Ever been in a situation similar to this? It's late/early/non-peak time, and you want to run something. You manage to scrape together 1 or 2 other similarly geared players, but no matter how much you try you can'
t seem to find more that are at a comparable gear level. Well, we can't run something normally at our gear level, because that generally requires a full group or people ABOVE the gear level. So one is forced to either go to a less rewarding, lower difficulty instance even though they're geared for higher, simply because they cannot find the people.
But what if there were instances specifically designed for 2 or 3 people to run? I imagine that there are 2 reasons against this. One being that these instances would be spammed solo by someone only slightly more geared than the instance. That can be solved rather simply by implementing strategies to the bosses that absolutely REQUIRE 2 or 3 people. Think Mantarick/Sydaphex in Hall of Survivors. The boss is literally(and I mean literally) impossible without 5 people, or 4 people with one of them being a warden because of the mechanics of the fight. Implement creative boss strategies such as this(or more simple solutions like % damage being split among the group...say 120% split for a 2 man instance, hits through immunes....this would kill a single person outright, but be able to be done by 2 people) and this problem will be avoided.
The other reason would be that people would run those in lieu of the 6 or 12-man instances if they could get comparable rewards. This can be solved in a number of ways. A simple way would be to make the drops from that instance more "unconventional", similar to guaranteed mento pull stats. For example having plate armor with +MP ghost stats, having a sword with more mdam than pdam, cloth with physical accuracy, leather with mcrit, etc.
Another solution would be to make the instances drop completely out-of-the-ordinary things. Guild Rubies, Guild Stones, Guild Runes would give people to farm something that helps their guild instead of helping themselves(mentos). Unique furniture and costume items could be another alternative. Could also give item set skills that are largely bizzare and/or useless. For example, one could light your head on fire, and give you fear for 10 seconds. Another could transform you into a snail and reduce movement speed by 90% for 10 minutes(removable). Something "fun" like +200% unarmed damage. Even new emotes(backflip, juggling your weapon/weapons) or joke items.
Or you could go with a more "useful" route and drop more conventional things, but make it more similar to chapter 1 instances in that purples are not guaranteed(this could boost sales of luck potions and loot runes...wink wink nudge nudge froggy). Or drop "gasha" style items that give one of multiple things(maybe even include cash shop items?).
Just an idea I was mulling over, while trying to find 6 people to run something.
Quoted from "aardvark3;512299"
What is the matter with solo instances? A great number of people are true solo players and only join groups when they have to. This game totally ignores them. Why not instances that are designed to be solo? Make the available only once a day like the daily quests if you don't want people to spam them.
