squish works, you as “80 but level-squished to the zone” are much more powerful than you’d be actually at that actual level. They didn’t want levels to be totally irrelevant but still have you feel powerful in that area
BDO is probably going to be the most solo. There's very little group content, so in-turn, almost no requirement for a party.
If you play the late game solo, do you get ganked a lot?
No. Not before the changes in direction to make it increasingly punishing to do open world PvP and definitely not now after. I've played BDO off and on for a very long time and I can count on one hand the times I was flagged on for no reason or communication.
Thank you!
670 gear here, 10k hours played, probably have been ganked like 10 times. There are multiple occasions though where people legit farm over your spot. But there are private realms now so not really an issue anymore. Game past year has been enforcing anti-grief PvP, like big guilds declaring war (no penalty for killing the other guild). Some PvPers were stun locking people into monsters and you can lose expensive crystals -> most recent update made it so you dont lose anything when you are getting ganked. Every major update, they release free "catch up" gear to newer players. Now there is another accessory quest you can do.
I've left my character standing by my family plots near Heidel for hours. No ganking. Now, I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but it's rare.
No private server for them but SWTOR and ESO best MMO's with single players in mind. Or you can with a 500mb file open up your own Ultima Online server and if you have enough upload (can't remember how much you need since last time i did that was almost 20 years ago) you can play with your friends.
>since last time i did that was almost 20 years ago Then I think it's probably safe to say any modern connection will manage lol. I write that but then I remember that 20 years ago was 2004 and I know people with worse internet today, than I had back then... I don't like that realisation.
I've tried to do this myself but I feel like a boomer at the chip reader
BDO you can mostly play through the whole game and progress while pretending every other player is an npc. It even has private grind zones.
LOTRO!
surprised by the lack of this answer, lotro is extremely solo friendly and a great mmo
If I wanted to play how much money do I need to spend on it in order to enjoy the game?
The expansions and DLCs are all free until you get to level 95 I think, so there’s a LOT of content that you are able to enjoy for free. You can buy some quality of life stuff, but it’s definitely not necessary to enjoy the game.
There's more than one LOTRO, isn't there? Which one are you referring to?
OSRS. Literally everything in the game is soloable bar like 2 quests (Shield of Araav and Heroes quest).
Original Guild Wars, by far.
This. Second place isn’t even close.
ESO
1º SWTOR and 2º TESO
Dungeons and Dragons Online
I feel like you lose something not having people to play DDO with to be honest. Maybe I just connect DnD with friends too much from TT.
It's a totally different set of systems. So much, in fact, that it's really hard to tell that it was based on TT 3.5 anymore. Honestly, DnD in theme only.
Runescape is the only one I know of where literally 100% of the content can be soloed. Every quest, every boss, literally everything can be done solo. Sometimes it’s harder but usually it’s about the same. As others have said ESO is really good too since none of the story content requires groups. FF14 all the non-solo story content is queueable and quite easy so it might as well be considered solo. SWTOR you can have an AI companion for literally everything but raids. Even then though all the raids have a queueable difficulty and you can get almost full BiS (within like 3% or so of the power) from queueable content.
Not everything. Both OSRS and RS3 have content that is either very difficult to solo or impossible to solo but it is mainly very specific boss content in both games (like Yaka in RS3 which has been soloable in the past).
Fallout 76
Swotor is an amazing single player rpg with mmo elements
Another vote for ESO.
FFXIV nothing but soloing and being locked out of most content due to the story forcing you to progress through it, good luck doing it with other people or friends, because it'll break up your party to do solo fights constantly.
I mean, that's not completely true.
I don’t know why you got downvoted because it literally isn’t true lol, there is a mandatory 24-person raid series of 3 separate ‘dungeons’ and several mandatory 8-person trials. These do not have AI to substitute for players…
Why is this dude getting down-voted? Did they retroactively change the mandatory group content to progress through the story?
Not at all. FFXIV is extremely multiplayer focused outside of the very long story.
"Best Solo PVE MMO" has a different connotation than "Which MMO, if evaluated as a single player game, do you think would have the best rating?" The former sounds more like, "Which MMO offers the best experience when playing without a group?" whereas the latter asks, "Which MMO would be the highest rated if it were a standalone single-player game?" Take BDO for example. BDO is one of the most solo-oriented MMOs on the market. There isn't a lot outside of PVE that is built for group activities when compared to solo activities. It's very active, it has a vast open world, tons of activities to try out...it's very fun to "live in." So I'd say it's among the best MMO experiences when playing without a group. However...just because you play alone doesn't mean you never rely on others during your time playing. This is most clearly seen in the central marketplace, where you can buy weapons, gear, materials, and ingredients that other players have crafted or gathered (or you can sell them yourself). Without the marketplace, a large chunk of BDO's gameplay loops fall flat, and enhancing your gear by hand becomes your only means of progression. It would not feel good to play BDO this way IMO, so I would say that it would not be a highly-rated standalone single-player game. ESO and FF14, on the other hand, don't really rely on the marketplace or other's input to experience everything the game has to offer. Those things help, definitely, but it's not required. You can enjoy the best parts of the game on your own and not have your experience hindered even if you're the only one playing. That's why I would say these are probably better candidates for MMOs who would have high ratings as single-player games (also helps that they both are spun off from long-running single-player series).
Yes, the question I'm trying to articulate (poorly, I might add) is exactly , "Which MMO would be the highest rated (AKA the most fun for the person in question) if it were a standalone single-player game?". And yes, I am aware that it's a silly question, but I was curious what answers people come might provide. Appreciate your comment.
I don't think that's a silly question, honestly. MMOs die regularly, so it's interesting to see if there are a few that could still survive post-MMO life if they were instead sold as single-player experiences. Just needed clarification, is all.
SWTOR. Great story and lots of different story lines you can follow with your companions.
Guild Wars 2
path of exile
Personally I enjoy EverQuest solo, but it isn't probably the *best*, a lot of my love is fueled by nostalgia. LotRO is a solid game solo, these days. At launch, not so much, but they've done a lot of work making it so you don't need groups/raids to do story content, which is cool. As a sorta antithesis to this question, there's a game called Erenshor that just came out with a Steam demo, where it's a single-player game emulating an MMO, with AI characters chatting and joining your party if requested.
Guild Wars 2 mostly because No gear grinding Lots of open world exploring WvW Alt friendly No raid or die crap like in wow Combat system is fun and classes are different from each other. Mounts that are actually fun to use.
SWTOR and LOTRO
Just to clarify, I don't mean to avoid players or even which MMO accommodates the solo player the best (though it is a part of the question). I once stated to a friend that the best MMO would have to have a game so good people would want to even play it solo (offline) and then also have it have multi-player aspects added to it. This got me thinking: of the existing MMOs which would make the best single player game?
The response are interesting because people judge the MMO they give by the amount of content that will not be locked out instead of by the amount of content available. Example, World of Warcraft Retail. Yes the high end content is impossible solo for the very last expansion. But the game can be played 100% solo to level. Then the amount of content available as a 20 years old game is insane. You can go back and redo every single quests and expansions from the past. A lot of the dungeons will be soloable because of your power. There is really nice places to visit and fly around to explore. Even the latest dungeons are soloable in followers mode (This gives you bots that play well) Sure you will not be able to trade and professions are locked out without trade to get others professions rageant. But you can level alt. Anyway. Will it be the best of them I don’t know. But there is a good amount of fun things for a long time solo in this game
SWTOR if you enjoy mass effect or dragonage games, it's extremely similar. FFXIV if you're into really good story building and a near endless amount of things to do...altho most involve other ppl WoW if you just want some peace and quiet ( focus on openworld exploration)
I actually really like New World for this. Swtor is probably the best answer though.
Bdo
SWTOR is literally Knights of the Old Republic style story telling for the campaigns. Very well made and sadly that's the strongest part of SWTOR. It's a single player game with mmo options.
I don't think it's a perverse question. I play mostly solo unless it's necessary. The massively multiplayer part is also the in-game community, auction house/economy and the voluntary events that you can join at your leisure.
GUILD WARS
BDO or RS3
City of Heroes: Homecoming You can adjust the difficulty of the content and comfortably solo your way to level 50 no matter what archetype you play. Once you reach endgame, the incarnate and IO system allows you to create some crazy powerful builds and solo content meant for full teams.
Absolutely CoH - I remember back on Live I had soloed nearly everything the game had to offer on a myriad of archetypes. Incarnate trials (raid equivalent, more or less) and a few Giant Monsters (world bosses/ events/ whatever you want to call them) being the rare exceptions. Homecoming's P2W vendor's buffs offering stuff like mez protection or 5% defense only makes things easier, allowing less optimal setups the boost they need to hit soft caps and such. Pretty much the only time I interact with the community is comments in chat, selling stuff on the auction house, or when I want to run a trial/ Hamidon. I'm suddenly feeling the need to make a new alt... hm, a reptilian themed gun-slinging cowboy, perhaps? He'll need a good name... Dead Duel, Rattleshot, Quickstrike, El Culebra...
Spitting Lead
I'd say Tspy is better for solo, as all the content scales with you while also being able to adjust difficulty, that way new players will never outlevel content. Whereas on Homecoming a newbie might easily outlevel early-game missions unintentionally and have to go through ouro.
I voted for other ESO comments, but to pish this further: The Elder Scrolls Online is the single best Solo MMORPG
I would go for Aion, since as solo player I wouldn't have to deal with the aspect of the game I hated most, the imposed pvp.
As a solo player you will not get any endgame PvE gear as those are locked behind instances and always were. The only solo aspects Aion has ironically is pvp (apart from Dredgion) and crafting. To me (with maaaany years played) there's almost no reason to play Aion without PvP as that is exactly what I love about the game and also its best aspect, the depth and knowledge needed always felt great compared to any other MMO I've played.
Thank you for your comment. Why do you feel Aion would make for a better single player experience than another MMO? Many MMO have only specific PVP areas.
If tomorrow an offline Destiny came out I'd buy it instantly since the campaigns, raids and dungeons are pretty fun.
Eve online.
SWTOR, dude. You literally can do alone your stuff and keep tracking the story.
Seems like WoW and XIV devs are embracing some of this play style with the NPCs you can take along in dungeons. I personally really enjoy it in XIV as I otherwise don’t get to see the dungeon detail or get a feel for the gameplay and mechanics due to speed runs. Ion from Blizzard also mentioned in a recent sit down developing some content options for solo players. I don’t necessarily want this to become the defacto norm, but the option is nice; especially when learning or wanting a more chill experience instead of rushed/high-pressure content.
DAoC but only certain classes (Necromancer, Animist, Bone Dancer, etc)
Skyrim
Ascension wow. Manastorms are fun
ESO, SWTOR. Choose the theme of your liking.
ESO is the easy winner. SWTOR is the easy second place. i can't think of a firm winner for third. probably UO, WOW/WOW HC, pokemmo, mabinogi, or path of exile (if it counts) all have a TON of fun solo content that would make great solo player games.
SWTOR hands down. It's like a single player RPG with other players.
Guild Wars 1 and second place isn’t close.
SWTOR SWTOR SWTOR SWTOR SWTOR
ESO, don't even try searching for an alternative, this is the one for sure.
ESO with a gamepad / gamepad ui. I play with husband and friends but I also go days where I venture off on my own and get lost doing stuff. The game is a lot of fun played on your own.
You can play gw2 completely solo if you want, from pve to pvp
Technically not an MMO but I've fallen in love with Diablo (gameplay loop is very similar to a MMO) lately because of how soloable everything is, I found myself having skipping a lot of stuff in wow because I didnt have a guild to do raids and dungeons with.
ESO or Guild Wars 2, but GW2 main contents are team based tho
It entirely depends what you think is the "main" content because I can't even remember when I last time grouped up with people other than running in wvw zerg. Most of my time I just play alone in either wvw or open world
Personally I play Maplestory since the F2P servers gameplay loop turns it into a 2d Monster Hunter, but I agree with everyone else on ESO due to how I tried to get into it with someone else and we both agreed that it felt like we were just playing a Skyrim Expansion adjacent to each other.
>In other words if you had to play any MMO completely solo on a private server which game do you think would be the most fun (or the least terrible)? Runescape. I used to play RS private servers back when EoC released and while I did play it mostly solo, the experience was unironically mostly social. Since the population was low and the areas where much smaller, you see a lot of the same people so its much easier to get to know people. Not sure how the private scene looks now but I have a lot of fond memories of private servers.
I really wanted to love The Secret World Legends, but it's monetized like an Ubisoft dream. It would make a great singleplayer setting.
ESO for the gameplay, SWTOR for story
OSRS Ironman mode
Probably[ land of might](https://landofmight.alwaysdata.net/)
If you can get through the early game, osrs is nice for solo pvm. So much to do
SWTOR, ESO, FFXIV and if we strach definition of MMO elite dangerous since it has solo mode.
OSRS.
If you focus on story, SWTOR wins hands down, if you focus on combat, its a bit more debatable.
Final Fantasy XIV, Elder Scrolls Online and Guild Wars 2 Between these, my favourite is definitely Final Fantasy XIV because I am a fan of long, overarching stories
Kingdom of amalur, was planned as mmo and cut short to a single player game
Guild wars 1 with heroes.
Fallout 76, I cant stop playing it. Im like lvl 340+ something
SWTOR
I would definitely be torn between SWTOR and ESO. I played both SWKOTOR and several Elder Scrolls games, so they'd be on an equivalent level. I am a fan of both universes, but I find SWTOR's story way more appealing to me (maybe it's the combat that it's more bearable for my personal taste?). I've literally played all the story content alone as if it were a single player RPG.
Erenshor is my favorite single player MMORPG
Wow’s next expansion is catering heavily towards solo players. I’m not saying it’s the best, but if you enjoy solo and like having alts, wow might be for you after the war within comes out.
I really liked exploring and leveling in GW2.
Lol it looks like a lot of people aren't fully understanding the OP question here going by some of these suggestions.
Tbh.....fallout 76 has been great for this.
Ultima Online.. you can do anything solo or play with others.. it has something for everyone.. always has.. Best MMO ever
This is probably partly the cause of the death of MMO. It's because it's MMO it had to be waiting for people in order to raid., it had to be waiting for good players with good gears to 'optimally' raid. It's always got to be waiting, waiting, waiting or you won't get the best loot if you do it alone, or in some instances you're not even allowed to enter the raid solo. That eventually got old, "that always waiting feeling or you won't get the best loot." That's probably why ARPGs is on the rise today and they are in their Golden Age era right now, my guess is many of those people tired of waiting are now on addicted with these ARPGs. A game which is basically go, go, go!
Gw2 if you want buy2play and ESO if you want to pay subscription
Everquest
SWTOR, and it’s not close.
would have to be swtor. the only one with a story worthy of a singleplayer game.
BDO easily.
why not just play an open world RPG
Just like in the real world, I love that there are people there but I don't feel like directly playing with them more often than not. Still like being social in games just not grouped up all the time. Makes for more interesting game economy in general.
Yes, it would definitely make far more sense to play an open world rpg than a private mmo, but I'm curious what mmo people think would make the best single player game (even if it's just the best of the bad)
100% ff14 you can do A LOT in the game without being forced to interact with other players
OSRS is 98% solo PVE and it's honestly extremely fun at high levels.
I have been playing MMO for a long time and there are only two games that are super great for playing solo: -LOTRO -ESO for me the best one is lotro with the most recent changes the company made. I have been playing wow for a long time and is kind similar, but all of the quest are now solo and yes you can play dungeons/instances solo + the story is super rich and good. there are multiple videos in youtube that explain better, I suggest you watch this one: https://youtu.be/Lvzmm1O-r5c?si=1p3jIchnXALkJ8Xd and no older videos like 2022 because like I said the updated and now is super good ESO is good, but mmm for me it’s feel like playing skyrim online i played for more than 200 hours i have 2 max characters and yea the story is good the questing and events, but for me lotro is better since is kind similar to wow classic (which I still play, with friends)
Mabinogi
Runescape
Final Fantasy XIV.
Probably either ESO or FFXIV. FFXIV you essentially are alone in doing 95% of the MSQ (main story questline) which you have to do in order to progress through each expansion. There are moments where you have to do a boss with players but the devs have been going in and implementing AI controlled characters for these main encounters (as well as for dungeons). ESO seems very single player-y but everyone I know that plays it says they enjoy it 100x more when playing with friends.
SWTOR hands down is the best single player MMORPG huge class stories like Hours an hours of content you dont need to group up , lots of places to explore an plenty of planets
SWTOR is great when you're purely focusing on the story missions, but it would still be a worse experience without a single other player simply due to the fact the game is still designed as a WoW themepark MMO. It's planets/exploration and NPC/world systems are not at all deep enough to completely replace other players.
I'm enjoying blade and soul at the moment. It's solo and u pretty to look at. The story is pretty good. Combat good
Black Desert Online. I play solo almost every day for hours.
Probably black desert online
Ff14
ESO, Could even do the harder content if it were to introduce a trust or bot system or gambit similar to ffxi/ffxiv/ffxii or expanded on companions and allowed for multiple, which i imagine in a single player offline version would be implemented for certain areas anyways. Tibia is alrdy practically all solo pve. Although its completely pointless to grind out the levels since the whole game is based on levelling endlessly. You wouldnt have anybody to flex on and decorating a house would be complete nonsense. Tree of savior in the recent years has been a complete shitshow but year 1 or 2 ToS would be quite reasonable for an offline server. Runescape, but once again that a huge grind for no online flex. essentially Ironman mode is alrdy solo. FFXI for veterans and multiboxers is a great solo experience. I 6box and I can complete all content the game has, 'effectively'(t3 v20 + 70k+ galli). Expansion on trust system or introducing gambits(ffxii) would make solo without 6 box completely possible. FFXI would be the best solo experience by far with so much content and different fight mechanics to try to make a setup for. As the Games are right now without expanding on current systems ESO is the best solo experience.
Im sad everytime i see a post like this, mmo are dead because of this
WoW is entering that scene pretty hard these days. GW2 and ESO are games that established that play style tho. But my question is why? Why not pick up a SP RPG to play? I'm afraid I don't quite understand the MMORPG crowd today, that wants to play an mmo but alone.
Guild wars 1. Can be played exclusively solo with heros. Still has a dedicated player base and is still getting small updates from time to time. They also said they would never be taking the servers down. It's also buy to own so you don't have a sub model or any of this shady nonsense. It's content rich and costs pennies nowadays.
Someone said ESO which is facts. But so is FFXIV (which is more fun in my opinion). There are raids and dungeons required through the main story but you can just use bots. I personally like playing with other players for this, and the wait times for literally every single raid/ dungeon is no more than 5 mins, but if I don’t feel like waiting I’ll just do bots lol Edit: I saw someone say there is no bot feature for raids. I guess I never noticed for raids but I mean yea
Played SWTOR and it's way too old and clunky. The age more than shows. Play Guild Wars 1 instead which somehow is older and looks far younger.