Heres a few ideas which may help to bring the solo element back to this game. As things stand, AO is a lot of fun to solo to about level 50 (prof dependant) and after that it's just hard work.

Basically, those of us with any of the following:
  • A job
  • A family
  • Friends (non-online)
  • Other hobbies / interests
  • Any kind or RL responsibility
  • A 56k modem we can't tie up for hours on end
  • Other time consuming things..


Simply do not have time for group based play on a regular basis. I love grouping at weekends, when possible, but thats maybe once or twice a month. What I really like is to get back from work and play for an hour or so. Only, you can't do that at higher levels becausee it takes an hour min to get a team, missions, and get started. While missions are not the only thing to do in this game (......) everything else baring standing about takes more than an hour.

Which leaves soloing, only thats not working. Solo missions at level 90ish take between 60 and 90 mins - unless you roll a tiny 4-mob mission... Hunting solo means finding greys or dying, quests the same, the only thing you can actually do onyour own is chat or shop if you have less than an hour.

Several ideas spring to mind:

-- Introduce a "Large <--> Small" slider on mission terminals, for solo missions only. Allow people to decide how much time they want to play. Extrememly short missions will not offere the chance of tokens, or provide reduceed numbers of tokens, t help reduce the farming that will take place.

-- Allow mission maps to remain after logging out and back in. ATM I avoid logging out deep into a mission because you can't get back quickly, and in solo play you always need a quick exit. This is already in game since you retain map info after zoning up and down in team missions. I'm aware that there are differences, but I'm sure it's workable.

-- Increase mission timers. I'm aware that this causes server side issues, but then thats a fault of the bad coding system that sspawns missions when they are rolled, rather then when they are entered. Perhaps the answer is to allow for increased time once you've entered the mision, but reduced time to get there. EG - you roll a mission and have only 1 hour to enter it (this also helps reduce peeps rolling 3 missions at a time) but once you've entered you have 36 hours to complete it. If you exit, the timer drops back to an hour, so that exit-heal-return still works, but you can't just roll 3 missions, go into them all, then take your time finishing them. Basically, this allows solo'ers to get into a mission but not have to compete it immediatly, allowing us to stop and come back to it the next day.

-- Stop the "first-room gang" in missions. My MA is currently solo'ing 50% missions for creds and tokens, and has no touble completing these misssions. However, in a missio whiich is 98% greens, I can almost be assured that the 3 mbs in the first room will all be yelloow or orange, and the highest mobs to be found iin any given mission. Thankfully, both my MA and NT are capable of winning these fights (using calms or exit) but for many, and for all when doing 55%+ missions, these mobs can prevent a player from getting into the mission at all. Either stop the 3 mob rooms, or ensure that they only spawn at the lower levels found in that ql mission.

Anyone else got any bright ideas? FC should really look at the gameplay for those of us wh are not full-time gamers, especially since we are better customers because we pay the same price, and yet use much less resources.

Please look at this - I'm not yelling for a fix, but I'd like to know that someone's lookingat this issue with a view to intorducing intelligent and long-term fixes wich allow for soloing, or players with limiteed in-game time.