Power Gap Struggles
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I was going to post this as a response in the alpha discussion, but it grew a bit larger and more generalized than I anticipated. This seems more appropriate.
After a few days of playing and trying to consider the developers plans. I am also leaning into making solo play less restrictive. IIRC, the developers have said that they are designing their game to reduce the level gap between players. They have a few mechanics that appear to be running contrary to their stated goals.
Players are forced into cities in order to harvest materials. So I thought this wasn't a problem. But it actually destroys the solo harvester/crafting profession entirely. As you are forced into playing with other players. I feel that the length of time it takes one person to harvest and craft enough materials to be useful should be a severe enough restriction alone. If you are playing with a group, you are going to get things done far more quickly anyways. I do recognize that I don't know enough about the city mechanics to get into too much detail. But from limited experience trying to build my house, it might take me several days to finish building it. Hell, it might take a week, as there is only so much stone around and I've only finished half of my initial foundation. That's not even considering the work benches that I will need and things like gathering and refining. I don't mind it being time consuming and difficult. But it being impossible, not even being able to harvest. Well, that doesn't even make sense. Perhaps adding randomized harvesting nodes (Not just stone), in non-city areas would help solo crafters. Maybe adding MORE nodes in areas where it makes sense. Another idea is actually adding a location for said node. So outside of all of the random harvesting nodes in the world, the city node is actually a consolidated location nearby the city. IE, a mine, quarry, farm. It could include more nodes, in a much smaller area. That would make it clearly and visibly different from the 'free' nodes out in the world. And solo players could stick to their 'free nodes', that sometimes repawn as higher-tier nodes. The travelling crafter should be a viable option for solo players. I think a plan like this could potentially help both parties involved. Joining a free city and choosing not to play with them is an option that I recognize. However, I'd like to stop you there. I feel that the high tier cities with strong nodes will ultimately be cannibalized by strong guilds who will not allow their resources to be freely consumed by certain players.
The other mechanics that I'd like to mention is the new legends mechanic. I like having 'boss' or 'world' mobs out in the wild. I have to make that a point. However, I don't like the idea that developers are actively gating or locking character progression behind killing these mobs. The issue that is making this mechanic sloppy, is the knowledge system. Since killing creatures gives you knowledge points, and knowledge points are turned into talent points, this is where the problem lies. So again, it feels like that original goal of reducing the power gap between casual and hardcore players is being pushed further and further away. What this does, is it again forces solo players into groups, or guilds, in order to progress. In order for the knowledge system to stay consistent over the entire game, we have to make a concession here. Which is accepting that knowledge points will be earned by killing these mobs. We also understand that there may be some abilities that will be unlocked from these mobs as well. What I don't want to see are these mobs locking even more knowledge points behind gated content, with the tales mechanic. This hurts the solo player and it gates finishing your build behind higher level content. I get that some of this will have to be accepted, but I think the tales/lore, while regional, should be dropped by any mob in said region. Which would reduce the amount of knowledge points being locked behind high level content. The reward for group players is already strong. Which includes time to kill, resources from loot, knowledge points from kills, and unlocking abilities attached to the mob. Punishing solo players further should be avoided if possible. And I think this mechanic and the systems around it need to be further considered in the future.
I feel like, in the end, every casual solo player needs to be able to finish their character progression, build a home for themselves, and craft all items in the game. There is punishment alone that as a solo player, it will take a long time to get any of that done. It's punishment enough that the difficulty is quite high already for a solo player. Gating these players from even finishing their progression as a player is scary to me. Simply because the type of player this sort of game attracts is going to be quite disappointed that they can't even dream of competing. Even if it takes them much longer to get there, they should still be able to get there. And again, before I get hatred for this, I will likely be joining a guild and/or a city when this game releases to a state that won't be wiped in the future. But I do like to look out for the little guy, and the more little guys we can have in this game, the more the world is filled out and the more the cities are actually important. What I don't want for Fractured, is an empty world, with empty plots, and no economy. It's going to be a hard job, but developers must walk that tight rope in order to convince all types of players that this is the game for them. Easy to play, hard to master. Not hard to play, hard to master.
To reiterate, this isn't me complaining. It's me pointing out what I think 'could' be flaws in the system. This is an alpha, and I think this is the perfect place for this kind of feedback. If you agree fully, partially, or not at all, that's fine. But this isn't meant for you guys. It's meant for the developers. My hope is that they can continue to carry this balanced mindset throughout their entire game if possible.
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My opinion on this.
Most every MMO I have ever played starting with UO, I have been a "solo" player. But there comes a time in every game that you need to cooperate to achieve something 'above and beyond'. There should be a penalty for being solo, as there is in the real word. You need cooperation for success. If you choose to go it alone, then you know the risks.
If you are trying to build a mansion in the wood, well, it should take you a while. If you are simple, you can knock it out in 2-3 hours as I did. If you cannot tell yet, the game is designed to be a walk, not a sprint. Rome was not built in a day.
But I do agree that there should be some 'free' nodes out there for ore. Seems like every other material you can harvest except ore as a solo player. At least if a solo player can bring his own ore to a city to trade/smelt he wouldn't be relying 100% on cities for equipment that is better then a bundle of sticks fastened together with some rope and leather.
Seems ore will be hard to get, not sure how much cities will offer a outsider to use there resources for a new shiny hat. Unless, that outsider has gold, and something to replenish their stock.
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When I farm gold or resources I tend to do that alone as I can get around faster by myself. However, when it comes to about anything else I have found you need a group. I keep coming back to Life is Feudal in my conversations but that game was about the hardest MMO I've played. Hard in the sense that without a group you just couldn't make it. Our group started strong at about 20 players. As time progressed and the game showed it's true colors on being actual work the group diminished fast to about 5 players. We had started a massive castle site. It would take about 8-9 runs to the marble/stone pits at about a 5-10 minute run away just to get the stone for the walls. That's not counting the other materials and the "hammering" you had to do to erect them. There were tons of wall segments and towers. After a few 100 hours of doing this pretty much solo I gave up. We got about half way done. This was after about 2 months of trying. The sad thing is if we had been on a pvp server where they had judgement hour (similar to what is going to happen here) a group could have come through and in less than 5 minutes destroyed everything we had built. Suffice it to say the rest of us gave up. We really wanted to like the game it was just too much work. A game needs to be fun, not just for the group but for the individual because once those individuals leave there can be no group.
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I'd say that there isn't cause for alarm just yet, as this is only Alpha. There may be plans to meet some of your needs that just haven't been implemented just yet because we are still in the alpha stages.
I'm personally looking forward to someday being able to grow a few crops on my home plot. It's not in alpha right now, but confident that someday I'll be able to do that.
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Like in real life since the times of cavemen for people to be able to progress after a certain treshold they needed to create communities and work for a common goal ( like killing a mamooth or establishing a town ). There is more than reasonable amount of content for a solo player but working as a group should be encouraged.it is an MMO after all not a single player game
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I think the disconnect is the fact that the game is trying to draw from two genres that while similar have avery differnet outlook on "Endgame."
On one hand you have mmo gameplay and prestige saying that grouping is required and isnt it great to share with your 4-39 comrades in going above and beyond what you can do via teamwork? No one talks about prestige for like... soloing world quests in wow. Its 5 man mythic+ time/level or world forst mythic raid clear. It feels like fractured is leaning more into this side to me.
Then you have your sandbox side. Usually grouping is good here for speed, efficiency, and just the social aspects but it isnt REAUIRED. You buy a Rust server and it literally has one slot for you. You can do 100% of the content eventually. You can build everything you can harvest anything ect. Just takes more time then if you split it with a buddy. I think this is where the frustration of solo players is coming from.
This isnt to say that solo players cant happen in other mmos but thats done with the foreknowledge of what to expect, in that the final pieces of endgame arnt all open to you.
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Well said. My hope is that since this test introduced new city mechanics they wanted to force that more to get more data. However, if they've truly shifted to a point where you can't do all this stuff solo, then thats a pretty significant shift from when I started following this a long time ago. I personally like that it takes forever to build. Instills a sense of accomplishment. However, I want the option to do some things solo, even if it takes longer or I can't be nearly as efficient. I just want the option. Part of the reason this game stuck out to me was that I could be part of a community, but also forge my own path. Now that simply isn't possible. Heck I don't even think you can solo farm at the moment out of a city (or city controlled node). As a citizen I can't even plop down my own farming square in my own city plot. That's just silly.
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Just one thing to note, about doing stuff in groups.
One player building his home alone will definitely take 10 times longer than 10 players in group building one home. But you must consider that if 10 players will want to build 10 houses (1 for each of them) it will take exact same amount of time, for all of them to get a house finished, as it took a single player to finish his own.
Yes if group volonteers to help one friend, that friend will finish quick, but group gets nothign out of that. And they still need to do stuff for themselves.
So thinking that groups will do stuff quicker is a flawed logic. For one player yes, but for all of them no.
This is same as looting. Lets say one player needs 10 boar hooves. and he kills one boar in 1 minute.
He will need 10 minutes to collect.
Group of 10 people collecting for one player will take one minute, to collect 10 hooves for 1 player (each kills one boar in same time), BUT it will also take 10 minutes for all of them to get 10 hooves for themself.Playing as group will indeed have some benefit in being better protected from PvP, but that's to be expected, and playing in community will also have benefit of being able to access more profession services from friends. But a solo player can also get all those services in a city. He will need to pay for them ? Sure but he can also sell his services to others so that's covered.
Group doing stuff for each other free? Sure, but they don't get any profit on that then, so its also covered.
In the end, playing as group only benefits you for PvP protection. And easyer profession acces (if you strategically distribute who will do what), but no extra profit there.
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@Gothix said in Power Gap Struggles:
Just one thing to note, about doing stuff in groups.
One player building his home alone will definitely take 10 times longer than 10 players in group building one home. But you must consider that if 10 players will want to build 10 houses (1 for each of them) it will take exact same amount of time, for all of them to get a house finished, as it took a single player to finish his own.
That logic is also flawed. Let's say one player uses 100 hours to build a big house, then 10 players would use 1000 hours for all their big houses, is what you're saying. But no, 10 players focusing the one guys house wouldn't use the same amount of time for each house as one guy solo. So 10 players building one house would be 10 times faster, so 10 hours per house, would build all houses in 100 hours rather than 1 house. So that's the power of cooperation.
This is same as looting. Lets say one player needs 10 boar hooves. and he kills one boar in 1 minute.
He will need 10 minutes to collect.
Group of 10 people collecting for one player will take one minute, to collect 10 hooves for 1 player (each kills one boar in same time), BUT it will also take 10 minutes for all of them to get 10 hooves for themself.Same here btw, it will take 1 player 10 mins for 10 boar asses, one min each. And 10 mins for all 10 players to get theirs IF all of them essentially solos, killing 1 each as they won't stand around to wait for one to kill a boar so the next person could kill their, they all kill it the same minute. So in one minute they do the quest for 1 player, totalling in on 10 minutes for all to complete it. And that would still be 1 min per player(and if you for some reason add that time, it's 10 minutes, but done in 1 minute per player, really), also that's not true cooperation.. In a sense, they solo-kill boars, but gathers the arses up and gets the job done as a group.
Some quests is kinda pointless cooping or coop-killing in as the group can be too powerful wasting damage, but if they all shoot at the same boar = 10 times more damage, killing a boar in 6 seconds, rather than 60. So 10 boars in 1 minute, making the quest completed for all in 10 minutes, rather than for 1 person. So essentially same time coop-killing as solo-killing boars.
Also, this is all taken as a 100% drop chance. Now what if it isn't? More beneficial as a group killing faster.
AND a group usually has synergies, maybe that gives more damage, CC and healing for survivability. And as you mentioned better protection for PvP, BUT that can lead both ways, if they meet a bigger PvP group or a hungry group decides to get together to get'em etc. More chaotic.
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@Gothix said in Power Gap Struggles:
Just one thing to note, about doing stuff in groups.
One player building his home alone will definitely take 10 times longer than 10 players in group building one home. But you must consider that if 10 players will want to build 10 houses (1 for each of them) it will take exact same amount of time, for all of them to get a house finished, as it took a single player to finish his own.
Yes if group volonteers to help one friend, that friend will finish quick, but group gets nothign out of that. And they still need to do stuff for themselves.
So thinking that groups will do stuff quicker is a flawed logic. For one player yes, but for all of them no.
This is same as looting. Lets say one player needs 10 boar hooves. and he kills one boar in 1 minute.
He will need 10 minutes to collect.
Group of 10 people collecting for one player will take one minute, to collect 10 hooves for 1 player (each kills one boar in same time), BUT it will also take 10 minutes for all of them to get 10 hooves for themself.Playing as group will indeed have some benefit in being better protected from PvP, but that's to be expected, and playing in community will also have benefit of being able to access more profession services from friends. But a solo player can also get all those services in a city. He will need to pay for them ? Sure but he can also sell his services to others so that's covered.
Group doing stuff for each other free? Sure, but they don't get any profit on that then, so its also covered.
In the end, playing as group only benefits you for PvP protection. And easyer profession acces (if you strategically distribute who will do what), but no extra profit there.
I actually disagree with this. You thought it was flawed logic, but it wasn't.
You aren't considering outside factors. In your housing idea, the outside factor could be workbenches. Your group now has access
to a workbench, 10x faster, than a solo player does. And solo players can't even make most of those in their own house if not
part of a city. So while it will take a similar amount of time to build 10 houses, the access to higher level content is reached much
more quickly.Your looting idea is very similar. You aren't considering downtime between fights. 10 players can kill 10 mobs significantly more
quickly. They also have a lot more carrying capacity, and over a longer period of time, they will be able to eliminate the 10
trips to the bank that you had to make because you were only one person.This is neither here, nor there really. I don't mind doing things slower. But I do mind if I can do them at all. My biggest complaint
would be that the developers are currently locking the progression of a character behind group content. Traditional MMO's
don't really do that. They may lock gear behind that content. It would be like in WoW, if they said that you can't reach max
level without killing a world boss. It's just a concern of mine. That's all.
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@d3Sync said in Power Gap Struggles:
it actually destroys the solo harvester/crafting profession entirely
Yes, cause crafting/harvesting is a city activity not player activity. You can solo player like kil stuff, get gold and buy stuff.
@d3Sync said in Power Gap Struggles:
I feel like, in the end, every casual solo player needs to be able to finish their character progression, build a home for themselves, and craft all items in the game.
They will need to change the core craft system to "player centric" not "city centric".
I asked about and that is the answer.
I think what ''may be'' possilble is: allow wilderness plots to have ''2-3 land plots'' so you can build your home, BS and Charcoal. You will not have the city tree (so you will not have bonus for craft) and wil be hard (cause you dont have resource plots) but will be possible. And i think its a good option for small (very small) group play: build a tavern near combat spots can be lucrative.
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In simple math that logic might work. But in reality the idea of the assembly line is more productive than an individual doing everything. When a person can focus on one task they are much more efficient (faster, less mistakes) concentrating on one task rather than trying to do all the tasks in succession.
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@d3Sync i totally and fully agree with you, i couldn't write it better!
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@Gothix said in Power Gap Struggles:
So thinking that groups will do stuff quicker is a flawed logic. For one player yes, but for all of them no.
I would have to disagree.
Harvesting resources takes time. Imagine one player with a wagon, strolling around looking for material, strolling back, building his house and repeating until finished.
Now imagine 3 players, with three wagons. one is harvesting, one is building, and one is running materials back and forth from the 'harvester' and the 'builder'. The runner, picks up the full cart from the harvester, drops an empty cart, returns to the 'builder', drops the full cart and picks up the empty one to continue the cycle.
-Totally agree with @Farlander -Simply assembly line Lean Six Sigma crap. As Prometheus, has stated before, Team work will make things a lot easier.
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You can't compare the PvE times of a person to a party of 5, because the party will have specialized roles and no downtime. As a solo person, you have to sacrifice damage, sustain, or tankiness, which means that you'll either kill slower or have downtime.
Going back to the topic, the game should have solo content, but the focus should remain on coop. If we don't have much solo content now, it doesn't mean we never will.
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I dont really understand where you are going with this. It is a constant issue brought up in these MMO survival PvP games (or however we are going to categorize them ... really not important). There is always this debate that I should as a solo be able to do all the things just as well as everyone else, and that I should be able to eventually get to endgame by myself.
My question to you is this what do you define as end game!? What is this character progression you speak of?
Currently I have 2 characters that I have unlocked skills on and gotten a significant amount of knowledge points with, and I'm already planning for some more. The gear/housing does not really bug me to much atm since it is all subject to change and its going to change because balancing is hella wack right now (even from just a couple of little test fights ... admittedly with only 4 people).
There is no real END that i see. I mean i can finish a character to some extent i suppose but to unlock EVERY last bit of knowledge and to think that that is the true end is kinda silly ... there is always going to be an encounter or build that will beat you for 1 reason or another.
I do understand your concern about the LEGENDS, but lets see how they work and how things play out before we start the fire alarm. Currently i think there is a much bigger issue with the way the knowledge works when you are killing the same mob with multiple people ... those dam mages always doing ridiculous damage
.To jump to the crafting part of progression I think that there is amazing potential in this game to allow solos to progress A LOT without ever having to interact with guilds in a meaningful way.
First off if we just look at what is in the game currently (not taking bugs into consideration lets imagine everything is working
). You can as a solo rather easily accumulate a decent amount of gold, and with this gold you can basically go and buy anything that is on sale from the people in the cities. Unfortunately at the moment there is no support for public crafting stations, but unless you are a metal user I think you can craft anything you want in the starter towns (I honestly didnt check is there a forge there ????).What I want to see in the future is more detailed permissions to allow govs and vice-govs ... etc. to give access to utilities that their town has to everyone (if they so choose to do). I'm not going to go into detail right now, but crafting stations and such should be able to be set to things like "only usable to x guild", "only usable by x, y and z", "usable by everyone" and so on.
Now i can already hear you typing that you want to collect your own ore or w/e else you are forced to buy from those dirty city people. I get your argument but I think you have to understand that if you COULD do it then so could they and if for some reason your way was easier for them, or would in any way benefit them ... well YOU BET YOUR SWEET ASS THEY WOULD DO IT !!! And then by doing so would completely de-value all that effort you put in.
Frankly there is nothing glamorous about hauling a cart of ore, and wood, and rocks in order to get something done, and yes you are at the mercy of the prices set by the city but in the end that price is exactly the value you are willing to pay for whatever it is you are progressing towards.The system the devs have chosen to go with is very interesting and full of penitential, it will need some tweaking and implementation of new and improvement of old features but there is great potential here, and we need to see how things play out in further tests.
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@vedran625 said in Power Gap Struggles:
I dont really understand where you are going with this. It is a constant issue brought up in these MMO survival PvP games (or however we are going to categorize them ... really not important). There is always this debate that I should as a solo be able to do all the things just as well as everyone else, and that I should be able to eventually get to endgame by myself.
My question to you is this what do you define as end game!? What is this character progression you speak of?
Currently I have 2 characters that I have unlocked skills on and gotten a significant amount of knowledge points with, and I'm already planning for some more. The gear/housing does not really bug me to much atm since it is all subject to change and its going to change because balancing is hella wack right now (even from just a couple of little test fights ... admittedly with only 4 people).
There is no real END that i see. I mean i can finish a character to some extent i suppose but to unlock EVERY last bit of knowledge and to think that that is the true end is kinda silly ... there is always going to be an encounter or build that will beat you for 1 reason or another.
I do understand your concern about the LEGENDS, but lets see how they work and how things play out before we start the fire alarm. Currently i think there is a much bigger issue with the way the knowledge works when you are killing the same mob with multiple people ... those dam mages always doing ridiculous damage
.To jump to the crafting part of progression I think that there is amazing potential in this game to allow solos to progress A LOT without ever having to interact with guilds in a meaningful way.
First off if we just look at what is in the game currently (not taking bugs into consideration lets imagine everything is working
). You can as a solo rather easily accumulate a decent amount of gold, and with this gold you can basically go and buy anything that is on sale from the people in the cities. Unfortunately at the moment there is no support for public crafting stations, but unless you are a metal user I think you can craft anything you want in the starter towns (I honestly didnt check is there a forge there ????).What I want to see in the future is more detailed permissions to allow govs and vice-govs ... etc. to give access to utilities that their town has to everyone (if they so choose to do). I'm not going to go into detail right now, but crafting stations and such should be able to be set to things like "only usable to x guild", "only usable by x, y and z", "usable by everyone" and so on.
Now i can already hear you typing that you want to collect your own ore or w/e else you are forced to buy from those dirty city people. I get your argument but I think you have to understand that if you COULD do it then so could they and if for some reason your way was easier for them, or would in any way benefit them ... well YOU BET YOUR SWEET ASS THEY WOULD DO IT !!! And then by doing so would completely de-value all that effort you put in.
Frankly there is nothing glamorous about hauling a cart of ore, and wood, and rocks in order to get something done, and yes you are at the mercy of the prices set by the city but in the end that price is exactly the value you are willing to pay for whatever it is you are progressing towards.The system the devs have chosen to go with is very interesting and full of penitential, it will need some tweaking and implementation of new and improvement of old features but there is great potential here, and we need to see how things play out in further tests.
In terms of where I'm going with this, it's a matter of considering a large portion of your player base. I'm a UO (Ultima Online) veteran, so I've seen the community this style of game brings, first hand. I do have a sense as to what works, what doesn't, and what people tend to want. Whether anyone here wants to admit it or not, a game like this will have a massive casual base, if successful. A huge chunk of those casuals will be solo players and very small groups. So in order for the cities to grow, you must convince casual players to partake.
Granted, the game isn't finished. However, from my experience, trying to fill in the gaps, it feels like the new player experience is rather unsatisfying. And I've seen quite a few frustrations aired already about why they can't harvest certain resources. There are many people who have already asked why they can't create a small forge, a loom, or a leather working table in their house. Let's be honest for a moment. What beyond killing a few low level mobs, getting enough gold for your housing plot, and building a house is there to do for a solo player? Due to it's current mechanics, and it's remarkably shallow new player experience, I'm concerned that a lot of potential players will be turned off entirely. None of us should want that.
I feel like there is a clear disconnect between our mindsets. You were actually misconstruing my argument. It's not that I think that everyone should be able to do everything eventually. It's that I think everyone should be able to progress their character equally, with time. Or at least as close to equal footing as the game mechanics allow. That doesn't include everything that a city can provide. For instance, harbors, co-operative play, and a player market. I also think that world bosses, and dungeon bosses will need co-operative play as well. So there will be abilities and knowledge points that you will miss out on. I accept that. PvP will obviously be incredibly difficult solo. And nearly impossible in terms of city and resource node raids. However, when it comes to the economy, and drawing players into the game, you must allow for a solo player to be able to set goals that will take them to great heights. I'll give an example of what I think solo and small group play should consist, based on my limited knowledge of this game.
A reasonable path to 80% of character abilities. Which may include access to most base abilities, outside of special mobs that are too difficult for a small group.
A reasonable path to 80% of possible knowledge points. This should be everything outside of special mobs that are too difficult for a small group, which includes city content.
The ability to craft every basic armor set in the game. Meaning, the base armor set of light, medium and heavy. Which would require the ability to craft work benches at your home.
The ability to harvest anything, outside of nodes. This would require !rare! high level harvest-able nodes in the open world. City nodes would still be incredibly important.The difficulty is already at an all time high for a solo player or small group, and this is due to the time required to harvest, refine, and craft anything. By allowing non-citizens to partake in most activities, even at a !reduced! level, will both increase the long term interest of all players AND will continue to allow cities to be incredibly important. Everything is easier in a group. Most basic activities should be reasonably possible when alone. You'll never likely be a rich merchant, due to time limitations in crafting and refining. You'll never likely become a great explorer, due to difficulty. You'll never likely be an inspirational governor with massive influence, since you're not part of a city. But you could make a solid living in the game with time, effort, and a little bit of luck.
Ultimately, I'm concerned with a player experience that is shallow, and the design of the game seems to want to rip the rug right from under reclusive players before they even get started. They have given these players a place to live, with non-city housing. But they severely limit their potential in the world in an attempt to force them into a play style. It's a dangerous game to play. I feel they need to lessen the restrictions. And it may take a few reworks of their current plans. But this is alpha, and if they are going to do it, then this is the best time for it.
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Why is there that much concern about solo players with solo parcells not beeing able to craft everything? It wont be a problem at all in the future to get some good gear as solo player when we get the marketplaces an player to player trade. Also we'll get permissions for city-workbenches (at least i strongly hope so) so crafting as a non citizen wont be a problem in certain cities aswell. It's not a playstyle to chose to be a non citizen either, you can live in a city and hardly interact with the city holders at all.
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@Shivashanti said in Power Gap Struggles:
Why is there that much concern about solo players with solo parcells not beeing able to craft anything? It wont be a problem at all in the future to get some good gear as solo player when we get the marketplaces an player to player trade. Also we'll get permissions for city-workbenches (at least i strongly hope so) so crafting as a non citizen wont be a problem in certain cities aswell. It's not a playstyle to chose to be a non citizen either, you can live in a city and hardly interact with the city holders at all.
Because solo players are real people. And it actually makes up a larger part of your player base than you think.
I think the real question is, why can't non-citizens have a small piece of the pie? Why refuse to let them taste entirely?
The optics of it is predictable. Tell someone they will never make it, and they will never try. To eliminate a potential player from your world before they get a chance is silly.
I think you can let go to that tiny piece of pie. You don't need it. It won't affect the game negatively if you do. I'm only suggesting small concessions. Not the whole pie.
