Why I Solo

I play MMOs, and I play them mostly solo. By "mostly" I'd say 90% of the time I'm street-sweeping or doing missions while not on a team. I do team on occaision, mostly just as a change of pace, or to take on something I can't take on my own (a very rare situation indeed), or to get that little extra bit of XP rate (soloing in CoX is actually very good XP per hour; only the very best PuGs can beat it, and lots of PuGs produce inferior XP per hour to soloing...group leaders that hold the team back while looking for the 8th member, I'm looking at you!)

Many people can't wrap their minds around the concept of soloing in a game that is by design meant to be multiplayer. They find the solo game boring. To me, if I found a game boring while playing it solo, I wouldn't play it at all. It doesn't say much for a game if you find it entertaining only in the context of playing it with others.

So why not just play single player games? There's definitely something to be said for playing alongside others as opposed to with others. You see other people's costumes, read other people's bios, get amused by the RP exchanges you can hear all over Virtue. You can get compliments on your costumes and bios, too.

But when it's serious mission time, it's solo time. When I'm solo, I set the pace. I set the strategy. I decide which mission to do and on what difficulty. I'm the star of the show, the center of attention, rather than a bit player. The missions are all about me.

And hey, the Inf' you earn solo is vastly superior. When I play a team-centric character, I'm always shocked at how little Inf' you earn on a team (even if the XP is better). Not being able to afford a complete set of SOs at level 22 without twinking is not something I'm used to.

I also find it easier to pay attention to the story. On a team, the first thing to go out the window is paying attention to the story. I don't know why that is. Task Force stories are especially difficult to follow (I rarely do TFs, but I have done a couple over my 2 years of play; I can't say I enjoyed them much at all. People want to ghost everything and just get the TF over and done with ASAP. I wish they had an option to solo TFs with diminished rewards. I'd do it in a heartbeat.)

And sometimes the character you're playing is a "lone wolf" type (especially common with Scrappers). In the Avengers animated movie, when the group of super heroes started bickering and falling apart, Iron Man said, "This is why I work alone." Well said, Iron Man! Well said. Some of the most bad ass comic book characters are of the lone wolf variety.

Most of all, if a character "needs" a team (you almost never really need a team in CoX. You can solo with anything. That's part of the beauty of CoX. But it's a question of whether that soloing is fast enough--my standard is the 15 minute Paper/Radio mission--safe enough--faceplanting every single mish is a drag--and dangerous enough--having zero chance of being defeated is boring) then I don't feel like a super-powered being. I feel like an also-ran peon.

I play MMOs, and I play them (mostly) solo. It's how I roll.