I'm just wondering why most soloers tend to go to the higher traffic areas (bridges, keeps, towers, areas near keeps that exchange hands frequently) rather than roaming places where barely anyone goes. Of course going to those areas is going to mean fast action, but it also means getting rolled by groups and getting all kinds of adds.

I used to get my best solo fights (2006 mind you) running my theurg between glen and bled (down the river), these days when I run that path I find no one. A warden and friar could fight there for 20 minutes and probably not get jammed. Same goes for almost any area that isn't an RvR hotspot. I'm not counting xp spots because that's just shooting fish in a barrel.

It probably won't happen, but if everyone looking for solo fights just ran in areas where there isn't usually a ton of action, we'd have a lot more solo fights that aren't jammed and we wouldn't be getting rolled by groups. It would take a large number of soloers doing this for it to make sense though.

This isn't a QQ because I got killed (I get killed waaaaay more often than I get a kill). Just trying to get some more people in these areas so I have someone to fight

And yes I know, set solo zones never work, this is different.

There's your answer

 

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+ when you get like a dozen soloers running around in a zone, the ajers will leave their bridges, search and zerg you after the first bunch of killmsgs.

i agree that there should be some incentives for running around the fz for smallmen and solos, but they are not there.

 

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I hear what you are saying and I totally agree, but the thing is you are running somewhere for no apparent reason (there is no actual objective or destination) and you are hoping that you will cross paths with an enemy who is also running somewhere for no apparent reason (I have wasted many hours doing this myself).

I believe the simplest solution to this problem is a repeatable RvR quest aimed at (but not limited to) solo players. A quest can be used (by the devs) to create ANY kind of traffic pattern you want to. I have given this is a lot of thought over the years, and I think the ideal quest is something like this:

Imagine a simple quest to pick up 5 quest items scattered around in an enemy frontier zone. Let's say you have to steal wood from specific quest trees by hitting them a few times. You are instantly rewarded on the 5th pick up, and now you must do another similar quest in another zone before you can do the first quest again. This simple alternation between two quests creates a lot of traffic IN and BETWEEN the two quest areas.

I believe that there is so much unused potential in solo players (from a development point of view). When I see players running PvE quests over and over I always think to myself, why has noone ever thought of doing the same for RvR? Give soloers a reason to run somewhere. constantly! Create life. I have never liked the New Frontiers, but it doesn't help that bridge camping (which was never even an intended feature) is still dominating small scale RvR even though plenty of players are yearning for quality fights in open terrain. It's very difficult for players to change this situation. A developer on the other hand, could change everything.

 

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Ive got a couple big figure 8s and loops that I run in Hib and Alb when Im solo. Does take forever getting out there but after a while you start to notice where the solos, farmers, macroers and just the plain old odd balls show up again and again.


It would be nice to have more out there as it can take a while finding peeps and a lot of the time its just random luck, but you can find em if you go looking.

 

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i agree a 100%. the thing with the bridges is, soloers go there because there is traffic and the bridges are pretty much the only places where you can use your enviroment to break los and to kite in a smaller area. coastguarders go to the bridges because there is some action they can leech on + it is in the range of their di-bots. so there is some kind of vicious circle that needs to be broken.

 

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Excellent idea and I hope won't fall on deaf ears.

As a pure soloer I've done that for my entire time playing DAoC. I'd run around in the dead zones hoping for some small fights, usually found nothing then would run the periphery of the hot spots. The big problem you have is even if you do find a fight in the dead zones as soon as others see the spam they flock to the area in groups to get an easy kill. Because of this I'd usually get one or two kills if lucky then have to move to a different area, this usually resulted in hours played for a handful of fights, kind of boring in my books.

Problem with this would be similar to Halloween and Christmas quests. Unless they made the trees or whatever gave the reward random in a zone? Otherwise people will figure out where the rewards are and camp them

 

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Exactly. A quest like this should be based on roaming, not camping. Here is a little illustration I made last time I suggested this quest. Keep in mind that it is just an example, the number and placement of quest trees can be adjusted in any way:

Albion frontier overview

The quest trees should spawn/despawn once in a while to ensure that players run different routes from one quest run to another. Another important aspect I have thought about is that the quest trees should *not* despawn on pick up (however you can only pick up from the same tree once per run). This allows an unlimited number of realmmates, grouped or not, to do this quest together, or at least cross paths without competing for the same quest items.

 

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