Supporting solos in a way benefiting everyone else too

I want to make a simple suggestion: Faster access to action for solos.

Solos are the core component of the RvR foodchain, being the food supply for smallmen, 8roam and other solos.

The more solos people can hunt the happier everyone is.

We have seen a strong decline in visible solos out in the frontier at high pop daytimes simply because the hunting pressure by higher numbers is excessive.
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Most solos that still play react by baring 10-12 mins walking times per run to get deep into enemy territory, where the chance to not get run over immediately is a lot higher.
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Here is what i suggest: simply cutting this walking time dramatically.

a solo teleporter in each zone to teleport to the mirror zone in the enemy realm:

Example: The teleporter for Emain Macha could be 3k units away from the Dun Cauchon West Docks - or at the Dun Crauchon East Bridge where the Docks are on the West side.
This teleporter would have the options to port to Odin's Gate or Hadrian's Wall.

To make the spawn locations in the enemy realm less campable i suggest making them random (for example 5 random spawn locations between Eras, Beno and Berk in Hadrian's Wall.

More examples for the more important teleporters:

Breifine's Dun Nged South or east could have the teleporter to Jamtland and Penninne. And the other realms in a comparable way. Glenlock East, Boldiam North.

-------------------------
Now the most difficult one is where should the teleporter be for the Forest Sauvage/Uppland/Cruachan Gorge zone.

It could be between Druim Ligen and Dun Ailinne, to the north of DL / between Fensalir and Svasud / between Renaris and Sauvage.

Or between the respective first and middle keeps: so between Ailinne and Nged / between Fensalir and Glen / between Renaris and Boldiam.

Both locations make sense as they are approachable from at least 2 sides.
All solo teleporters need to be in a campable area, making them points of interest for not just solos, but everyone else too. And they need to be close enough to a portkeep to make solos not mind about porting there getting overrun and porting to another solo porter then. (I suggest same walking distance as from DC to DC docks etc.)

Remember, the spawn location after porting, for example from Forest Sauvage Solo Teleporter to Cruachan Gorge would be random inside the Cruachan Gorge.

-EDIT-: the option that most solos liked was simply adding 1 solo teleporter at every east bridge of the outer zones = 3 teleporter - https://imgur.com/a/OrfLJCD -

Tue 12 Jan 2021 10:15 PM by Nephamael

Uthred said he had concerns with directly porting to Uppland/Sauvage/Gorge.

I also share some of those concerns and came up with this idea:

A first zone (gorge/uppland/sauvage) teleporter ports you to the border of the 3 first zones in the enemy realm.

Example: From Cruachan Gorge to the area between Uppland/Yggdra/Jamtland.

It would make sense to put the solo teleporters in the first zones in a direct line from the spawn point
so the natural desicion is to port to the Jamtland/Uppland/Yggdra zone from lets say cruachan gorge and then run to the enemy solo teleporter at uppland to find action.

So the Uppland teleporter (/to get to the sauvage/penninne/snowdonia border area or breifine/cruachan gorge/mount collory border area) would then be best positioned between Fensalir and Glen.
So people would naturally walk to the enemy solo teleporter before walking to the enemy docks.

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EDIT: i took some time and painted my first idea of where the porters and port in zones could be:https://imgur.com/a/SfyMmpL

Tue 12 Jan 2021 10:18 PM by Nephamael

Also it would be useful to apply a 2? or 5? minute ish timer being activated after using a solo teleporter, until people can group.

And the same timer being out of group before you can use a solo teleporter.

This is to prevent abuse ... Uthred came up with everyone porting for a relic raid for example :p probably the timer should be more than 5 mins after the port then ^^

Tue 12 Jan 2021 10:22 PM by Tulpa

Just posting to voice my support of these ideas. Something needs to be done to help solo's and in tern increase the fun of small man, and provide more food for roaming groups.

These are really good ideas.

Tue 12 Jan 2021 11:25 PM by LolaEbolah

I’m for it. That’d probably get me to leave DF once in a while.

Tue 12 Jan 2021 11:29 PM by Reklewt

While I sympathize with the plight of soloers in the game, I have to disagree with this implementation. The only thing keeping level 50s from camping relic docks is the distance. Plus, I play on Mid, and by NA time, sometimes, we don't even have a port, so if i'm getting camped at the only place I can roam out from that's pretty awful. That already happens without people being able to port out there.

Additionally, while some things about dark age are a drag, I believe it's all core to the experience. Phoenix has made the necessary quality-of-life changes to make the game playable for middle-aged adults at this point, any further drastic changes could damage the core gameplay experience in my opinion.

Tue 12 Jan 2021 11:30 PM by ExcretusMaximus

I don't have an opinion about most of this, but I don't think there should be teleporters to the border keep zones; the only reason to go to those zones is to grief XPers (often greys), they don't need it made easier for them to be dicks.

Tue 12 Jan 2021 11:47 PM by Kikicorky96

We already got a way to port somewhere as solo, why should we create more?
It wouldn't take much for people looking for small scale action to change their way of playing and start roaming around those ports, but most people are just lazy asses.
Right now, all we have to do is port to a keep in hadrian/odin/email and run 2 or 3 mn to get to the solo port: Regarding the length of time, roughly the same as what the OP suggests.

I know and agree : visi solo especially without speed, sucks badly, I've been there too and even switched solo class out of frustration.
But that suggestion is obviously solo biased, and doesn't take into account other type of gameplay. As the OP said, solos are a part of the food chain, and removing them totally from the usual roaming areas would obviously damage the action as a whole. It's not like our server has 10k people in RvR each nights.

Another problem is that giving a direct port to the farming zones will obviously be abused by those very solo looking for fair fights. Don't get me wrong, I killed my share of green guys, but making it easier to do so for a greater number of players would definitely damage another member of the food chain, the farming lowbies if I am not clear.

If I had to suggest small improvements without changing the current system/action too much :

- a good way to protect more the the solo action from being zerged by bigger fishes might be to remove the "killed in trellebourg" or "in nualas ruins" naming and keep a basic "killed in odin" or "in breifing" thing.

- I would be totally for swaping the small man and solo porting areas as the mazes port are mostly unused by those small man and the mazes are slightly farther from the usual action zones (it takes some small effort for the zerging 8man to go there). And, because the area is bigger, we could imagine more unexpected action as it should be.
Last good point for me : mazes are central on each maps, which provide a good incentive for solo, especially without speed, to go anywhere farther for roaming or join any kind of ongoing action without too big of an advantage.

And on the other hand, mazes are not so hard to reach for any group eager to get its share of easy kills, and still located quite close to the task zones/roaming area.
I feel it's a bit more balanced and wouldn't really damage the food chain.

Tue 12 Jan 2021 11:50 PM by DJ2000

I share the same opinion, there is no need to Teleport even remotely close to these Zones.
Even though i do wish for an easier life as a solo visi.

I really wish people would simply stick to EV.
EV has his own Teleporter.
EV has mostly 8mans (that can actually tag you, unlike duo/small that will run you over).
EV can be the place for 8v8 and 1v1.

These communities could benefit from each other together.

Tue 12 Jan 2021 11:50 PM by LolaEbolah

I’ll second the idea to change the kill spam for the solo keeps. That’s the main reason they’re always dead and I think it’d be super cool if they weren’t.

Wed 13 Jan 2021 2:10 AM by Tulpa

ALSO Fix horses so non-combat spells and items like a ablative's don't kick you off your horse and or screw up your timer! Shorten timer on horse to 30 seconds (thats plenty of time to be stuck in an area with no speed while someone spams regions with your exact location).

Wed 13 Jan 2021 9:06 AM by Jingo NZ

If porting can be done right it is definitely a nice incentive. The game works well when players win some and lose some. Care should be given to encourage those players that lose more than their fair share (ie visi solo) to keep coming back to the fight.

Introducing QOL improvements at the bottom of the food chain is always a good idea for the RvR ecosystem.

Wed 13 Jan 2021 10:57 AM by sav

i think this is part of the daoc experience and should not be changed. Certainly, for the individual it may be frustrating to be on the road for 10, 15 minutes only to be overrun by a group. On the other hand, the same argument could be made for groups of 8 that are on the move for minutes, only to be overrun by a zerg. Should they also get the option to quickly and easily port to another zone?!
And the number of solos also adds up, e.g. at the bridges around the spearheads (DC, Beno, Bled). If you stay there too long as a group, there will eventually be many solos - too many. Which is also part of the game experience. This would be omitted, because the solos would simply port directly from the Relic to wherever.
Same goes for levelers in the RVR areas. Right now they are atleast a bit safe because of the distance. Especially if they manage to kill the enemy, they may have some time of peace. If everyone could just port within seconds to those areas, everything would be full of stealthers or other adders killing the leveling groups more often - not so nice game experience for the leveling group, as those already cry alot in the region channel of beeing killed leveling in an rvr area.

Wed 13 Jan 2021 7:32 PM by Nephamael

While I sympathize with the plight of soloers in the game, I have to disagree with this implementation. The only thing keeping level 50s from camping relic docks is the distance. Plus, I play on Mid, and by NA time, sometimes, we don't even have a port, so if i'm getting camped at the only place I can roam out from that's pretty awful. That already happens without people being able to port out there.

Actually wouldn't it be great to find suitable action right outside your relic gate? Solos are the least dangerous to other solos :p And we all know how many 8men or smallmen roam/camp relic gates every day. Adding solos to the mix will give you more winable fights.

I think Midgard is the realm most in need of solo teleporters, especially with the realmwar being deep inside their realm very often = the Midgard solos have the longest travel time of everyone. If you don't have any port but Fensalir you can still get to 2 solo teleporters from there. (check my map : https://imgur.com/a/SfyMmpL)

Wed 13 Jan 2021 7:41 PM by Nephamael

I don't have an opinion about most of this, but I don't think there should be teleporters to the border keep zones; the only reason to go to those zones is to grief XPers (often greys), they don't need it made easier for them to be dicks.

i do share parts of your concern - even tho i think it will play out well in the end, here is why:

1) If someone reports a xpkiller via regionchat you will see at least 10 solos and 3 smallmen search that guy to remove him within a blink of an eye.

2) There will probably be a lot of conservative solos roaming their own solo port in areas instead of the ones in the enemy realms (a majority of solos feels more safe within their own realm). - Those will act as natural protectors to PvEers.

3) I personally regret everytime i join a rauma/fins/etc. group within a few minutes, cause the lack of PvP inc bores me to death. I only xp in the frontier to have exactly that thrill of PvP inc - and the best days xping on Phoenix are those where you have regular solo lvl50 inc trying to kill your lvlgroup - a lvl35+ lvlgroup has a very high chance to kill almost any solo lvl50 8v1 - those days give me the great feeling of Camlann/Mordred xping and make me want to xp another toon just to catch this PvP atmosphere. More solos incing your lvlgroups in the frontier will be good for winable frontier xpgroup encounters - it is the 8men/5+smallmen that roll xpgroups over and you have no chance to fight back, not the solos.

----------- ofc there is the issue with greykillers, but imo it is neglectable, simply because there will be many realmmates out to hunt these and greykillers are very rare on Phoenix.--------

Wed 13 Jan 2021 9:48 PM by bazzzzzzz

I agree soloing needs a buff too, some valid points already in the thread. I think Nephamael summarized it pretty well, but i'm gonna put my subjective view here aswell, as one of the frequent mid soloers, that still boats all the way to Crauchon to get absolutely brutally murdered by SL FGA stealthers as i drop hehe.

In my post, I'm gonna refer to soloers as characters without speed 6 and stealth. and KDR as kill/death ratio.

Lets first try and summarize how the current solo playstyle is atm.

I think the current solo teleporters are completely useless. These are only worthwhile for the soloers that are already fine: Minstrel and Skald (and stealthers i guess).

I personally completely avoid taskzones and take a boat to Crauchon or Hadrian, here it is possible to find a fairfight or even a 1v2 which is still better than the alternative. However the issue is that within no time FG's/smallmen/stealthers will come after you (thanks to region chat) meanwhile that you need to make use of the hastener (WHICH IS VERY POPULATED), otherwise engaging/disengaging in combat is gonna be extremely difficult.

You will get tired of this procedure very quickly imo. Which is why it's very specific classes we usually see as soloers (Usually ones that have a chance vs a stealther) but also isn't reliant on a good engage like casters, since purge3 is free and most fights will be close to the keep and there will be tons of stealthers/adds, so you die or targets escape.). Simply horrible for a caster. You are gonna spend way too much time travelling around if you want to avoid this, and even if you increase your KDR, the amount of time you'll spend will NOT be exciting gameplay at all, and you'll most likely do terrible in terms of RP. I actually started on Phoenix as a eldritch and found it completely impossible to play solo.

Another example could be Autenn, a solo theurgist, I've personally killed this guy many times in Crauchan Gorge as a duo, and I feel bad (only a little hehe) knowing how long he spent travelling to get there, just so he can find some easy targets and good engages without adds that he crucially needs as a theurgist.

I also think one of the reasons people complain about sins is, that they don't have this travelling-issue at all, since because of VANISH (and being able to afk stealth until it's up again) are gonna spend way less time travelling compared to any other visible solo, also it's easy for them to group without speed...

I think it'd be a good and easy start if you allowed soloers to use the current smallmen teleporters (maybe even the one relic gates), at least then traveltime would be way better. NO one is really using the current solo teleporter, so I doubt it'll be a significant change except allowing more soloers to roam closer to relic gates and fewer FG's roaming bridges to find soloers, which I think is very good. It'd still be very slow without speed6, but better than now. An issue but unlikely could be mass stealthers/skald&minstrels "abusing this" solo teleporter and running to xp zones - Perhaps a teleporter that only allow soloers would be worth a test. That way you'll still have players at bridges fighting stealthers, stealth vs stealth etc. and you'll allow casters amongst other classes to finally solo again.

All in all, I don't think it's the OPTIMAL setup to force soloers to die over and over to FG's and have terrible KDR, since this means that after time, soloers will simply STOP or instead only camp beno/bled/crau, bridges/drop points and hunt ticks since it's unbearable to do anything else.

I'm personally getting tired of this "procedure". Let me hear your thoughts, especially the ones disagreeing.

-igotyaa.

Thu 14 Jan 2021 6:38 AM by Sepplord

I would welcome more benefits for solos, but i don't think mixing in arguments like "purge3 is free" or "assassins save traveltime because they can AFK for 15minutes until vanish is up" help the discussion. It just undermines the credibility of the good arguments.

Similarly hastener is not really a big issue. Needing hastener means you had a fight already that you survived. That is already a good solo run, because the real problem for soloers is getting killed by an overwhelming force. Ofcourse it still would help to have horses on shorter timer or similar, but mostly that's a secondary issue and not the primary problem during a solo-run

Thu 14 Jan 2021 4:39 PM by bazzzzzzz

Sepplord wrote: ↑
Thu 14 Jan 2021 6:38 AM
I would welcome more benefits for solos, but i don't think mixing in arguments like "purge3 is free" or "assassins save traveltime because they can AFK for 15minutes until vanish is up" help the discussion. It just undermines the credibility of the good arguments.

Similarly hastener is not really a big issue. Needing hastener means you had a fight already that you survived. That is already a good solo run, because the real problem for soloers is getting killed by an overwhelming force. Ofcourse it still would help to have horses on shorter timer or similar, but mostly that's a secondary issue and not the primary problem during a solo-run

And getting killed by overwhelming forces, happens way more frequently, because you're forced to roam around a crowded hastener (the ones at docks). Vanish allows stealthers to take risks unlike no other character (that has no SOS) near docks or deep into enemy territory, that itself is not a problem at all. It just makes the other soloers even more undermined imo. I agree, forget about vanish and purge.

My point is simply that you NEVER see characters like sorc/caba/sm/ench solo roam about, and you very rarely see them jump at drop points to have a solo run. This is because the current "setup" is simply extremely rough for soloers, so rough that solo casters is NOT even a thing anymore.

Do you think solo-runs are only supposed to be boats to hadrian/emain or camping at your own bridge? Also do you solo yourself? What's your experience.

Thu 14 Jan 2021 9:39 PM by Nephamael

I think it'd be a good and easy start if you allowed soloers to use the current smallmen teleporters (maybe even the one relic gates)

Some solos already skip /fair toggle /fair list and grp up simply to use the smallmen teleporters, while each of them solo at another place.

I personally think the smallmen teleporters are 2 far away from the middle keeps to be a viable alternative to the docks.

Imo giving direct access to the smallmen teleporters from relic village is a bad idea, simply because the teleporters can be points of interest instead.

They just need to be as close as Docks are to a portkeep, so the solo teleporters will generate action around themselves even before porting to the desired target location.
And at best be behind a bridge different to the docks bridge.

I suggested to generate more points of interest in the frontier than only DC/Beno/Bled+task zone. Especially during primetime this clustering of the action hurts all non-zerg content.

The question is how many more areas should there be for action and how far should they be apart from each other?

If we don't want 3 port in zones in every realm we could cluster together the port ins into the middle zones. Or we could put the solo teleporters to the opposite of the dock's side of the rivers (example: DC west docks, DC east Solo Teleporter). So there would only be 3 more points of interest. I personally think this would be not enough and there needs to be at least 1 more port in zone at the middle zones tho, especially for primetime.
And this is especially important to a realm constantly under zerg siege (currently Midgard) - with no regular access to the outer portkeep/keeps.

Thu 14 Jan 2021 10:13 PM by Nephamael

I actually started on Phoenix as a eldritch and found it completely impossible to play solo

Solo caster was always tough, but the HP changes (generally great for most content) hurt solo casters the most out of all classes.
Solo casters didn't get anything in return and even got their own HP-gain reduced with a post rework adjustment on HP per con for different classes.

Since then solo casters have been close to extinction.

This can be explained very easily: A solo caster was able to kill enemies pretty quick before the HP changes, but now every solo caster class has to even kite assassins, as they have round about 2k HP and you do around 300 dmg/nuke = 7 nukes +1 resist = 8 nukes to kill an assassin or 9-10 if he uses heart+healpot, if he uses a dd charge to rupt you, you can't get him lower than 70% HP before he arrives without kiting.

This pretty much made all solo casters without snare nukes or being BD/SM stop already.

Maybe putting resistrate to 0 for all (lvl50 with mof)spells for solo casters would be a fix if that's codeable?!
........

Just now with the spell/debuff rework, snare nukes vs Determination have been nerfed to a level, where the one thing you had left to win fights with = snare kiting, got taken from them. I am pretty sure, if there will be no adjustment patch here, increasing single snare nuke snare duration and keeping the rebalanced level for aoe snares, we will see the total extinction of solo casters very soon (you can't hope to kill anything anymore in any 1vx if you fight vs 1 single det tank and can't even snare kite a det tank 1v1 anymore without secondary cc).

Another major annoyance is - since visible solo got harder and harder on Phoenix your main enemies are assassins, generally favored to win against casters by class vs class balance and if you win you run into a 75% vanish rate in clean 1v1s (a caster stands away from the target when he wins, giving him a 0% chance to find a stealther after vanish).

The vanish frustration is probably gonna be the main reason for me to stop playing my solo eld, even over getting zerged. I personally think vanish is a great RA to escape adds/getting ran down, but from the other side i see it used to deny me my 1v1 wins and my 1vx kills every day.

I think there is only 1 way to fix this, it would be simply making vanish unusable in a clean 1v1. But as assassins are most of whats left of the Phoenix solo community i don't think you can find majorities to strip it from them. I can only say i don't spec it on my sins and every solo assassin i talked to said respeccing out of vanish was the best thing they ever did. Think about it solos, denying a win to the few visible enemies you have left will not make them more likely to come back to fight again.

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The whole solo caster on Phoenix thing is tho to be honest a topic for itsself and does not rly belong into this threat about solo teleporters.

Fri 15 Jan 2021 5:13 AM by Babajaga

What about random port location in each of these zones : trellebourg, uald heights, hoedrungr ruins, moydruim castle, nuala's ruins, cavana drift, lucan's summit, brough ruins and folley lake?

And in each of theses zones, different point port with something like 15seconds immune timer, you can't enter in combat and can't be hit too. avoiding to jump on a current fight or if u jump in a same time with another dude.

theses zones are good and for melee and for casters. problem is : its desert, maybe it will make them more popular.

Fri 15 Jan 2021 3:45 PM by Nephamael

What about random port location in each of these zones : trellebourg, uald heights, hoedrungr ruins, moydruim castle, nuala's ruins, cavana drift, lucan's summit, brough ruins and folley lake?

You need to be able to choose your teleport location to not get forced to walk 5 minutes after port if you go where noone else goes.

Using the same teleport areas as the ones designed for smallmen would lead to negative effects for both small vs small and the solos directly getting ported onto the small vs1 groups would be very frustrating.

The 3 existing solo keeps have a very problematic design (very narrow, kinda only allowing melee vs melee, one of the reasons they were never liked by the solo community).

The 3 existing solo keeps are 2 far away from the next port keep. The distance Portkeep to Soloporter has to be the same as the Portkeep to Docks distance.

Sat 16 Jan 2021 8:32 AM by Catkain

To whom it may concern,

This suggestion has brought great joy to my heart and I would like to first and foremost thank each and every single skald out there for your dedication and perseverance. We, the skalds, are free women/men/others and we stand together against the tyranny and oppression of Champions.

On a strictly personal note, I support this idea and believe it will be of great benefit to skalds of all ages. We need skalds to be nurtured and cared for by teleporters and other npc's now and in the foreseeable future. Only through fostering an ecosystem of innovation can we truly reach the legendary heights of skald-dom!

With kind regards,

Catkain Sharpclaw, Grandfather of All Skalds

Sat 23 Jan 2021 8:45 PM by Nephamael

After talking to Uthred and some others here is a more simple approach:

Just 1 more solo teleporter or even moving the ones in the solo keeps to the new position to make them reachable as fast as the docks and make them not 2 far away from the next point of interest if they are empty.

https://imgur.com/a/OrfLJCD

The upsides are:

It should be not 2 much work to place 1 Solo Teleporter and 1 Hastener in the yellow circles position on the opposite shores of the Docks at Beno/DC/Bledmer.

It would split the action between the Dockside Bridge + Docks and the Solo Teleporter Side Bridge and Teleporter. Hopefully generating 2-4 hours more playable solo action every day.

It would not thin out the action 2 much for low pop times.

The downsides are:

Easier to camp than 3 different Teleporters.

No easy access to the Teleporter if your realm is under zerg siege.

----------------------------
Nevertheless it would be totally awesome to just have this one extra point of interest per realm and if you don't like it after a test period of a week or two you can still remove it @Uthred. Even tho i strongly doubt it would have any negative impact at all. Probably thru the bank positive impact on the average fun everyone has in RvR.

Sat 23 Jan 2021 8:54 PM by tape85

Call me a casual but... i think more people would use solo porter if... they knew they even existed!

Put an NPC in relic towns with solo porter title: - and they can give an infobox on how to get to your realms solo porter. This will at least 3x the traffic to those keeps.

Sat 23 Jan 2021 9:10 PM by Nephamael

Call me a casual but... i think more people would use solo porter if... they knew they even existed!

Put an NPC in relic towns with solo porter title: - and they can give an infobox on how to get to your realms solo porter. This will at least 3x the traffic to those keeps.

Probably.

But the current solo Teleporters have 4 major flaws making them unlikely to be used a 2nd time.

1) They are 2 far away from the next point of interest.

(Example you run from Bolg to the Solo Teleporter and then port to Lake Folley in Hadrian's Wall. - There is noone there to fight so you have to move on to the next point of interest = Beno Docks area or Forest Sauvage.

Beno is the point of interest most solos will choose, because they can find action there, even tho the chance to get run over by higher numbers is very high.

There is also the option to run to Boldiam Docks, but those are often empty for 30 mins and the chance to meet a smallman there is higher than to meet a solo (cause smallmen have the middle zone porters))

The 3rd option is running back to Bolg and then porting to DC, which is also a very frustrating thing to do.

The walking distance to the next points of interest is very long and makes you feel, you wasted your time using the solo teleporter instead of a boat.

2) It takes significantly longer to run to a Solo Keep from the next Teleport Keep than to run to the Docks.

3) There are no Hasteners in the Solo Keeps,

so on a non-speedclass without a horse, after a won fight, you need to walk back to your Teleport keep or the next point of interest on sprint speed (takes forever).

This is not a problem for most high RR solos, as they can easily afford a horse, but it is for a new player, who can't afford one yet.

4) The layout of the solo keeps is melee only not allowing casters or archers to participate well.

Also this prevents seeing other solos, that might be in the zone but on the other side of a high wall.