What could make hazard zones more appealing?

Just something that I've been curious about since they announced the new Dark Astoria revamp, how it will have various amenities and obviously all the solo incarnate content. An then thinking about a new zone like First Ward and how it is essentially a ghost town.

So, here's a question for the masses. What needs to be in a zone to make it an active hub for player activity?

Make them like RWZ, give the zone some content, and some sort of event that is relevent across a wide lvl range.

And kill the ssk system. Being able to run solo missions set for 8 people without padding is the only reason I no longer hunt hazard zones solo. With that change, they killed street sweeping for me once and for all.

The kicker is, it still probably wouldn't change much. They have always been empty ever since mission xp bonus was introduced.

Give them a Faultline/RWZ type of storyline...there is no other reason to go other than street sweeping and that's been dead for years, hell I think it's been four years since I've even stepped foot in Crey's folly.

Rework them with a few good arcs and rewards and it'll be golden

I'd love to see Boomtown get a revamp. Look, have the 5th Column take over most of the North section of it, and turn it into a giant 5th Column base. Above and below ground. Massive bunkers, with point defenses that you have to overwhelm to get inside, and a regularly spawning boss controlling it all.

Hazards...

That spillover through the security doors if not attended to and cause mayhem in the city zones.

yeah, I'm thinking one of the ways is definitely to mirror something like the RWZ and the mothership raid. Give players a live event they can earn rewards on. Or at least a worthwhile task force, which is about the only thing (barely) keeping Cimerora slightly active.

Like, First Ward and Faultline, as mentioned, have pretty solid story arcs. But they're just worth running through once, and even so, can be done completely solo. After that there isn't a heck of a lot to do in either of them except badge hunt.

And First Ward has the Seed, but that thing is so pathetically ill designed. Giant Monster rewards seriously need to be looked at again if the Devs want to use them as centerpieces for content. It's not really that the gimmick is bad (though, the flight thing can be a bit annoying, and seriously screws with mastermind AI) just that for the effort of taking it down all you get is 2 lousy Reward merits, a badge, and a temp power that only lasts 30 minutes after defeating it. At the very least, the temp needs to be a click power so you can activate it when you feel like. But as it is, it's just not worth the effort. I see the Seed flying unmolested almost 24/7. In fact I've only seen 2 in channel efforts pulled together to take it on in the few months I've been playing.

Patrolling the streets of zones has been dead since year 1 after indoor missions became better xp (as well as being able to customize the spawn +/x). Door missions turned into radio/newspaper missions turned into AE farms.

Faultline's revamp made it a nice little story arc, though. Revamping the old hazard zones with story arcs is the best you can do for them.

Hazard Zones applying a zone-wide buff that gives a nice bonus to exp/inf, salvage and recipe drop rates would probably be the only thing that would provide incentive to go groundpounding in the great urban jungle of Paragon City instead of smashing through doors. You could find a nice level range to exemp down to in Ouro and go a-hunting.

And Eden never served any purpose. The first time I went through the First Ward I thought that's exactly what an Eden revamp would've looked like.

Larger scale League raid spots would be good, but we really don't need another currency type for every single hazard zone, lol.

Yeah, Statesman's old meganerf to GMs sure could get repealed. Back in the early days I remember NEVER seeing Lusca up, because fighting that giant octopus was such crazy good xp/inf back before Statesman decided a Badge is enough of a reward for fighting the zone event GMs.

Still bums me out that the DA revamp will apparently lift the omnipresent fog. DA was awesome because it was such a unique little zone in the game with that Silent Hill shroud laying over it. Making the whole zone glow red because the Sleeper has Awoken seems WoW-ish.

Players go to a zone because other players are there. That means there will be only one busy zone for each level area.

Atlas, Steel, Talos, and PI - Bricks and FF seem to be skipped

If you make the Hollows popular, it will make Steel a ghost town.

So you have 3 options
- make zones have a smaller level range so there is a point to each zone.
- make the extra zones be good soloing zones with storylines
- force people to go to the zones by making badges or unlocks that require playing in the zone

Have the enemies drop tips for special missions in that zone, give badges for doing those missions.

It's not much, but it gives players a reason to team up and check out the zone.

Attach a zone event to street sweeping and flesh out the backgrounds a bit. I mean honestly, they need a bit of loving care. I am quite surprised at the revisitation Dark Astoria is getting! Now if only we can get that for the rest of the H-Zones (hopefully without Incarnate content attached).

content! Hazard zones need something to do

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

I really wish Stiga Isle was more popular. It really is a cool zone.

Personally, I don't want to see outdoor street hunting back. It was easily the least fun, most disheartening thing I've ever done in this game, especially since we can control spawn sizes in missions now. So if we'll do anything to hazard and trial zones, it would have to do with instanced missions.

What to do is simple - add contacts to them and give these contacts story arcs. Put hospitals and vendors in zones that don't have them. Then do a "Hollows revamp" on them where you tweak the spawns to be less 8-man-size in the whole zone, but leave a red area or two in there that still has them.

What to NOT do is also simple - don't mess with the zone geometry. There's no need for it. Most hazard and trial zones are pretty already, and most people haven't seen them at all. If necessary, alter just a small portion of them to put in a base camp for the forces of law and order, but you don't need to make a whole new zone.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

On the subject of getting people back into fighting GMs and things like the fire fighting zone events, have them give out hero/villian merits. Fighting them currently just isn't worth it, most of the time I join a team to fight a monster I barely get a handful of xp and inf and usually about 2 reward merits.........woo, the fire rescue I get a pat on the back. Also, more zone events that can be done by just a handful of people required, an average fire rescue can be done with about 4 people (hell I've done it with 2). Rikti raids, zombies and banners take a full team or more to do it without it being a pain so if it happens in a deserted zone or on off time, well just keep moving.

Story arcs, more (and rewarding) GMs (maybe even raids akin to the RWZ mothership), and hot spots (like the Deadly Apocalypse stuff from Halloween) that spawn around the zone and have players running around from point to point. Make hazard zones exciting.

Of course, I for one, occasionally enjoy simply street sweeping in these zones.