Did BioWare ever say why they went out of their way to screw over solo play?

I think it's fair to say how frustrating it was starting the player out with zero attributes. I agree. I really didn't mind wiping out, however. Because it's a humbling experience 


 

There is obviously a difference between encouraging team play - by increasing XP, sharing rewards, etc - and actively punishing solo play.

Only one of the two is good game design, the other not so much.

I have always considered DAIMP to be poorly scaled, with the difficulty starting too high for newbies. Many people willd, and have, been driven away from this difficulty cliff when starting. Yes, this is not so bad with knowledge and prior experience, but the average newb (not an alt account) does not have this.

*reads comments*

Oh god, this reminds me of my first time playing DAIMP.

I made a private lobby, just to "try it out", because I was scared of running into other players while I still had no MP experience. (blame my social anxiety for that   )

So I go into Elven Ruins, walk around the first corner and...



Then, I posted in the old BSN Last DAMP PUG thread about what had happened and in less then 5mins I got a friend request from Gya and then he, kaileena_sands and Irthir dragged my poor weak butt through Routine. And later when we had around like 30 Stats in everything, we tried Nightmare together. The Fade was very pretty. *gets nostalgia tears* 


I met so many awesome people through DAIMP. 

Well we all want to play with a team but if no one joins your lobby or you search and no game comes up you are fubared, to top it off, after a few moments of searching it auto pops you as host of a game to encourage you to start a game.  So fine, you start a game solo as a low level low promotion player and they stick a boss wandering animal in the 1st room and set the aggression on all other enemies to max.

I can totally relate, I have social anxiety too and the thought of playing with strangers who have very probably been playing for years made me feel nervous about trying a PUG and I couldn't round up any friends that I knew used to DAIMP. I thought I was doomed to a MP life of solitude and I might as well go back to SP, but then things changed. This really is a great community! I do still start solo runs in the hopes that people will join me. .I figured I couldn't go wrong with a Routine High Dragon. I was going to solo it with my Silent Sister because I was fairly certain I could win on solo with her, but if people joined along the way, that would be wonderful, and they did.

I still have trouble inviting people to join my lobbies and I'm still a bit nervous about joining other people's games with the fear that I might not be good enough or dead weight as a team member.

Could not have said it better, Sassa   Might I add, sometimes my lobbies get glitchy and I apologize ahead of time 

But kudos to those who (through no fault of their own) find themselves soloing, It's a slogfest 

Well, I got bored early with both Origins' and Inquisition's SP, but I did manage to finish DA2 a few times, can't remember if I finished on Nightmare, but I usually played on that. I played 2-3 aborted solos before I actually joined a random lobby. For some reason, I totally missed the "Proving Grounds" option, before my attempts, I went into the skill trees, saw what I did have (and what their upgrades would be to get an idea of the sort of situation it's designed for), and tried to form some idea of how I would progress so that I wouldn't hold lobbies up (This is a big thing, I like to spend my points between matches, but I don't want to have to read what they do and slow people down).

So, I didn't have the SP experience, but I DID pay attention to the skills, so I had a bit of any idea what stuff did, and tried to fill in the blanks with logic and reasoning. Routine was tough for quite a while, as it was rare for there to be 4 players at once (Maybe PS3 didn't have much of a playerbase at the time?), but with a few levels, and a bit of practice, it all came together before even my first promotion. I did my first solo with the Keeper on Routine (no lobby found, nobody joined) with 0 Promotions and a level 7(?)ish staff. It was long, and slow, but taught me a lot, and I never feared Routine, even solo, after that, and it gave me the confidence to try Threatening with my Avvar.

TL;DR I think the most important part is head-stuffs. Re-starting on PC wasn't even as rough as I expected, because eventhough stuff like those giant guys exist, I knew how to handle to approach things. Knowledge of the game isn't important (although it definitely helps), the most important thing is trying to figure out WHY stuff happens, particularly "Why did I die/fail?". Early on, the answer turned out to be things like "I was careless" or "I facetanked the Archer Line with my Mage/Rogue." Later on it became "I didn't have an answer for <x> enemy/commander in my build" (I'm looking at you, Shield wearing enemies).

I feel pretty comfortable in saying that there are almost no veterans who would feel this way. And other newbies want teammates as much as you!

If you find yourself with a squishy character or a level that feels too intense, just play conservatively e.g., stay out of line of sight, stick close to the group/barrier casters (always a good strategy), and if you are a barrier caster, ALWAYS make sure you barrier yourself in addition to as many teammates as you can get close to.

I love seeing new players challenging themselves. If you die, you die. We HAVE ALL BEEN THERE lol.

I remember the time when Nightmare solo was great achievement, Heartbreaker solo was near impossible.