Discussion: Hollows Zone Gameplay Makeover
By
Aidalyn,
Posted on: 2008-03-19 09:38 in News, Events and Announcement Discussion
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I usually go to Kings to lvl rather than to the Hollows... the only bad thing about it was the location of missions... i still believed that there should still be those hazard sized spawns just have a few solo sized mobs as well.
I think now the hollows might have lost some of it's hazardness.
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Well, yeah, that's kinda the point.
The idea of toning down the hollows is (since players are sent there early and many don't catch on that they don't -have- to do that content to progress in the game) an attempt to ease players in to the idea of a hazard zone. There are areas of the zone that are reasonably under control, and areas that are very difficult and dangerous to navigate.
If you want a "hardcore" hazard zone, Perez is still pretty much untouched since the game launched.
Jason Heavensrun
Swift : Freedom Server
http://www.bladeandepsilon.com/CheckmateStudios
Check out my first Architect Arc, "Bring Up the Sun", arc #339507, and let me know what you think!
YAY CORALAX!
Possibly my favourite of the less-used/understood NPC factions. I have a real softspot for those fishgirls (perhaps fishmen, too, though the only male model Coralax in the game is Mako... talk about a hareem!), even though they have been the bane of all my young villains sent too early into dangerous areas of Port Oakes. "Zomg purple death from the brine!" *Fishy Ice Blast/Ice Breath/Ice Blast* "Blarrg!" *Hosps*
I guess they don't have much trouble with reverse osmosis, then? That said, they're clearly amphibious whatever they really are, though I always hope they're forerunners to a nice Lovecraftian twist to coming storylines...
Nice to see them in Paragon! Now stick them in Striga, too!
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<QR>
My first 50 was raised in the Hollows. I was one of those people who didn't know that you could skip Dave's missions after talking to him and pretty much stayed in the zone until around lvl 16-ish. I killed Frostfire so many times on so many PUGs that now we're on a firstname basis. The Hollows was hard, to be certain. But the main thing I respected about the Hollows was this: IT TAUGHT US HOW TO RUN. Agro distance, breaking Line of Sight, charity (giving insp/rezzes to dead lowbies), and just the plain experience of teaming up with unknown heroes to battle threats that you could never tackle alone. Many of the people who are now in my SG were met while transversing the Hollows. Shared adversity begat conversation about strategy, which lead to more general conversation, finding stuff in common, then eventually becoming friends and remaining that way to this very day. It was hard, yes. But it was worth it and I wouldn't trade that experience for anything.
Thank you War Witch for giving some care and attention to the furnace that forged me into the hero I am today.
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I'm with you Nightsrage, 3 of my 50's were also raised in the Hollows. As much of a pain it was at the time, I wouldn't change a thing. The same reasons you named above are exactly the same reasons for me. The Hollows really taught me how to play my Alt and how to team. At one time before i joined my current SG that new recruits had to run from one end of the Hollows to the other as an initiation...the old Hollows will be missed. With that said, I can't wait to run my new Psi blaster through the new Hollows. 
Thanks for all the hard work on the revamp WW.
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Nice to see them in Paragon! Now stick them in Striga, too!
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I'd like to see them in door missions. ANY door missions. I've never seen them in door missions at all, unless you count Barracuda.
That was alot to take in. I can't really say if I like it untill I actually play it. Sounds good though. I know the Hollows scraed me off when I was a noob, and it probably does the same to alot of noobs now. With the Temp travel powers now...it really didn't bother me anymore, but I think it will be a nice change up. IMO all zones should get changed up a little now and then. Keeps it fresh.
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That was alot to take in. I can't really say if I like it untill I actually play it. Sounds good though. I know the Hollows scraed me off when I was a noob, and it probably does the same to alot of noobs now. With the Temp travel powers now...it really didn't bother me anymore, but I think it will be a nice change up. IMO all zones should get changed up a little now and then. Keeps it fresh.
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Wait, your telling me your not a noob? Heh. I'm kidding.
I was looking forward to this, mixed feelings, but War Witch has gone over and beyond, listening to all the major (and minimal) complaints over the years. Glad to see things changing for the best!
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the VEATs and Proliferation powersets are probably pretty nebulous right now. Some sets may not make it. Some may be pretty different from their current internal builds before they go live. Sure, they could give us info like what sets they're working on porting, but seriously, does that really merit a dev diary? When they can't talk about the specifics of the sets because it's not nailed down yet?
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You just accused another poster of jumping to conclusions. It works both ways. You don't know if any of this is true.
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I'd like to know where my post claimed to -know- anything, when it was peppered with probably's, may's and could's. I'm just proposing patience and openmindedness. (the person I criticised for jumping to conclusions, on the other hand, was expressing an emotional reaction to a scenario he invented out of whole cloth)
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In fact, based on comments made by BaB, it's most certainly not. BaB's said that this round of powerset proliferation are the sets that were pretty easy to port over without a lot of changes for the the most part.
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That still doesn't mean the work is -done-, as seems to be the case with the hollows, or that they can speak confidently about specific sets without unanticipated problems biting them on the [censored].
There's also a lot of arguments in this thread as to whether it would actually be beneficial for the community to have a lot of info to speculate on right now, without the ability to -test anything-, to say nothing of the fact that marketing maneuvers are not nessecarily a waste of time, and just because you want the info now, that doesn't mean it's the best course of action for the game to take.
I understand where you're coming from, I just think people in general are being a bit silly in this thread. They could have not told us -anything-, and just trickled out tidbits here and there through dev posts until the thing went open beta. WW took the time to write up an overview of the zone overhaul that she did. And there's discussion to be had about that overhaul other than just "this isn't the info we're looking for".
Jason Heavensrun
Swift : Freedom Server
http://www.bladeandepsilon.com/CheckmateStudios
Check out my first Architect Arc, "Bring Up the Sun", arc #339507, and let me know what you think!
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Please use this thread to discuss the below announcement.
Level Designer Melissa War Witch Bianco gives us a blow by blow account of what is changing in the Hollows with the Gameplay Makeover for the zone that will be included in the next free expansion, Issue 12: Midnight Hour.
Click here to read the article.
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Excellent update. I'm impressed that War Witch put so much thought and detail into this zone. It was nice to read her reasoning as to why things were changed. They make sense to me.
Now if we can just get her to look at:
* Perez Park - What were they thinking when they designed the tree maze of doom?
* Dark Astoria - Literally a ghost town in more ways than one. I don't think it has gotten use since the change to smoke grenade back in issue 1. It used to be a leveling zone for /dev blasters and fire tanks. Unless you're badge hunting, there's no point to this zone.
* Sharkhead - The Pit and Potter's Field can use some serious work. Anyone else thinks its annoying that Vince Dubrowski (sp?) sends you to go kill 10 Scrapyarders at level 20 when they're level 25 - 28 in the Pit? One of the most annoying hunt missions ever.
* Granville - The whole zone could use a lot less texture. I'd rather have less pretty, more functionality.
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Nice to see them in Paragon! Now stick them in Striga, too!
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I'd like to see them in door missions. ANY door missions. I've never seen them in door missions at all, unless you count Barracuda.
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I'd love them to be fleshed out more, you don't really learn anything in the Cult of the Shaper arc (I forgot Calystix in the 'list' of male Coralax...). If that means they get some door missions (new tileset, please!) and a more revealing arc or two, then great. No more teasing like finding Coralax 'bits' in Striga missions!
PS: Coralax 'sing'. Turn up your game SFX when you stand near them and they make pretty sounds (actually the Banished Pantheon do this too only it's even more subtle).
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A 'tidbit' about a zone that most ppl avoid now and only spans 5-10 levels on only one faction was hardly anything to get our hopes up about.
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Unless something got changed, Hollows covers up to level 20. I know my Rad/rad was getting the end mish for the zone at level 20. Frostfire caps at 15 I believe(diff setting not included), but you still have half the contacts to go in that zone after him.
Just throwing out some on topic thoughts, to step away from the power proliferation conversation...
I think it's cool that the Hollows is getting a bit of a revamp in terms of zone design, and the changes all sound very neat. I like the fact that it eases players in a little bit. I can't begin to say how annoyed I've been by street hunt missions in -general-, and especially in hazard areas like the hollows.
When Hollows first launched, as some people have pointed out, all the lowbie outcast and troll minions had powers, just like their big brothers in Steel and Skyway, and I actually remember thinking that was pretty cool, since it added to the "superhero" feel of the lowbie game. I do kindof wish we could get that back, but I suspect it would cause an unpleasant backlash.
I am also very pleased to see the coralax and Legacy chain make an appearence blueside, though I hope that they could in some way be incorperated into the fiction of the zone, rather than just be random spawns? For example, adding the occasional friendly legacy chain NPC to some of the CoT missions in the zone, or giving us some missions (maybe via the new contact) to fight the coralax to find out why they're here now would be a nice addition? If not now, then maybe in a 12.5 sort of update, or maybe for I13?
Anyway, the addition of a hospital is also very nifty. I really think every zone should have some sort of respawn point. The extra trek from a neighboring zone is a huge bother in a lot of places, but especially in those low, pre-travel power parts of the game.
One thing I -thought- I remembered reading was the possibility of radio missions for the Hollows? Though it might have been a refference instead to the repeatable missions the new contact offers. I do think, given the strong police presence in the zone, that a radio contact (and can we please have at least -one- freaking female detective contact, for cryin' out loud?) would make sense, and would help those "just hit level 5" newbies to find out about safeguards and such. Since the revamp seems angled at the realization that most new players don't realize the hollows content is optional, I think offering radio missions there would help turn the hollows into the heroside equivalent of port oakes. A zone that points the heroes squarely at the radio mission mechanic and says "Hey, LOOK."
Hmmmm....What else, what else...Ah! Friendly NPCs! After the addition of the PPD to several of the city zones, and seeing them find and stop criminals on their own, while also lending the occasional assist to a hero in trouble, I cannot tell you how happy I am that the canned "firing into nowhere" blockade animations for the hollows police are going away. Although I hope longbow doesn't dominate, since I really like the heavy PPD presence in the zone. And Legacy Chain actually helping out other heroes is cool. Maybe we could get some Wyvern agents here and there in paragon at some point?
I don't think, actually, that adding these characters to blueside diminishes their redside presence, BTW. I think it adds to it, but fleshing out their importance to the game world. Fighting them as a villian -means- more if you've fought by their side as a hero. (for the same reasons that teaming up with the occasional freakshow member was a blast, redside.
And last, but certainly not least. The mission doors. (choir music sounds) Yes. Neighborhood localized mission doors are so awesome, especially in the lowbie zones. And please, if you ever get the chance, give this treatment to the rest of the zones on city, especially Atlas, Galaxy, and KR. I get so exhausted with picking up a mission from a contact, having to zone twice to get to it, and then having to run all the way back, without a travel power (the safeguard temps help, but still) is just a hinderance to the fun and flow of the game, especially after living redside for awhile and having most of the mission doors tied to the relevant zone.
Anyway! So in short, I, for one, am pleased with this overhaul, and I hope to see more of the sort as time goes on.
Jason Heavensrun
Swift : Freedom Server
http://www.bladeandepsilon.com/CheckmateStudios
Check out my first Architect Arc, "Bring Up the Sun", arc #339507, and let me know what you think!
It sounds like a big improvement. I can't wait to see if my baby heroes can handle it better now. With the powersets being added to other ATs, I should be getting plenty of "opportunities" to test it out. 
Arc ID: 475246, "Bringing a Lord to Power"
"I'm only a simple man trying to cling to my tomorrow. Every day. By any means necessary."
-Caldwell B. Cladwell
I'm one of those people who always hated The Hollows. I know that there are a few people who like the forced teaming in Hazard Zones, and who appreciate the fast leveling you can get from street sweeping them in teams. But almost nobody does that, it's almost impossible to put together a street sweeping team since the mission reward boost back in i4 or i5, so I feel like I could make a pretty good case that the whole Hazard Zone notion should just go away. Adding a hospital to the zone, toning down the spawn sizes, sorting the mission doors by level range: these are much-needed changes if you ask me; heck, for all of me, they should remove the door into the zone and the ID-checking cops, too.
I'll stop belaboring this point once I make it one more time, now that there's an official thread related to the Hollows revamp to make it in, but I really do wish that the rest of the level 5-15 contacts, the ones in KR and Steel and SkyC, had gotten rewitten before the Hollows got remodeled, because they need it more. As it is, with this revamp it looks to me like you're going out of your way to make it practically mandatory that players skip all the rest of the level 5-15 content in the blue-side game, by giving players major incentives to just stay in the Hollows and farm it to that level.
To that end, Zombie_Man has (not for the first time) hit the nail on the head when he suggests that after the last mission in Officer Wincott's story arc, he should give out a PPD Jetpack, or at least a Raptor Pack. If you're going to make players even less likely to do the Atlas Park and King's Row safeguards, please don't cheat them out of their temp travel power by doing so. They're already going to regret it later when they find out they needed those exploration badges for an accolade, but don't add insult to injury.
There's an even more important reason to do so, too. Changing the spawn distribution in Grendel's Gulch fixes only one of the two big problems with Grendel's Gulch. The other one, the one you can't afford to fix in this issue, is that the geometry of The Hole itself is really, really painful to navigate. A timed jetpack is needed, not just so you can avoid coming around a corner and stumbling into a pack of level 15 Igneous at melee range, but so that if you fall into The Hole by accident the rest of your team doesn't kick you rather than wait forever for you to find a way out.
I also feel like there's way too much "fruit salad" in this zone revamp, way too many factions added just to have them there. I do count it as a big favorable that there are more Hellions in the zone, and some Skulls; the nature of the Superadine Connection and Talos Island Conspiracy plot lines strongly suggest that Eastgate should be where both conspiracies are making their connections. I'm absolutely delighted to see that the Legacy Chain are responding to the Circle of Thorns' attempts to find the Cavern of Transcendence, that absolutely makes story-telling sense. I'll grudgingly go along with having there be some Tsoo in the neighborhood, by way of explaining where the Tsoo found out about all the conspiracies they're trying to disrupt in The Tsoo Shenanigans and The Tsoo Coup.
But I can only just barely stretch my imagination far enough to justify a tiny Vahzilok presence, although really, I don't think they make any sense. It'd be easier to justify having Clockwork scavenging the buildings around the edge of Grendel's Gulch and inside the Gulch than to explain why Dr. V's minions would risk everything it takes to get no-better-quality parts than they can get in any cemetery in the city. But all that being said, I don't think it makes any sense to add either Lost or Hydra or Coralax to this zone. None. It feels gratuitous to me, like you're making excuses to add them just to show off the character models.
One thing I hope, by the way, is that at least half of Meg Mason's early missions are against the Hellions, if for no other reason than to put a dent in the incredible shortage of magic invention salvage missions in the pre-level-15 range. (I also wish that Positron would re-consider my suggestion that the Outcasts drop half-and-half tech and magic invention salvage, for the same reason. Come on, they're the go-betweens in the Talos Island Conspiracy, shouldn't players find some evidence of this in their pockets?)
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A 'tidbit' about a zone that most ppl avoid now and only spans 5-10 levels on only one faction was hardly anything to get our hopes up about.
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Unless something got changed, Hollows covers up to level 20. I know my Rad/rad was getting the end mish for the zone at level 20. Frostfire caps at 15 I believe(diff setting not included), but you still have half the contacts to go in that zone after him.
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The Hollows is a 5-15 level zone. It's just that all of the missions that the contacts give you are all parts of story arcs, and if you've started an arc you'll always be able to get the rest of the missions in that arc, no matter how high a level you are. You must have started the last contact at some point before you hit 16 on that character, or you wouldn't have been able to get missions after that point.
Hollows re-working sounds nice, no more run-of-death, which kept me bypassing this zone's missions.
Kind of off-topic but I seem to recall some forum talk a ways back that boomtown might be getting a Faultline style re-work in a future issue? That's another if-ever-visited zone that I think could be transformed into a nice signiture zone like they did with the faultline.
Random thought
I don't play villians but I feel for them, they don't seem to get quite the zone-love heroes get (re-worked zones, new zones). Maybe boomtown could be another collaborative zone.
Maybe Boomtown could just be made a villain zone, seeing as you heroes don't use it.
This is some awesome news! I'm loving the new enemy additions, and yay for the Legacy! I always wondered why the Lost never moved in there. It's isolated and full of warm bodies to 'recruit.' Ditto the Vahz.
I personally love the Hollows and never have any trouble soloing it, but after running so many alts through, you start to learn 'safer' areas to use to cut across. 
Still, the changes are welcomed anyway! Anything that cuts down travel time and dodging of hurled boulders is a plus, hee.
Thanks War Witch! I can't wait to see the new, revamped Hollows.
I'm really excited about the makeover of The Hollows. I could never get my friends to do missions there- because of the long runs to the mission doors. The new factions being present is exciting too. I have a love/hate relationship with the Coralax. Perhaps I'll bring my level 50 in to stomp some of them just to make myself feel better.
Overall, the additions sound great. I can't wait to try them out.
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I really hope this is not all the info we are getting today. 
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As I stated in an earlier thread, we are still weeks out from closed beta and more weeks out from open beta and then launch. So, expect to get something on a weekly basis from now till then. If we just dumped it all out now, well we'd be sitting around going "that's nice, but when can I play it?" So, thanks for your patience and understanding that it won't all come at once.
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awww... comeon LH- hows about showing us the talsoraian/Rularuu weapons that we're gonna get. I could ogle over them for a week for sure
What part of phnglui mglw'nafl Cthulhu r'lyeh w'gah nagl fhtagn don't you understand?
I like what I'm hearing about the new changes to the Hollows. A neat zone, but low on my list of favorites. It's the zone that made me think of Stealth as a travel power (At least until we got safeguard jetpacks).
I've got a couple questions for War Witch though:
1st of all, I remember there being mention of a hospital function being added to the zone in the I12 announcement, but didn't see that mentioned in your devdiary... can you confirm or deny this please?
2nd, I was wondering if we'll be seeing any new story work to go along with all the new gangs moving in on troll, outcast, and CoT territory, or was there no time to include anything like that?
Dear NCsoft, if you go through with this shutdown you've guaranteed you'll not see another dime from me on any project you put out, ever.
http://xx-starhammer-xx.deviantart.com/
Ah, the things I shall miss about the current incarnation of the Hollows, like giving the greasy-grass-rules speech to the new fish, or running around the north and east edge of the map to arrive at a mission door before the guy that tried to just run across the Gulch (they never listen to the greasy-grass-rules speech the first time) and of course running into the gulch to give a awaken to the guy that got biffed because he ignored the speech. I won't be using the Red River as highway to the Heights anymore either. Meh, they were all a memories of a twisted ambivalent sort of enjoyment anyway.
Viva la revolution! I look forward to the new Hollows!
For the record, the Greasy Grass Rules:
(Developed after a great many "learning" experiances)
<ul type="square">[*]Never run the gulch without two awakens, one for you, and one for the other guy.[*]Never stop for more than 5 seconds without locating two escape paths.[*]Never aggro a mob without locating the OTHER mobs in the area, particularly the ones chasing another team towards you.[*]When it goes south, and it will, run. Don't stop, don't hold up on a hilltop Reno, because I'm not going to stop and look for you. I may come back after I clear the entire area, but I will not stop.[*]Remember, your always running BETWEEN two mobs, if you only see one of them, your probably running towards the other one. [*]Igs are bad, very bad.[/list]
I have never faceplanted in the Hollows without breaking one or more off these rules.
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<ul type="square"> [*]Igs are bad, very bad.[/list]
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Come on: an enemy AT with slow and immobilize resistance on Warwolf levels and the ability to perma knock you down (yes, even scrappers who, like regens, don't get their mez resistance until lvl 16) and travel in packs of 10 unless they're rolling with 2 or 3 bosses that can perma hold you if they're 2 levels or more over you....
It's a challenge!
Thank you, City of Heroes, for giving me a superhero social network combined with amazingly smooth game play. Petitions signed with realistic expectations.
QR
Very happy to have this info about the Hollows!
I may actually go there again!
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Come on: an enemy AT with slow and immobilize resistance on Warwolf levels and the ability to perma knock you down (yes, even scrappers who, like regens, don't get their mez resistance until lvl 16) and travel in packs of 10 unless they're rolling with 2 or 3 bosses that can perma hold you if they're 2 levels or more over you....
It's a challenge!
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You forgot to mention that they're fast... REALLY fast. Much faster than any beastie running around lvl 5 heroes has any right to be.... Why can't we face the squishy Molasses Men at that level... You know, the ones with the caramel nougat center.... Mmmmm, nougat....
Heh, I actually have very fond memories of taking the "med-flight" back to Atlas just to level on waaaaay too many occasions. "What? Run back? All that way? Here, watch this, lemme show you how it's done.... *AGGRO* *Faceplant* *Hospital* *Jogs to nearest trainer*"
I'm very excited about this Hollows makeover. For a long time I've thought of the Hollows as nothing but a pain. It's always just too difficult to do anything in there. Like I understand the terrain is meant to be a challenge, but having super difficult spawns on top of that made the zone impossible.
So I see this change as improving the zone while retaining its challenge. Great idea! Thank you, War Witch!