The Dead Zone and other unused or bad areas.
By
Acanous_Quietus,
Posted on: 2005-01-10 11:30 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Two quick ideas for two zones I love:
Faultline: its highly enhabited by villains, why don't you have some rope bridges at some points where you could pass through on the eastern vahz side, some thinner metal construct bridges on the western side for the clockworks, and down at the pits put some CoT portals in. They'd portal you to some point close to the entrance of the zone. I had teleport and teleport friend so I would always go there. It was great.
Boomtown: This is an amazing zone. I will always go there at 10 or 11 and start inviting people who are LFT in Hallows to my group. Generally I'll lose people who have never been there or don't want to make the trip, but I can get a group and its just awesome until level 14 or 15. Its hard around 15 because there seems to be a jump from 13-14 mobs to 16-17 mobs. Honestly the WORST part about the zone is its SO dangerous to get to. You don't have travel powers until 14 and therefore you 10-13 wading through 15 council and outcasts. The best solution? Allow the yellow line to go to the green line in steel canyon and vise versa.
i absolutely LOVE faultline. and I started an SSer. In earlier levels thats all I had. I have since taken hover which helps a great deal of course, but..
if you pay a little attention to the buildings in faultine, even with just SS you can get around pretty easily. Just gotta know where to go next. The trick of course, if you miss jump you have to run back to the beginning, through lots of mobs. Find one path that works for you and you'll breeze through it. (ever go to the far sides of the map? at some points you can run down nearly the entire length)
I also get this really creepy half-life like feeling down by the dam. crazy stuff.
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I've never liked Boomtown. Lots of people dig it for low level hunting, but I'm not a hunter. It's too hard to get around when all you have is SS and Hurdle.
IP is another good hunting zone. But very poorly designed. It's too big. Some of the contacts are at the absolute extremes of the map.
KR, as said by another poster, has been outpaced by the Hollows.
I cringe every time I need to go to Skyway for something.
I *love* the Hollows.
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And that shows this game has a good variety because my opinion is the exact opposite on all of the above.
I like Boomtown.
I prefer IP over Talos. Never understood why Talos seems more popular.
I like KR a lot and do not like Hollows.
I love Skyway. One of my favorite zones in the whole game. I cringe whenever I'm forced to visit its overcrowded sister Steel Canyon.
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We're fixing the DE spawns in Eden so no more 41's with 30's.
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Fixing? I thought that was a feature. I liked that. It allowed a verying group of players to get together and be useful similar to the all-con-purple-monster thing.
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And we're making a few changes to make Shadow Shard and Crash Site more accessible. For instance - putting a teleporter in Peregrine Island so that player 40's can get to and from easily.
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A teleporter to the Crash Site would be pure gold.
The Shadow Shard could just use more Mole Points. I don't have a problem with all the unhappy superspeeders - the Shadow Shard makes the Teleport pool truly useful for once!
@Mindshadow
Opinions on other zones:
Talos: Have it spawn a clone when things start getting choppy. People using it as a hub can select Talos 2 and just waltz on through. Or, offer some alternate way of getting from FF to Bricks. That in itself..
Faultline: I avoid this zone, but it's neat to explore. Never got many missions there.
KR: Good zone. Hollows is just better. Wouldn't change it in looks, but might add a better plotline to it.
Boomtown: Perfect.
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they should set fire base zulu up as a transport hub, allowing the gate there to 'dial out' to different zones in our dimension.
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I'd prefer to see a more "mundane" solution to mass transport issues - seeing as we're living in a modern-day city, how about a modern-day city approach to mass transport?
There's all these bus stops littered around the city, but the PTA (paragon transport authority) seems to have forgotten to provide us with any buses...
So, I'd like to see the addition of bus transport, for a nominal amount of influence per journey so the monorail remains as a free method of travel around the city. (I originally thought of taxis, but the bus stops are already there)
Talos Island to Atlas Park? Certainly. That'll be 1500 influence, hop aboard.
Founders Falls to King's Row? 3000 influence, etc
(run up to a bus stop, click the stop sign, chose from a tram-style menu & off you go - buses dropping you off at a specific location in the target zone, so travel powers are still useful - like, say, outside the police station in King's Row or infront of City Hall in Atlas Park, etc.)
Also, causes the least amount of hassle for the zone building department as it'd be extensable to new zone without having to build new monorail lines (which I'd guess is the main reason why we'd not see a "blue line" appear in Paragon City)
(I'm going to gloss-over and ignore the somewhat amusing notion of bumping into Captain Fantabulous riding the bus to work in the morning, urging the driver to go faster as there's hostages in peril on the other side of town 
)
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I'd actually prefer hero-only transporters for, say, levels 35 and up. Since there are plenty of varieties of teleporting in Paragon City (hero tp, Rikti portals, CoT portals, Malta/Tsoo tp), it'd be nice if there were teleport booths in the various zones.
Make it a mission like the Icon tailor mission, where you have to go to such-and-such a lab (run by Hero Corps or Portal Corp) to have your internal transport ID device implanted (which unlocks the transporter devices) and when you get there you find it's being assaulted by a variety of bad guys intent on stealing or destroying the whole shebang. Upon defeating them you get to have the the Transporter ID Device implanted.
Have the transporter booths themselves located in the least-visited spots in all the major zones (to reduce lag), but not in any of the Hazard Zones.
I think this would eliminate a lot of the annoyance factor of "get timed mission in Kings Row from Indigo in Founders Falls." If you could just zip over to the teleport booth and get whisked over to KR from FF, that'd be awesome. It would also be yet another reward for making it to the higher levels, like capes and auras. Lower-level heroes who click on the booths would receive the usual message: "You cannot use the teleport booths until you are level 35."
The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
I'd be very surprised if they put in anything to reduce transit times like a transporter system. That's one of the tried and true methods used by MMOs to slow down leveling because the faster a player levels, the sooner he/she is going to decide they've beaten the game and move on to something new.
"Tell my tale to those who ask. Tell it truly, the ill deeds along with the good and let me be judged accordingly. The rest is silence." -- Dinobot
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Why not have General Hammond issue a jet-pack to every hero. The jet-pack could be a temp power of flight usable until the player exists the shard.
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Great idea! Like a Sky Raider flight pack! It could even cost influence and this could be another Influence sink. Heck, even my characters that have flight would get this just because the jetpacks are so cool looking. 
Champion Heroes: The Wu Jen Adept(50)/Major Madcap(50)/Panther Ice(43)/Nightshadow Dragon(42)
Champion Villains: Freezing Night(49)/Tactical Widow(44)/Umbral Servant(38)/Mister Mechanical(33)
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Hollows really could do with a hospital, that would slove so many of the zones problems instanly- namely having to run all the way back from Atlas etc each time.
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The Hollows ought to get a MASH unit in the fortified area where the cops are. I understand not having hospitals in hazard zones, but if they can keep St. Elegius functioning in DA, they can run a MASH unit in the Hollows. (Great name for the DA hospital, btw. Wonder how many younger players miss the reference...)
And please, please, please put a train station in Founders. If you're going to place significant numbers of contacts in a zone, it should be easier to get to and from. If you don't want to do the significant redesign of the zone required to put in the overhead train tracks, have it be a subway station. Any number of cities have trains that are sometimes subways and sometimes aboveground.
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And we're making a few changes to make Shadow Shard and Crash Site more accessible. For instance - putting a teleporter in Peregrine Island so that player 40's can get to and from easily.
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This would help the Rikti Crash Site, but there's already a porter for the shadow shard in PI right where most people are anyway.
The reason I don't hunt the RCS is because groups mobs that see through invisibility, mezz me, and have multiple bosses teleport right in on top of me with no warning (unavoidable death when visiting the zone).
I hunt the shadow shard, but I'm just crazy like that. I killed about 20 storm elementals the other day, and I'll probably be on the leader board the entire month for it.
I can usually find a group of people willing to hunt Firebase Zulu or Cascade (people don't like to go out beyond Cascade), but RCS is definitely a dead zone. The saucer looks cool, though.
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Through another portal..... Ancient Egypt. All sand. The inhabitants are the laser gun toting Incas.
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In other news, Marvel's lawsuit against Cryptic was joined by UPN, claiming infringment of their popular 'Stargate SG-1' franchise.
Great idea. 
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The Hollows ought to get a MASH unit in the fortified area where the cops are.
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+1
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(Great name for the DA hospital, btw. Wonder how many younger players miss the reference...)
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+1
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And please, please, please put a train station in Founders.
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+1
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Through another portal..... Ancient Egypt. All sand. The inhabitants are the laser gun toting Incas.
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In other news, Marvel's lawsuit against Cryptic was joined by UPN, claiming infringment of their popular 'Stargate SG-1' franchise.
Great idea.
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and Tolkein enterprises suing SOE because someone created a Legolas clone in EQ2 (joke, but it wouldn't surprise me).
I tell you, you Americans have gone 'suing' crazy
Please Please Please listen to this thread and make changes accordingly devs. My own Notes:
Faultline - not only is terrible to navigate, but is one of the only places where it's very hard to find mobs with less than 2 bosses, making soloing and duoing extreemly tough. If you fix the travel or the mobs it'll get more people.
Talos - does get way too much traffic. It's not just what OP said (but that's true too), but also people want Sorcerer and Mask Spirit badges, and this is the best place and 2nd best places for these, there are stores, and lastly it's a fun and good looking zone. For all these reasons, make more links to PI and FF so the lag here is reduced and possibly toss some of the totems and add mask spirits in DA. Why the heck are there ~ 4 mask spirits and 1 totem type, but there are like 6x as many totem spawns? I think also for missions I've faced more Totems than masks.
Hollows - Too big - wish you could do something here and think the best thing would be to make the zone 20% smaller (total area) or so. One more doable suggestion is to move the skyway entrance to be from the SE instead of it's current entrance. It would at least allow people easier access to the high ground on the other side of the zone.
PI - Have only been there twice and both times was laggy - 2 for 2 is not good in this case. We have 2 cities for every other level range, I think it's time to make 2 for lvl 40-50 (or maybe a 42-52, since 1 city is usually a little tougher than the other). While you're at it, this seems like a good time to make more links to other zones (via the new city).
Let's not forget Perez Park!!!
When I first started playing CoH, Perez is where you went to group up, and that's how you learned what your role was in a group at low levels. Later, you could go Hydra hunting and get insane XP for everyone in the group.
Sadly, on Triumph at least, no one goes there now. I had a door mission the other day in Perez, and other than my team, there were about 4-5 other low level folks in the entire zone. Before The Hollows, Perez was so crowded that people used to argue on Broadcast channel about who was "kill-stealing" their Hydras, but now they spawn without anyone there to keep down the population.
I think there needs to be a few "Defeat 20 Hydra" missions to get people interested in the Perez zone again. Also, put a store, a Hospital and a contact in there so you don't have to run so far to get back to hunting. (OK, make it a little twisted if you want. Put the store and Hospital in the middle of the forest maze!)
Ideally, the tank will die precisely as everyone else starts fighting, allowing aggro to be spread evenly among the blaster. -seebs, "How to Suck at CoH/CoV" Guide
My opinion, a lot of the traffic around talos would vanish if the devs would institute some sort of auto-sell of enh. I mean, what's the point of constantly having to run to a store to sell enh that you totally don't need? (Is that fun?)
Talos is great because all of the stores are about 2 superjumps from the tram and about the same from each other or less.
I always go there because I can get all my shopping done in one trip - I mean, compare to IP where you have to cross the entire zone to visit more than 2 stores. Silly, IMO.
Plus, the use of Talos as a transport/zone chokepoint is ill-considered. Think about it Paragon city terms - if you were an AV wouldn't you try to nuke Talos at all costs?
I probably shouldn't say this but I found Eden to be my Fire/Fire tankers dream come true. It's loaded with large groups of Nemesis, Crey, and DE. I tend to stay away from the DE but the others are some of my favorite mob groups. I leveled there from 34 to 37 and only saw another character twice. Not the right Zone for some AT's but if you can take a licking and keep on ticking .. it's a fun place.
As long as they do something to remove that wall of lag around Talos station.
Not only that but the mapserver discos are starting to get a little old.
Boycott Ncsoft if they close down Coh.
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Let's not forget Perez Park!!!
When I first started playing CoH, Perez is where you went to group up, and that's how you learned what your role was in a group at low levels. Later, you could go Hydra hunting and get insane XP for everyone in the group.
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That is funny. Every time I tried Perez Hydra hunting it was horrendous experience. They seem overly difficult with little payoff.
I think I even remember one of those "You know you're with a group of newbs when..." threads which had posted "they suggest going hydra hunting." and most seemed to agree.
KR is more populated and attractive now than it was before the Hollows came. Just to be blunt I'd only go to KR from lvl 5-6 then head to PP to 10, then hit SC from then on.
For whatever reason, the Hollows is far more popular than PP, but still it seems that people who don't want the Hollows or PP experience are hitting KR more often. It just seems to me that KR is benefitting somehow by the Hollows.
The Hollows is a better zone than PP for street hunting in groups, and KR is just as good as ever for soloing.
I like the idea of a teleporter to the RCC and SS. Though in Peregrine you already have a portal to SS anyways. But I assume this portal will be closer to Ghost Falcon and the Talos Ferry.
The reason why Talos is so popular isn't just because it's more of a hub between SC/Bricks/IP/PI/Skyway/DA/FF/Striga but also because all but one shop is within seconds of each other. Compare that to SC, Skyway or IP, where you can buy from all the stores, but their locations are spread out. And with Bricks and FF you don't have the variety of all the shops in the same zone.
So it's more than just being a hub, but being a time-efficient place to buy and sell all manners of SO's which helps.
I think that they should add a specific monster to Faultline. This is my favorite low-level zone and I think that if they added a special CoT monster on the back of Fault (on the top levels of the dam ) that would at least make people explore the zone once.
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And we're making a few changes to make Shadow Shard and Crash Site more accessible. For instance - putting a teleporter in Peregrine Island so that player 40's can get to and from easily.
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The Shard doesnt need to be more accessible... it needs to have something in it... I like that it's hard to get there... and eventually it will make vehicules a necessity.
-There should be a random Monster spawn... like the octopus but Rularuu like...
-The long TFs are fine... but another shorter one (other then Saga of Faathim... which is nice) would help
-Stuff to discover... like a field of Kora fruits in the way off regions...
-The Paladin quest is nice...
-Give story arcs to the contacts...
-badges...
No one goes there because it's not on the way to anything... nor is it a destination for anything... other then 3 very long TFs and a decent one... (which, again, it's fine to have long TFs... but its all you have)
I'd make the Shard into an evolving story with something different every 2 issues or so... (heard of Saga of Ryzom? crappy game but cool concept)... now that Lanaru is dead... then what... he gives rise to a villain group like Rularuu did?... keep going with the story
The Shard needs bridges or teleporters between different rocks. I don't think it needs to be more easy to get to, neccesarily.
Rikti Crash Site, however, needs to be more accessible.,
Hollows really could do with a hospital, that would slove so many of the zones problems instanly- namely having to run all the way back from Atlas etc each time.
It would be VERY cool if Faultline was 'fixed' by Hero Corps and the players had to deal with the Villians moving back in.
I dont think Boomtown is the one to fix, same with Hollows, and Dark Astoria. Lets get Faultline raised!