Zone Hubs

Several zones, both hero and villain side, serve well as hubs of activity, good zones to use as a staging point or a go-between to certain content. But as of this moment, there is only one "perfect" hub, offering access to nearly everything you'd want to reach: Cap au Diable on the villain side, which allows access to the Rikti War Zone, Cimerora, a tailor, a market, an invention table and all of the other zones red-side.

Other less perfect hubs include Steel Canyon, St. Martial, and Founder's Falls.

What I propose is that we expand this, creating more hubs on both sides - ideally, two on each side, one a "low level" hub (Cap and SC) and one a "high level" hub (FF and St. Martial). This of course means a few things need to be added to these zones.

Steel Canyon would need a Vanguard DPO added. With access to both the Green and Yellow line trains, it's got access to almost all Hero zones, which is the best you can hope for with how many zones Heroes have.

Founder's Falls needs to have a Wentworth's added. A Yellow line would be nice, but perhaps not really in theme for the Hero zones.

St. Martial needs a Midnight Club. This could be a full-blown University (maybe replacing the Abandoned Lab?) or just another door that links to the Midnight Club. Like Founder's Falls, St. Martial would lack links back to the low level zones (but links to the "low level" hub), so there'd be pretty good parity there.

Since these zones only need one small addition each to become more perfect hubs for their respective sides, it shouldn't be a big deal to add them, and would do a lot to add to the quality of life for both sides. Heroes spend a lot of time dancing from zone to zone to get everything they need, and another hub in St. Martial would help alleviate some of the congestion currently in Cap au Diable.

While I'm all for something that makes Cap au Diable less of an end-all, be-all in redside zones, I don't know if this is the way to do it.

For one thing, it's already tremendously easy to get from just about anywhere to just about anywhere, between Pocket D, SG bases, Oroborous, the Midnight Club, Vanguard DPOs, Consignment House/Black Market teleporters both purchased and earned through day jobs, the mission teleporter, and let's not forget all those jetpacks...

Second, all this would do, blueside anyway, would be to further congregate the players in a few specific zones while others go largely unused. A "high-level hub" for villains wouldn't be so bad, but there's already barely any reason to go to most hero zones anymore. If anything, I'd rather see amenities spread out more. Move Wentworth's from Steel Canyon to Skyway City. Take the Vanguard DPO out of Atlas Park and put one in Galaxy City. And for frak's sake, get rid of some of the AE buildings! We don't need one in every zone. Two or three in Paragon and one or two in the Isles is all we need, and as much as I like the idea of heroes and villains running AE content together, it just doesn't make any damn sense in places like the RWZ. (Ideally, it would be a zone unto itself, but that's a whole other topic.)

Spread out the population a bit and you might even end up with less lag -- ever notice that the closer you get to the Black Market in Cap, the longer it takes to get there?

For one thing, I'm flippin' sick and tired of having to trudge through Cap lag to go to the Midnight club. That's the most painful 500-or-so yards in the game, passing the market and the university off the ferry. And don't even try SG porting...AE will see to a disconnect for certain.

Heroes get three MC acess points to our one. Put one in St. Martial, and it's a clone of Cap. That's all I ask.

Acctually, now that I think of it, Steel Canyon is typically pretty populated. Not over-the-top populated, but decently filled while still comfortable, y'know? It's really easy to find a 10-20-ish team over there, but not so crowded to cause lag.

And on top of that, SC has pretty much everything a 10-20-ish character would want or hope for, so it would definitely get my stamp of "Perfect Zone".

There's already a "high level" hub on both sides of the game: Ouroboros

I've always thought of Talos Island as my blue-side hub. WW, train and base portal all next to each other, convenient access to most origin stores (I'm still in the habit of selling SO at the correct stores), entrance to Pocket D. Base and Ouroboros drop-off points both drop in convenient places. Sure, it's missing RWZ/Midnighter entrances, but I seldom need those.

Can I get some more feedback on this idea?

/unsigned.

A Midnighter Club in St Martial, while thematically not out of place, would only connect to Cap, which is already only one ferry ride from St. M., and Cimerora, but that's a zone that people travel to, not through.

Generally I dislike the idea of the same features being available in all or most zones, since it only reduces the uniqueness of each zone. Redside only has 7 zones, it doesn't need a second university. It's bad enough that someone thought it was a good idea to put AE buildings in every zone except Grandville, regardless of whether it made sense thematically (Sharkhead is a miserable industrial hellhole. I dunno... maybe the miners go in there and beat up Mako in god mode) or aesthetically (as in Nerva, where the AE building is three or four times the size of any other building in the region.)

The general idea is to create more zones people travel through (or stop by in to get something done). Redside especially needs this, because right now everything happens in Cap, and the zone could really use a little less congestion.

All I really want is Midnighters Club access somewhere other than Cap Au Diable. If I had that, I would never again enter that hellish laghole again. Alternate Bloody Bay access would be nice too, but I can live without Shivans, or just take the black helecopter to that side of the zone without approaching the horrific congestion between the Cap AE, high level Ferry, Vanguard portal, Midnighters Club, only redside university (where even dedicated crafters often don't know about the abandoned labs in other zones), all arrayed in an unholy pentacle of lag around the Cap Black Market.

As for Paragon... things are already pretty well connected there, considering how many zones total there are. Between Ouroboros, Base portals (and base teleporter), Pocket D (and teleporter), the Mission Teleporter, and a few key zones like Atlas Park, Steel Canyon and Talos Island, I can get pretty much everywhere from anywhere else in two hops, three at most. Faster would be nice, but compared to standard MMO travel times we've already got it waaay easy.

One thing that I think needs sorting is AE Zone placement Redside. Some look sooooo out of place, like the one RIGHT beside the ferry in Sharkhead!

The one by the ferry in Sharkhead looks completely random - agreed.

With regards to the OP this is a good idea - the Cap is lagtastic and could do with some relief in the form of a high-level hub-zone in St. M.

Heroside is more of a problem and I think I agree that more time should be spent in FF. It seems very cut-off from the rest of the zones and not worth the effort of a visit when Talos is right next door. A Wenty's would possibly lure some people in and away from the Station/Wenty's/nearby Hill triangle that can sometimes have issues at peaktimes.

This has nothing to do with people going to the Midnighters or Vanguard or the university. This has everything to do with Cap Au Diable being the AE focal point of redside.

Prior to I14 the only time I experienced lag in Cap was in the immediate vicinity of the BM when the Rikti attacked. Now, at least on Freedom and Virtue, there's perma lag all around the BM and up into Aeon City. This is particularly annoying since between level 15 and 19 a villain HAS to go there. At least on blueside you can level up out of AP within an hour, or start in Galaxy City.

Placing extra facilities in other zones only sidesteps this problem, it doesn't fix it.