Could more solo content like the recently added Canach's Lair be added to Guild Wars 2?

When talking about the dynamic event system leading up to launch, one of the things the developers had to be aware of was griefing. Was there a way that a player could come through and purposefully make an event fail and grief other players participating in it?

What this resulted in was some event types being completely removed from the game. One example was having a stealth event where players would need to sneak into an enemy camp and steal, disrupt, destroy, poison, etc. without being caught. The problem with this is another player could have just run through the camp, alerted the guards and caused the event to fail right there.

That is where a solo dungeon would excel. There could be a dungeon all about using stealth tactics to complete the goal. Of course player stealth would need to be disabled so that classes like thief wouldn’t have an advantage over any other class in completing the event. Maybe all skills are disabled and an environmental weapon is provided that gives a few seconds of stealth. Players then need to move from cover to cover, while in this stealth mode, to complete a stage of the dungeon.

In implementing these solo dungeons, I would have them branch off of the personal story. Earlier I said dungeons should be part of the personal story, and solo dungeons would be added in between the dungeons. For example if a dungeon is at the level 60, 70 and 80 stages of the personal story then solo dungeons could be added in at levels 65 and 75 staggering the two dungeon type releases.

The solo dungeons would not necessarily need to be part of the story, just unlocked by a relevant part. So maybe in the personal story you set up a base camp at the foot of a mountain. A solo dungeon would then unlock going down into a mine of that mountain. It wouldn’t have to be a repeatable version of something already done in a personal story mission, but the solo dungeon wouldn’t unlock until you set up that base camp in your personal story.

Of course a big topic branching off of this would be what is in it for the player?  Like any dungeon this would need to have some kind of reward, but whatever it is would need to be carefully considered. For instance the easiest thing would be to put down a chest that gives a couple pieces of gear, but if the solo dungeon finishes too quickly it would be the new hot grinding spot.

In balancing the rewards it would either need to be something that is unique to that dungeon (similar to how the current dungeons have their own unique armor skins) or the reward would need to be less than what you get in a group dungeon. For instance in a normal dungeon you might get two chests that have three pieces of gear in each. In a solo dungeon the player might get two chests with only one or two pieces each or a single chest with a couple pieces of gear.

With this setup there would be a bit of a tier system to the dungeons. Players could go into a solo dungeon and maybe see some of these interesting mechanics or they could spend the time to form a group for a 5-man dungeon and get better rewards for it.

While creating content for solo players might be a good idea, it should never replace group content in a game claiming to be massively multiplayer.

Matt “Mattsta” Adams can be found on the Blackgate server, probably leveling one of his many alts.

I really did like the Canach solo instance. Once I figured out how the fight worked I found it to be quite fun. The 5-man instance I didn't find as fun however, and not because of the same mechanics that are found in the solo instance. In the 5-man, when Null gets to 25% health everyone in the part slowly starts gaining stacks of this damage over time. After a while the DoT will becomes too much to bear resulting in a wipe. For a dungeon that uplevels players this isn't a very lower level friendly mechanic. In a normal dungeon I wouldn't be bothered by it, but in a temporary dungeon that uplevels it seems out of place.

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