City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

The Forgotten Zones

Ad Astra

By Ad Astra,
Posted on: 2010-03-25 23:25 in CoH and CoV General Discussions

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tenzhi View Post
Street sweeping has never seemed like a very good team activity to me. It has a tendency to be too spread out and chaotic. I dislike outdoor missions for the same reason.
I still street-sweep sometimes, although I haven't done so with more than one partner, unless you count trick-or-treating during the Halloween event. I find it just about as quick to level up a newbie from 2 to say 8 or so as to run back and forth and hop into and out of instances. And that's redside too; who knows how much time it might save on blue side?

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by JJDrakken View Post
Now Personally, I would love to see zones shut down. Give old school vets props for getting them exploration badges, before the zones where shut down.

Hell, I even say shut down skyway, if it didnt lead you to Faultine & a PvP Zone.


JJ
No thanks. I think its better to leave the options there, no matter how much it seems as though the devs like to make their own content obsolete. Mission bonus xp bummed me out.

As a side note, I think it might be a good idea for the devs to encourage more out of mission content like street sweeping. I am noticing alot of new/trial players complaining how dead the servers seem to be. just be nice to see huge groups running around again.

Back to your point, even though you can set your mish's for a bigger challenge, the hazard zone spawns clump ever so nicely.

From 7-12, I street sweep Perez for Hellions and Skulls.
12 - 20, Boomtown, chewing up Council till 15, and Lost till 19/20ish.
20-23, Zombie hunting in DA.
23-30, Sky Raider luitenant spawns, and Freaks in Tera Volta.
30-39, Freaks, then Nemisis and back to Freaks in Creys Folly. (honorable mention to RWZ, but can stay in there from 30-50)
39-50, RWZ for high lvl Council, and of course Rikti...

Fast, clumped up xp suitable for a aoe soloist... so pretty please, with sugar on top, keep the freaking hazard zones.

 

Posted

Street sweeping is one CoH's strong points; nothing more heroic for a level 3 hero than whacking a few punks stealing purses...unlike in another *cough*similar*cough* game, you actually get rewarded for it here.

And its not just fun for lowbies, my fire blaster spent many happy levels street sweeping in DA.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark_Respite View Post

PEREZ PARK/THE HOLLOWS - "Gang War" - the warring factions in the zone are getting out of control, and the PPD/Longbow are being overrun. Intense pockets of fighting must be broken up for things to return to normal (mechanics - the Banners in the Deadly Apocalypse, but more than four occurrences).

STRIGA/TALOS/IP and BOOMTOWN/STEEL - "Blitzkrieg" - the Council (Striga)/the Fifth (Boomtown) are making a massive push out of their constrained zones into Paragon City. Heroes must meet at certain zone points to slow them down. If the heroes beat them back, great - if not, the enemy makes inroads and appear in greater numbers further into the zone. If they make it all the way across, they start appearing in a random adjacent zone. To really make it annoying, major facilities in a besieged zone are shut down (stores, inspiration sellers, radio contacts) because of the Blitzkrieg.

BRICKSTOWN - "Zig Breakout" - the Arachnos Flyer appears over Brickstown to 'break out' several villains. Heroes have to take out the Flyer before the Zig is overrun.

EDEN - "Scorched Earth" - Longbow, with reluctant sanction from Freedom Corps, has decided to take back Eden using a Scorched Earth policy. In a reverse of the Firefighting missions in Steel, heroes actually START fires in Eden to bring the Devouring Earth under control.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

These would be very cool, as long as they didn't last long enough to make everyone ignore them.

I especially like the Zig breakout one.

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Posted

For my money, I'd like to see 2-4 zone arcs (ex. the arcs in Faultline, Striga, Croatoa, and RWZ) that delve into the backstory of each zone, a zone event of some kind for each zone (possibly revamped in the case of some of the older ones like the fires in Steel), someone to provided repeatable missions in the zone (for those where the Radio does not function), a medical station, and a generic store for selling.

That'd be a good start on making those zones more playable and interesting to go to.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by SinisterDirge View Post
As a side note, I think it might be a good idea for the devs to encourage more out of mission content like street sweeping. I am noticing alot of new/trial players complaining how dead the servers seem to be. just be nice to see huge groups running around again.
Perhaps we should just all make a point of spending 15-20 minutes sweeping at the start of a play session, just to help 'improve the environment' as it were.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rodoan View Post
I really like Striga. If they could somehow park a police station (which doesn't fit Striga, I know) and stores with good prices, I might be tempted to shift my characters back through it. I'd also consider a door to the Midnight Squad and its "best price" store, since that'd be shorter than popping back to Talos and running to all the origin stores.
Perhaps something like having Longbow take over either of the two small islands in the zone, with a base that has a hospital like the one in the Vanguard base in the RWZ, a base entry portal, and a universal vendor. Putting it on the southern small island would let the devs set up an ongoing battle between the Sky Raiders and Longbow like what goes on in the air just south of the damn in Faultline between Longbow, the Sky Raiders, and Arachnos.

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by JJDrakken View Post
If they stuck a hospital person in Striga, small med tent setup or something, Striga would be perfect.

JJ
IDEA: If you are defeated on Striga you should get sent to a Council jail.(think mayhem jail) Would make an interesting twist on the zone. Of course it would have to be only lightly guarded as some solo heroes might have a hard time fighting their way out of a heavily guarded bunker.



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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ocularis View Post
... it would have to be only lightly guarded as some solo heroes might have a hard time fighting their way through a cell door.
Fixed.
*imagines some poor empath with no attacks left to rot...*

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mouse_Man View Post
If they were to add anything at all to Bricks it should be the interior of the Zig. I can't tell you how disappointed I was the first time I found out that there wasn't a single mission that took you inside the prison. I had expectations of prison riots and hostage situations completely squashed.
I'm with you there. About 3 or 4 years ago I actually wrote a 4 or 5 page post about a Zig TF that would be 10 missions long and went through every area of the prison and had some great stories and finally at the end you would face an AV final boss of Malaise who after being incarcerated in the prison was secretly being tested on by Crey and Dr. Vazhilok as a lab rat to try and increase Malaise powers and give him the ability to psionically reanimate corpses that he could control. The experiment goes wrong though and Malaise is turned into a mindless beast driven only by his baser animal instincts and mutates into a 20 foot tall brute. Everyone loved the idea and it would finally give the players something to do with this giant honking prison in the middle of the zone. Unfortunately nothing ever came of it

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ocularis View Post
IDEA: If you are defeated on Striga you should get sent to a Council jail.(think mayhem jail) Would make an interesting twist on the zone. Of course it would have to be only lightly guarded as some solo heroes might have a hard time fighting their way out of a heavily guarded bunker.
Maybe the jail area could be like the Council base in the RWZ, so it's part of the zone?

@Golden Girl

City of Heroes comics and artwork

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyrrano View Post
Fixed.
*imagines some poor empath with no attacks left to rot...*
That's something I still don't wuite get about those jails, or the Thorn ones - what exactly are the Council/Thorns trying to achieve with them?
Like there are no guards, and no one ever comes by, so do they even know when they've caught someone? Shouldn't an Archon or someone check them out from time to time? Maybe even ask us what we were doing in their base? Sure, the answer's always going to be "none of your business", but they could at least make the effort

@Golden Girl

City of Heroes comics and artwork

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Catwhoorg View Post
I disagree with Galaxy, I much prefer starting there.

Another zone that needs some love is Dark Astoria.
4 contacts with a short 4-5 mission arc, and maybe a TF.
I think all the Hazard/Trial zones need this.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Golden Girl View Post
That's something I still don't wuite get about those jails, or the Thorn ones - what exactly are the Council/Thorns trying to achieve with them?
Like there are no guards, and no one ever comes by, so do they even know when they've caught someone? Shouldn't an Archon or someone check them out from time to time? Maybe even ask us what we were doing in their base? Sure, the answer's always going to be "none of your business", but they could at least make the effort
The COT cells are quite a bit nastier than the Council ones. The COT ones are stuffed full of COT. Once you break free, you have to fight your way through all the guards.

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by BlueBattler View Post
The COT cells are quite a bit nastier than the Council ones. The COT ones are stuffed full of COT. Once you break free, you have to fight your way through all the guards.
Well, I guess that's a step in the right direction - from their point of view at least.
But the Council still seem to be puzzled by the whole jail concept
Like if they wanted to kill us, why not just shoot us right away? And if they don't want to kill us, what's the point in locking us up in cells that are so easy to escape from, and with not a single guard even in the cellblock area?
The devs could at least add a couple fo guards outside each door, or make an ambush spawn if you break out - at least make it look like this well-trained military organization has some clue what they're doing

@Golden Girl

City of Heroes comics and artwork

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Golden Girl View Post
Well, I guess that's a step in the right direction - from their point of view at least.
But the Council still seem to be puzzled by the whole jail concept
Like if they wanted to kill us, why not just shoot us right away? And if they don't want to kill us, what's the point in locking us up in cells that are so easy to escape from, and with not a single guard even in the cellblock area?
The devs could at least add a couple fo guards outside each door, or make an ambush spawn if you break out - at least make it look like this well-trained military organization has some clue what they're doing
that sounds much better. I like the ambush Idea.

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Posted

the hazard zones blue side are largely a victom of the various changes made over the years. In the current game their really isn't a reason to go to them other than for door missions and hunt missions. In the beginning, the game did support going to the hazard zones.

The two hazard zones redside are in a slightly different situation, their not often visited largely b/c Hami raids are conducted redside even less than blueside if at all. Hami raids are an entirelly different topic in of itself

If I were try to bring more life to the existing hazard zones,
1) Introduce a medic station, quartermaster, and radio missions to these zones
2) Start an AE contest. Announce the zone in question, general theme, foes to be used, and level range. The winners would have their story arcs inserted into the hazard zones as content ( this is assuming its easy enough to transfer/ copy AE arcs to the actual content system) the winners would get a account wide badge, along with maybe a decent amount of merits to use account wide.

 

Posted

I'd like to put a vote in for a HUGE zone that is all but forgotten:


SKYWAY CITY

Ok, we all know where it is but does anyone spend much time there? Since it roughly matches up in LV with Steel Canyon, it seems to get skipped over. Generally it gets noticed more for Mayhem/Safeguards and as a way to get to Overbrook.

Writer of In-Game fiction: Just Completed: My Summer Vacation. My older things are now being archived at Fanfiction.net http://www.fanfiction.net/~jwbullfrog until I come up with a better solution.

 

Posted

I like Skyway - it's grittier than Steel Canyon, but not as dirty as Kings Row - I like the way the ground level often feels like a totally separate zone from the freeways above.

@Golden Girl

City of Heroes comics and artwork

 

Posted

I agree its an interesting zone. It just almost has the feel of an afterthought. As you're getting into that level range, most of the contacts direct you to Steel, Not Skyway. Once you get into Steel, there's just so much to keep you occupied that, by the time you start getting referrals to Skyway contacts, you've out leveled them.

Writer of In-Game fiction: Just Completed: My Summer Vacation. My older things are now being archived at Fanfiction.net http://www.fanfiction.net/~jwbullfrog until I come up with a better solution.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by jwbullfrog View Post
I'd like to put a vote in for a HUGE zone that is all but forgotten:


SKYWAY CITY

Ok, we all know where it is but does anyone spend much time there? Since it roughly matches up in LV with Steel Canyon, it seems to get skipped over. Generally it gets noticed more for Mayhem/Safeguards and as a way to get to Overbrook.
I generally prefer Skyway to Steel when it comes to that level range. There's a training enhancement store (not so much for buying, but for that tiny extra bit of inf when selling) right next to Mynx, who is right next to the train station.

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark_Respite View Post
I personally use Terra Volta for getting badges - Sky Skiffs, Lost bosses, and Freak tanks. But other than that, it's horribly underused. (So is IP for that matter.)

And I agree with Street_Wolf, I would MUCH rather see more content for the existing zones than new zones. I'm sure it'd keep Dr. Aeon, Hero 1, and the rest of the writing team hella** busy from now til forever, but creating new content for the 'forgotten zones' would be a blessing.

The vets would have somewhat of an advantage of knowing the zones, but it would also help the newbies to the game as the vets would also be running the same content at the same time. Even if they added new zone events...

PEREZ PARK/THE HOLLOWS - "Gang War" - the warring factions in the zone are getting out of control, and the PPD/Longbow are being overrun. Intense pockets of fighting must be broken up for things to return to normal (mechanics - the Banners in the Deadly Apocalypse, but more than four occurrences).

STRIGA/TALOS/IP and BOOMTOWN/STEEL - "Blitzkrieg" - the Council (Striga)/the Fifth (Boomtown) are making a massive push out of their constrained zones into Paragon City. Heroes must meet at certain zone points to slow them down. If the heroes beat them back, great - if not, the enemy makes inroads and appear in greater numbers further into the zone. If they make it all the way across, they start appearing in a random adjacent zone. To really make it annoying, major facilities in a besieged zone are shut down (stores, inspiration sellers, radio contacts) because of the Blitzkrieg.

BRICKSTOWN - "Zig Breakout" - the Arachnos Flyer appears over Brickstown to 'break out' several villains. Heroes have to take out the Flyer before the Zig is overrun.

EDEN - "Scorched Earth" - Longbow, with reluctant sanction from Freedom Corps, has decided to take back Eden using a Scorched Earth policy. In a reverse of the Firefighting missions in Steel, heroes actually START fires in Eden to bring the Devouring Earth under control.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite
Pft...why hasn't Paragon Studios just hired you already? Sheesh.

All really, really good ideas Michelle, and while it's easy for me not knowing the coding to say they'd be "easy to implement", they certainly stay within the flavor of each zone and expand that taste to a new logical conclusion.

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark_Respite View Post
STRIGA/TALOS/IP and BOOMTOWN/STEEL - "Blitzkrieg" - the Council (Striga)/the Fifth (Boomtown) are making a massive push out of their constrained zones into Paragon City. Heroes must meet at certain zone points to slow them down. If the heroes beat them back, great - if not, the enemy makes inroads and appear in greater numbers further into the zone. If they make it all the way across, they start appearing in a random adjacent zone. To really make it annoying, major facilities in a besieged zone are shut down (stores, inspiration sellers, radio contacts) because of the Blitzkrieg.
I think what bothers me about some of the suggestions is the bit where failing to defend against whatever results in negative consequences for the zone.

Now, I understand that one of the much-requested features is for something players can do to make some sort of impression on the game world.

However, my peak time is nothing like US peak times, and there are usually no other players willing to work on that zone event during my playtimes. Can't beat back a gang war in the middle of a timed mission, after all. And most of all, can't beat back a gang war solo.

I'd rather not have to lose access to stores and such because I'm the only one in the zone willing to do stuff. Steel may get a pass due to the Wentworth's and University in the zone, but there are times when there aren't enough players there anyway, to deal with the building fires and such.

So if the zone events will have major negative consequences for players, they should be doable by one lone hero if at all possible.

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