A few ideas to help solo players and small groups avoid being outnumbered and ganked in red zones. These aren’t intended to be perfect as is, but hopefully some of them might help the dev/design team come up with some ideas.
Sector Indicators
Each map is broken into 25 sectors. The server tracks exactly how many flagged and how many unflagged players are in each sector.
Dynamic Indicator Filtering
The number of unflagged (blue) and flagged (red) players in each sector is displayed to each player (filtered client-side?) based on the number of other players currently on their screen and based on the distance away.
For example: A player all alone with no other players (flagged or unflagged) visible to them at the moment, will have more indicators show up on their map than a player that has 5-10 other players within 25m (on screen) of them.
A solo player would see sector indicators if there were 3 or more players two sectors away from them. 4 or more players that are 3 sectors away. And 5 or more players anyplace else in the zone.
A player with 2 others on screen (say a group of 3 players) would only see an indicator in adjacent sector if there were 6 or more players, 2 sectors away they would see if there were 9 or more players, 3 sectors if there were 12 or more players, and anyplace else in the zone if there were 17 or more players.
A group of 5 (each player having 4 others on screen) would see 10 or more if they were in an adjacent sector. 13 or more two sectors away, etc.
Lore
The lore explanation is that a solo player will be able to hear the clamour of others in the area much farther away than a group of players.
Intended Effect
This would provide solo players some indication of the threat level in a zone, so they can solo farm, harvest resources, and/or PvP while avoiding running into overwhelming numbers without warning.
It allows small groups to do the same, without the risk of blindly running into an enemy group double their numbers or more, without some warning.
This would allow solo players looking for PvP the ability to find blue vs red activity in a zone without fear of being zerged without warning.
It rewards larger groups and zergs for having scouts positioned alone around the map. These scouts are viable targets for solo or small group players if discovered.
