Agent White

Maybe? But only if they institute direct ways of bringing them about. Atm Adamastor is the only one that's fast and easy to summon. Most of the others work on a random timer (usually every 2-4 hours from what I've seen) the ones that don't require an effort like defeating X amount of an enemy group. Or there's like the kronos titan who is -only- in one instance (as an archvillain, though it gives the badge) and one ambush (as a full GM).

As it is I've been in in a few Monster Hunting groups. It tends to be a hit or miss thing, you never know who or what is going to be up. The Seed of Hamidon seems to be the only thing that stays spawned, even after defeat the respawn seems to be about an hour or so.

Some interesting ideas, though, again, I don't think the Devs really want to do any major long term overhauls.

So, what's the simplest changes to the low level zones we could do? It's more than just king's Row. We've got -Four- zones in the 1-10+ range that can be played with.

So that's what it does.



<3

I'm not sure I want to see a 'standardized reward' for every GM. I'd rather see each GM get it's own table for rewards, maybe even its own merit amount. like maybe one you can pick the merits or pick a temp power or the like or even a costume part.

Adamastor was definitely a step in the right direction, people seem to enjoy taking him on regularly. 10 merits and 5 threads (for 50s) once a day is not bad at all.

If you guys want to find them, hit 'find contact'. If you're in the right level range they'll show up.

With the pummit came a lot of ideas for revamping the zones, we had the thread full of ideas and of course we had the panel itself which shed some light on where the devs were thinking.

So, it got me thinking.

The lower levels skip by -really- fast now a days. You can skip from 1 to 10 in a matter of a couple hours, if not 20 minutes via a DFB run or two. And even with the loss of Galaxy City, blueside is still -very- bottom heavy.

We've got Atlas of course, new one and only starting hub, but following the Habashy and Shining Stars arcs usually drops us off around 8 or just shy of it.

As was noted at the pummit, that kind of leaves King's Row out in the cold since its level range is only 5-10. And you get directed there via Twinshot, but only to give you the police band and a couple instanced missions. I'm not sure you can even get referred to any contacts here except via Radio.

Then we've got the Hollows and Perez Park (And the completely forgotten Sewer Network). Perez, as a hazard zone, is pretty empty except the odd street sweeper and hunting an instance door (Or the even rarer badger and/or Monster Hunter). The level range is at least appropriate, 7-14, so if Perez Park had story arcs it could flow right in from Atlas.

And there's the Hollows, which go 5-15 so they're another fairly easy flow to point, which actually has contacts and arcs!

Or of course there's always the option of grinding up a couple more levels and just skip straight into Skyway and/or Steel Canyon (or, y'know, DFB. I'm just going to keep that as an underlying/implied alternate to everything at this point).

So, it seems like the victim content in this is King's Row. The speed of leveling just means that this zone is a bump on the radar anymore.

Ergo. What would -you- do? The simplest options seem to be either extending the level range of the zone so we're not shooting past it, making it like the Hollows as a place to flow into after finishing Atlas, or it could be the 'new' Galaxy. -Drop- the level range so it's 1-10 instead and offer it as an alternate starting point to Habashy/Twinshot.

There are pros and cons to both approach of course.

Extending the range means that, while King's Row is 'preserved' as a viable zone to head to but it also means that it starts stepping on other toes. The 10+ range has Skyway, Steel, and the Hollows too, with the former extending up to 19. Maybe it isn't a problem, I'm a firm believer in variety but at the same time, you can have too many options and content will start getting overlooked or ignored (Hollows is a fairly decent example actually, a lot of folks skip it) Too much redundancy is just one of Blueside's major problems. Steel, at least, has the new 15-24 arcs so that might be a possible flow from Atlas (7) -> King's Row (15) -> Steel and so on.

Dropping the range would give players fresh out of tutorial an alternative to Atlas. It would have to get the same treatment Atlas got though, an arc similar to Habashy with some 'zone event' style trappings to cut down on the instanced missions. Bit more work than simply lowering some numbers though we could have whatever is in place introduce into the contact chain which could provide a smoother flow into 10 and the following zones than Atlas currently provides. Again, variety is good, atm you're kind of pigeonholed into Habashy and/or Twinshot, street sweeping, or DFB. Something else would be nice.

Of course if you don't even want to concern yourself with keeping it a lowbie area the level range could be drastically altered and maybe just add another arc to Atlas to push players to 10 and let them run on. Though I kind of like it as a low level area for it's 'crime alley' feel, it's a wonderful lower middle class sort of urban area and I don't think you could keep that pushing up the range. Maybe into the 10-20 or 20-30 but those ranges already have -tons- of content to do and I think anything in 30-50 would be 'too big' for the feel.

Or there's doing something with Perez, adding a story arc and possibly tweaking the level range. As a hazard zone it's completely empty so may as well do something with it and again it doesn't have to stay as a lowbie area. Or the sewer network. LOL. oh who am I kidding with -that- one >> Then again nothing stopping Devs from doing stuff to Perez and King's Row together.

Anyway, what do you guys feel as the best path for the Devs?

Most of the hazard zones would be pretty easy to justify making co-op, there's only a few I'd be hesitant to switch.

Perez Park - This being one of them. it still just feels right as the lowbie hazard zone, though that spot is taken by the Hollows too and the Atlas Park arcs skip you right through really fast too. Still, I wouldn't mind seeing this get a story arc. Not co-op though, unless the revamp adds some major elements I see no reason villains would want to go. But then I could also see dropping meteors on the place and really tearing it up. Then you could have a reason (LOOT) and maybe up the level range.

Striga Isle - Easy. Council vs 5th column heating up. Both sides have an interest in that. The arcs are sorta fine? But let's clean up some of them, take out that weird random element a couple contacts have.

Boomtown - See Striga.

Eden - I'd love to see the Devouring Earth presence spreading so it's much more 'corrupted' (or purified, however you wanna look at it) Wouldn't be hard to make a co-op zone, the heroes want to stop the DE, the villains want to gain advantage from them (or even raiding the Crey facilities in the zone) Ideally I'd make the Hive co-op too but that leaves a question of what to do with The Abyss.

Crey's Folly - There's a lot of ways a zone revamp could be handled with this. Maybe the Rikti manage to break down the war wall and have a heavier presence. Maybe the Freakshow scrap it and remodel it into a cyberpunk utiopia. maybe the Devouring Earth have begun reclaiming it. Maybe Crey has actually started to clean it up. Maybe -all- of these things happening. Any one of which could fit villains in in some way.

The Shadow Shard - It's honestly silly villains -don't- have access to this already. Anyway, the Devs seem hesitant to tackle this and it's understandable why, revamping all of it would be pretty intensive and probably require multi-issue updates, even tearing out a zone or two. Wortht he effort? I dunno. it's a sorta pretty zone, but even so a total pain. Honestly I've run up 3 characters into the 50s and only just this week brought one of them into it. Tedium is not enough to describe it (Which the Task Forces go above and beyond the call of duty in stretching that word. 'Obscene' doesn't even cover it). Really, if it were -me- doing it? I would probably rework a lot of the zone geometry, mash a lot of the islands together to form some bigger land masses. I like the whole floating island thing but so many of them are just... useless. Pretty is fine and dandy but, eh. And something better than the friggin geysers. oi.

Terra Volta - I'd like to see it revamped, but probably not as co-op. Maybe Villains have an event to try to shut it down? I dunno. But it honestly feels like too much wasted space, it's got some okay design (even if it is a pain, the architecture is still impressive) but... it's 100% ignored, except 'The place where the super annoying respec trial takes place'. Oh and the 1 plaque for the Freedom Phalanx Reserve member accolade. It could do with a facelift.

As for some of the other ideas. phased tech? Eh, seems pointless. Just include contacts for each side, they don't all have to have a single track co-op story. A zone can be co-op in the sense villains and heroes can be in it together and not fight, that's fine with me.

As for Zone events? Hm, some more would be nice but I don't think you need -every- zone to have one or trigger others. I do like the idea though, like how the Synapse TF summons Babbage or the Lady grey Task Force brings in a Rikti invasion event. They can be kind of fun if they're not -too- easy to trigger. I'd be happy with an inzone event, something simple like how the Summon Adamastor event runs now (though not a carbon copy).

Zone arcs = Yes. Though i don't think they need to delve into the backstory so much. They can! Sure! but a number of them already have their backstories fleshed out. Wrecked in the Rikti War, the first site of the Devouring Earth devastation, etc. I'd prefer seeing the zone stories moving -forward-, they've been sitting stagnant since their inception, we can add stuff. Like the Hellion/Skulls war, or fleshing out the Hyrda in perez, or giving the Primal Clockwork some love in Boomtown, while highlighting the Council/5th Column war in Striga, etc. There's plenty of room for development in each zone.

I'm... not sure that's really a 'fix'.

At least, not the definition you might think of, except as it pertains to dogs and cats.

I must be the only one that felt the Metzger fight was a bit silly. I mean it was sort of epic? But it felt like those old ninja movies, I only won because they came at me one at a time (obviously one 'group' at a time) but it felt like they were holding back purposely so it would be easy. If they had -all- swarmed at once it probably would be slightly more face planty.

They're working on it, just slowly. A number of the suggestions at the Pummit were hazard zones. And the Devs have even gone on record saying I22 was originally revamping Dark Astoria -and- Perez Park but they realized they only had the manpower and resources for 1, so the Incarnate Zone got it. The plans may of course be shelved permanently, but the thought was there at least.

Atm? Probably converters. Then shop around, buy up some cheap sets and convert them. Like snatch up a 1-3 mil Soldiers of Arachnos ATO and convert it. Good chances you'll get something worth 20-50 mil. But there's probably some better conversions you could do.

I'd just give her the 15 bucks to drop for the points and the token with it, why leave it up to chance if she wants it that bad? >>

Grun is going to have to keep Pyriss on a shorter leash if he doesn't want her put down.

Yes, because every needs highly detailed information to get excited for something. Heaven forbid you might be interested by a concept of all things.

Most of these are pretty self explanatory. Water blast, must be a new power set. Cyberpunk costume - it's in the name.

The only one that threw me off was 'Halloween II" since I wasn't sure if it was referring to the new trial and stuff that had just premiered or if it was something else that I hadn't heard of, but it was the only thing that couldn't really be guessed off of context of the name.

you should've seen all the people in the suggestion thread the mods opened up

I just see it as a more situational power than flight, jumping or super speed. I don't teleport everywhere, just when I need to. Beast/Ninja run make a decent 'on most of the time' power, with teleport there when I need to go somewhere I can't reach

Not really sure what the difference is between 'do the atlas arcs' and 'seek out contacts' since.. at that level they're one and the same >>

Also why on earth was Steel Canyon and option? Talk about a suicide option XD King's Row would've been a 'better' alternative.

Be polite, be professional, and have a plan to kill everyone in the room.

Probably not on the radar but I'll drop a mention anyway. The Carnival of Light pack was fantastic but obviously very limited since the unique pieces are all on female NPCs so they all got ported to the female PC model.

Are we going to get porcelain masks or something similar for males/huge any time? I'd be happy with even the CoL pieces ported over, but it'd be kind of nice to have some actual -masks- like that for everyone.

Well that's also assuming that if the costumes are still broken they do let them go live instead of letting everything else that -is- working go live while letting the costumes get released in a future patch (probably 1-3 weeks down the line).