Best MMO-RPG that can be Soloed

Can anyone recommend a modern (last five years) MMO-RPG that has content which can mostly if not always be soloed? I really don't find doing dungeon with others fun, and prefer a game where I can pick away at it myself even if I have to grind a bit more. To make this easier because I have a feeling I'm asking the impossible lest say the game can be soloed through at least half the levels; i.e. I can get a few months out of it playing solo.

American, Asian, European doesn't matter much for where the developer sis located or the theme; but it woudl be nice of it was a fully 3D world not spites/retro. A decent character customization back-end is a desirable as well, or at least costume choices.

I know asking for a MMO that can be soled is a contradiction, but that why I'm asking for help.

Elder Scrolls: Online can be completed completely solo with minimal grind (if you fill out your map), and it looks pretty good IMO.

The cool thing is that while there are multiplayer dungeons, there are so many other things to do, you can completely forget they exist and still be able to get through the main story just fine. I know ESO has gotten a bad rap in the past, but they have really improved on it, and it's actually a really enjoyable game nowadays. Bonus that there is no monthly subscription. It's just nice to have on the back burner, and when I get the itch do some MMO-ing, it's right there ready to go.

Of course end game becomes a little more group focused, but you can just forget all that and explore the other factions' areas all by your lonesome still giving you more than enough solo content to eat through.

MSO-RPGs

You're right, that is quite a contradiction to the whole point of these games in the first place.

It seems to me you might be better served by a single player CRPG like Dragon Age: Inquisition, which plays like an MMO.

If you really want to play an MMO solo though, most modern ones are practically all solo aside from occasional dungeons where you get matchmade and don't have to communicate with anyone

Star Wars The Old Republic is 100% soloable now that companions are unstoppable killing machines.

ESO you can see almost everything without needing a group and that is really fun.

Same with Guild Wars 2. There are a lot of group events in the world but you don't need to search for people to do them as people usually are there anyway, and just participating gets you credit.

I'm also currently playing The Secret World and haven't needed to group yet.

@monkeyking1969: World of Warcraft. You can easily level to max without ever grouping with anyone, and it's still the best MMO out there.

The Secret World. You can't throughline the main quests and the raids will be impossible but the devs put just as much effort into most of the sidequests as the main quest.

The more "story-driven" mmos tend to be the most fun for solo players. If you're into Star Wars, I'd say try The Old Republic or if you're into Elder Scrolls lore, try Elder Scrolls Online. Both have fully voice acted NPCs and coherent stories and quests that follow your character.

You could try Guild Wars 2, but most of the "soloing" you would be doing there is just jumping onboard giant zergs that go around world maps and farming the events or world bosses. Although, things might have changed since the expansion? I'm not really sure since I haven't played in a long time.

I think the easy answer is World of Warcraft. Massive world, fun gameplay, vibrant community, cities overflowing with personality. Other than that, I guess FFXIV is a good choice. I've been having fun with that, mostly playing solo (aside from a few dungeons).

as someone who has played GW2, SWTOR, TESO, WOW, WILDSTAR, RIFT, etc..... (the ones with endgame raiding I have played the most, so WOW, SWTOR, WILDSTAR etc)- the best SOLO game is SWTOR when it comes to leveling- for the entire leveling experience, you get a bioware RPG crafted story. A completely different story for each CLASS, written by solid authors that have worked in the SW EU (now legends). So a story each for the Jedi Knight, the Jedi Consular, the Trooper, the Smuggler (for republic faction)...and A story each for the Sith Warrior, Sith Inquisitor, Bounty Hunter, and Imperial Agent for the Imperial Faction). All stories full of VO and cutscenes. So from a STORY standpoint of Solo, SWTOR is the best option IMO. The combat system is VERY WoW like, and it's NOT the most beautiful game, Very stylized. TESO is great if you're a fan of the Elder Scrolls Series, but IMO it's a fairly middling MMO as far as the PC space goes. Now if you're a console player, it's actually a pretty decent choice for that platform. Wildstar is great if you like active combat that requires you to have dynamic play throughout the gaming experience...but IMO that game is not worth playing for solo. It's a fairly shit story. The game shines in the raiding, and even that is sort of dead due to the game population not being that great (same can be said for swtor but swtor at least has fantastic storytelling for MMO standards). WoW is a solid choice for solo, but even after the cata changes to leveling, the first.....70 levels of leveling are pretty archaic from a "quality of life" standpoint. Frankly, MMO players can get misty eyed all they want for OG WoW, but even the ARGUABLY improved cata change to WoW leveling aside, the leveling process is basically frustrating. You're better off leveling via dungeons with friends or just boosting a toon to max level (but that takes away SO MUCH content if you're being a solo player). WoW also has some fantasticly deep lore (of varying quality), but the presentation and overall level of polish pales in comparison to SWTOR storytelling. GAMEPLAY quality of WoW is better than SWTOR obviously, due to better net code and server side/player side interaction. FFXIV is surprisingly good from a story standpoint, and it's a pretty game.... but good lord the combat system is frustratingly slow (GCD length is wild, server update of positioning is atrocious leading to some interesting emergent solutions to bad game design in raid situations)...

Hope that long winded drivel helps. If you want more insight, lemme know. If this was totally unhelpful...disregard it, I suppose :P

I pretty much soloed FF14 up til level 49, outside of dungeons which are basically filled with people willing to carry you because they have incentive to help newbies. And you play FF14 for story content more than anything else.

SWtoR is soloable and it has by far the best story in a MMO, not much competition really since story is usually all but non existant in MMOs. You have fully voice acted story with choices and unique class stories.

Final Fantasy XIV.

I recommend either The Secret World or Elder Scrolls Online.

TSW has a fantastic immersive atmosphere, unusual setting for an MMO and interesting writing, of all things. Story missions and side missions all have fully animated and voiced cutscenes as an introduction (think GTA games). Missions themselves come in a number of distinct flavors (it's not just a variation of "kill X enemies" or "gather X items"), the most interesting of which are the Investigations. It's like you're suddenly playing an adventure game in your MMO, with puzzle solving that often requires a lot of thinking and even looking up in-universe information in the in-game browser. It's probably one of the more solo-friendly games out there since leveling (which does not exist in its traditional sense in this game) does not as much affect your power and survivability as it does the diversity of your options, so grinding is not very necessary. Unfortunately the core combat gameplay is rather generic at best, so the real pull of this game is the atmosphere and writing. I personally deeply enjoyed it.

ESO is a much better game than it was during the subscription era. If you treat it as part Elder Scrolls and part MMO, rather than expecting a full blown ES game, you'll probably enjoy it a lot. Most of the activities in the game can be soloed and it's fun to explore and look on your own for hidden stuff such as chests or crystals that give perk points. Other than the dungeons, there are a few activities that ostensibly require at least another person to successfully complete, but I've found that a well-built character can consistently solo even those.

Both games do not require a subscription fee, so you won't feel rushed and be able to play at your own pace.

Witcher 3

I've played a few MMO's and I always end up soloing for 90% of them, then stop playing way before i get anywhere. I may hop back on Swotr and try out my steam controller with it as I stopped playing that because of hand cramps and back pain (can't do K/BM at all anymore). Did the secret world for a while but it just got boring(i'm told it gets better after the starting area but the starting area is pretty bad). Did a bit of nevewinter on ps4 and it seemed alright but not all that engaging, story stuff was pretty skippable. Played defiance on the 360 for a while, it was a decent borderlands clone honestly despite the bad graphics and only one type of even monster to kill (giant bug thing). DC universe was pretty great solo, may jump back in that game again I played on ps3 and have it dl'd on ps4. Played the beta of elder scrolls and it seemed alright, didn't really seem like it needed to be an MMO at all honestly.

@monkeyking1969: I play Vindictus off and on, and there's exactly 1 fight that cannot be soloed with enough skill (a raid that requires 8 people to stand on panels). Classes are based on specific heroes (ex: the tank is named Fiona and you are a "Fiona" if you play the tank) but being a F2P game there's tons of cosmetics to buy and the armor selection isn't bad for most characters (full sets tend to look good/etc). It is incredibly grindy in spots (it's Monster Hunter-y in its gearing) and the early game (pre-lvl70) tends to get a bit samey (especially if you are grinding loots) but gets better in the Season 2 and 3 areas.

Also, it's a Korean game published by Nexon. Everyone seems to think they only do pay-to-win, but you cannot do that in this game based on how it's designed and I find it's business model OK-ish (it could be a bit better, but they gotta make money somehow).

The Old Republic

The Secret World. You won't be able to beat the dungeons, but those aren't necessary to progress, and the story actually works best if you are playing alone (which you probably would be anyway considering the current size of the player base). It has by far the best writing and plot of any MMO I've played, and better than a lot of single player RPGs too; with fully voiced cutscenes before every single story and main mission in the game.

Something to keep in mind though is that leveling is horizontal, not vertical, and that all clothing is completely cosmetic (stats come from invisible gear); so there's not much indication that you are making progress in the game (except that the story is getting more and more bonkers).

I'll throw out there LOTRO. A bit older but loads of fun. Good story, great world design, and fun combat. There are days I wish I stayed with it but at last no where near the time now to invest in an mmo

I'm going to second Final Fantasy 14. Good story and you aren't forced to group up much until very late game, and peeps are pretty good about helping (using pug group finder there are significant bonuses for having a newbie in group).

I resub a couple times a year to follow the expanding storyline. Both main game and Heavensward expansion have satisfying endings before credits roll (imho). Endgame storylines are fun too.

For solo only? Hands down SWTOR, there is no other MMO at all like it. Not only do you get super strong companions to choose between, but the story also makes it more enjoyable for soloing. Don't listen to the poeple talking about FF14, one of the reasons I stopped playing is because it forces you to group up for a MAIN story quest. So you can't even continue on unless you defeat this boss. I believe it was Ifrit. (Just checked it's a level 20 quest.)

I guess my vote is TOR, it's easily the most single player MMO out there. The one caution on that note, however, is that it's also less grindy. If you're looking for a game that gives you repetitive tasks to mindlessly do, all the dialogue might be a negative for you. In that case I'd probably recommend FFXIV, which is very deep on the "Things to grind toward" scale. Personally I don't think WoW holds up for me in terms of its appearance and combat systems, but it does have a pretty robust single player experience starting with WoD.

Thanks folks its all good info. I'll look into SWTOR and maybe some of those Korean ones.

I disagree with the Final Fantasy 14 suggestions if you want to play alone. I REALLY liked FF14 (probably my favorite MMO out there to be honest), but you're forced to party pretty frequently for the story. From level 15-18 you have to clear three dungeons for instance (they're all insanely easy, but still), furthermore, at level 20, 35, and 44 you have to fight Primals (basically just boss fights, but insanely fun), and that's not everything, you have to do dungeons roughly every 10 levels or so of the main story, including raids at the end. That isn't even mentioning the expansion.

WoW is VERY easy to level in, but it's from 2004, so I dunno if you want to check it out. If it's a graphics issue with you, the latest expansions have done a damn good job of upgrading the visuals in almost every single way.

I only played SWTOR briefly, but it looked easy. Honestly, make sure you pay SOMETHING if you decide to play this game, because the basic free game is a load of bullshit. A TON of things are locked, even things that make no fucking sense to lock. I decided not to play it just on principle because of shitty gaming practices.

Tera is very easy to solo in, though if you follow the main story you do have to do dungeons, but again, they're VERY easy and only the higher level ones actually require a tank and healer. Otherwise just group with Reapers, Gunners, and Ninjas and they're steamroll everything for you. The hyper-sexualized anime-ish aesthetic might be a turn off though, so look into it a bit before playing.

Black Desert is a weird MMO that doesn't even have dungeons and you're never forced to group, hell, you actually don't even need to level. You can just stay in the first town and be a cook for the entire game if you really want to. Granted, you'll have money issues if you don't level at least a little bit, but still, it's an interesting game. Being that it's a Korean MMO though, just know that it's insanely grind heavy.

GW2 is probably the best solo MMO I can think of that I've played extensively. You can completely ignore the dungeons and reach max level before you even clear a third of the zones in the game. Furthermore, most of the end-game content doesn't even require you to find a group, since you'll still get rewards by just following the zerg and participating in the events. There are dungeons, and those do require groups, but I NEVER did any of them when I played, and I was still able to attain max level and easily get the Exotic gear quickly. There's another tier of gear above exotic that I can't recall the name of, but I do remember managing to get a lot of that gear too without doing any dungeons, though it is a bit of a grind. Just note that I never played the expansion, so I don't know if it changed things around.

Elder Scrolls Online

SWTOR is pretty good, although I'm not as hot on it as some. I've never been able to get through a single class story line. It would be fun initially when I would first start a character, but it gets to be kind of a drag after awhile and I would end up putting it down. Also, I would bring up that this game has some of the worst convenience pay-wall micro-transaction bullshit I've ever seen so if you're going to play it, then splurge on a couple month subscription.

LotRO is a great game if you're someone who's into Lord of the Rings. That said, I think the quality really tails off the more you get into it. Once it went FTP, it started to get developed with a focus on making money rather than a focus on good story and cool systems. The base game was great, and each expansion has gradually been more phoned in since then. If you stick to the content from the base game and maybe the first expansion, you'll be good, and there's more than enough content there for many hours of fun.

But yeah, everything kind of comes back to WoW. It's still the MMO for a reason and Blizzard keeps finding ways to make it even more solo friendly.

I cast my vote in for Guild Wars 2. I played that game solo like 95% of the time (aside from occasional friend parties and world boss events where tons of people group up, but even then you don't need to be in a group).

I put hundreds of hours into it (maxing one of each class) and enjoyed every minute of it. Need to go back and finish off the expansion though.

@lawgamer: Did you play it at all after KotFE, where you no longer have to do any quest that isn't pertinent to the story?

@veektarius: Don't Most people want a MMO without a lot of grind?

@wrl6199: There's good grinding and there's bad grinding in my opinion. It's nice to have a comfortable repetitive sort of gaming experience sometimes. Most people call those "podcast games" these days. But TOR isn't one of those in my experience because there is so little to be gained by grinding. You generally want to play the story, and playing the story requires listening. So, there were times where TOR didn't give me what I wanted in a "single-player MMO".

Surprised no one is recommending black desert online

I know recent updates have made that game very unpopular but it's only if you care about endgame which I don't. It's really fast and fun, it's also really grindy. Since your solo though I expect that's ok. There is also a distinct lack of loot in that game which is why I stopped playing eventually

@veektarius said:

Yeah, I did and I still got bored and put it down. A lot of that is that I'm really not much of a fan of the game mechanically. It somehow simultaneously manages to be too simplistic and too complex at the same time. Plus the character models all animate like plastic action figures with some sticky joints.

@veektarius: Yeah I haven played TOR but Ice heard that can be a problem. But yeah grinding for little purpose can be really annoying. Also I have never heard the term podcast games.

TSW is a single player game hiding in an MMO, it would of been so much better had it been a single player story driven adventure game, but as it is its a pretty fun time killing MMO that there still regularly updating with more story content.

I really enjoyed my time with SWOTOR, and never grouped up. Every now and then I load it up to see what they're doing to it. The combat gets monotonous, but I have been led to believe that is a common occurrence in MMOs.

Have you thuoght about The Division at all?

I'm incredibly ignorant when it comes to mmos but the one I've actually enjoyed solo are elder scrolls online, swtor and guild wars 2

Yeah if your looking for single player friendly MMOs Star Wars The Old Republic and Guild Wars 2 are pretty much IMO the best ways to go.

As others have said SWTOR is probably your best bet unless you're after something more action heavy (an MMO lite if you will) like Destiny or the Division. Between the two i'd say Destiny is more polished but it lacks content.

Also, I had an alright time with DCUO and that Defiance game isnt the worst thing ever. (not the most ringing endorsement I know but I had some fun)

Guild Wars 2 was the perfect "run around in an open world with other people but I don't have to interact with them" game.

Actually Defiance wasn't that bad either. Did some things better than Destiny to be honest.

Are you having to repeat the side quests in this? I have just gotten to transalvania and oh boy solo does not work at all here (and barely did in the one before) great fun but can't find anyone to play with around the areas I am in (I also hate the jumping puzzles in the main quest).

I second star wars the old republic - great game that is soloable and made even better by fact story is great. If you are into rp at all I can give you some great groups to join (and if you want someone to talk to while playing alone I can do that to)

Not repeat, but you are going to have to do the lion's share of them before you can get through the main quest. I will say again though that the game has good side quests.

Also since I think this is the only thread that's going to mention both: Anyone else get a je ne sais quoi of The Secret World in The Division. I mean they're both mmo-ish games in a universe where a lot of shady secret stuff is going down in diseased crisis zones and in both my ultimate goal is to be dressed the best and nothing in either game inhibits me from that. I keep hoping that somewhere in that Underground DLC you can turn a corner and off-brand Cthulu is there with the documents saying that the Dollar Flu was really made by other dimensional murder gods.