Top 5 worst zones ever (come make your own list)

Trying not to sound like a broken record, many of the same points have been made.

Worst
1. DFC - the lag is impossible even when reduced to the absolute minimum settings.
2. Lavastorm - It is the next logical step for progression after Feerrott but if you can't get a group you can't do anything in there except kill the peons which for some reason give the same xp as level 40 mobs in Feerrott even though they are level 45 and yellow to me. If you try to go anywhere else solo for the intended level of the zone you will die. Standing with your lfg tag on for an hour killing the only things you can solo before giving up on a gorup is a drag.
3. Solsek - everytime I am in there at least 2-3 of a group of 6 lds with the same error and we have to wait for them to relog.

Best
1. Draftling Tower - I really like the draftling tower it is the coolest zone in the game.
2. Nek Castle - the maze effect and secret doors are cool. However you should not have to comple the sisters quest everytime you go in there to get to everling. If you have done it once you should have access.
3. Stormhold - the only true dungeon in the game with slanted floors and crumbing brick. Much to do in there and very cool

Well the top of my list is an easy one, and that would be:

Nek Castle - Now I haven't been there since early January, but I remember hitting it 4 weekends in a row in Dec/Jan (when the lockout timer was 7 days). Getting a group was hard enough, but the bugs in the quests inside this otherwise great zone sort of killed off much of the enthusiasm I had for this game (I stopped playing in early February and only came back about 3 weeks ago). The worst was the one time we had a super group (4 guild members, all looking for Lord Everling for an HQ), the last sister "died to pain and suffering", and the quest didn't advance. As this was my 4th time in 4 weeks there, it was a bit disheartening (to be honest, I have never been that mad at ANY form of "entertainment" in my life, and that was the last day I logged on to that character). The sad thing it could be (and might currently be) a great zone, but it was so broken (and might still be) that it wasn't worth the frustration. And camping a named in an instance? That's pretty [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] stupid.

Second on the list would be:

The Trial of Harclaves - Why anyone would do this multiple times is beyond me. Well, I know why (easy XP), but the zone itself (the whole of the Splitpaw AP) is pretty dull. As 25-27 defiler who recently went through this, each and every solo zone (Upper Tunnels, Flitch's Prank and Harclaves) was exceedingly dull. And and add = death. But Harclaves would be the most annoying because you respawn after death OUTSIDE, so you have to do the whole zone over again, regardless of why you died (L/D, or just an add, or bad jump). With the new lockout timer (thank god I beat that), I can't imagine ever trying this with an alt.

Beyond that, I really haven't been much past Runnyeye (hit 34 defiler in that first go around), so the higher level zones, no idea.

Blackburrow has horrid pathing, so my Qeynos characters simply avoid that zone.

Wailing Caves has that annoying locked door you need to camp for the key, so my Freeport characters generally don't spend much time there.

I really like Fallen Gate. Some of my best groups have been long crawls in there. Of course some of my worst debt build-up has been there. But I like that you can't stop there. Haven't ever had a character fight in Stormhold for more than about 30 minutes, so no real idea how good/bad that zone is.

The one thing that really annoyed me before (which seems to have been changed in my time away) was the disparity between the difficulty of getting around in Nek Forest vs the ease of getting around in Thundering Steppes. It's not as bad as it used to be, and this time through I'm liking Nek Forest a lot more, but it was annoying at launch and right after.

1. The Gates of Anket Aken- 7 day lockout on this raid zone, and the loot tables seem to be broken....all non-named groups share a very very tiny loot table. The named encounters drop wood so often, after weeks of raiding this zone were not sure if they even have master chests. The challenge in this zone is good, and we enjoy the challenge, but the loot table gets in the way of this being a good zone to do. I think acts of war, and brutal acts of war shows exactly what a raid zone should be like.....good challenge for good loot...guantee the challenge...therby you guarntee the loot...it's a simple math equation.

2. Nek Castle the Return- First problem is this zone is an abbreviated version of the original....I was disappointed not to have to go to the basement as part of this zone. Also, the chests which you got keys for only to find vendor loot to sell for coin was anti-climatic.

3. DeathFistCitadel- Loved the way this zone looked, Excellent theme, but due to poor pathing/zone bugs this zone is to be avoided.

4. Overland zone(guess pillar of flames) NO heroic encounter areas with stuff 60-63 for the high level 50 people to challenge themselves on while xping. If you want stuff over level 60 you have to go to an instance....which makes xping from 58+ a situation where you will encounter blues...and this makes the last levels of xping a bit lack luster......this same scenario was true for level 50's pre DoF.

5. Lavastorm - zone music annoyed me straight out of this zone....yes I can edit it myself...but for those of us that don't change our zone music...this zones music will drive ya nutty.

Interesting thread. I'll takee a go at it.
1. In a league all by itself - DFC. The concept is great. I love stuff like is laid out in DFC. I love the concept of the heritage quests which end here. The only problem is the zone is buggy as hell. You catch agro through walls, through floors, through ceillings. You spend half your time fighting mobs you can't even see. It turns what could be one of the more interesting evenings in EQ2 into a bloody nightmare. Folks hide when someone mentions they need DFC. So props for zone design - a big boo for execution.
2. Everfrost - Probably my greatest disappointment in EQ2 was this rendition of Everfrost. First off it is tiny. Way too small to be interesting. Secondly, mob placement here is just pathetic. For all intents and purposes, it looks like you fired up your winter zone generator, decided on the mobs you wanted in the zone and salt and peppered them in large quantities everywhere. All wandering around, pacing back and forth, just a big jumble of mobs. That is a common problem in many zones but in EF it is just the worst. All the magic of the original EF in EQ is lost as it appears in EQ2.
3. Zek - I see no charm in Zek. Suffers from many the same problems as EF. Wall to wall mobs scattered across the landscape and a boring landscape at that.
4. All of Freeports suburbs. Just depressing to be there and apparently many agree because there is hardly anyone there.
5. Rivervale - Hard to put my finger on what is wrong with Rivervale. It just seems out of place somehow. Very small for one with mob placements that look like they don't belong there. A zone I hate going to for certain.
I'll take the liberty to give my 4 best zones list.
1. Sol Eye - Yes I know it can be buggy and frustrating. Despite that it is intriguing zone. Just a shame that there isn't a decent loot itemization for the zone but just about every zone of consequence suffers from that malady.
2. Nek Castle - probably the best application of instancing I have seen and I'm not a fan of instancing.
3. Stormhold - Just a great design in my book although fighting there can at times be frustrating.
4. Lavastorm - Does suffer from the same "hey, lets put mobs everywhere" approach but it is an interesting layout, sufficiently large and fun to explore.
5. Varsoons - fun dungeon to poke around in.

Worst zone of all time is Obelist of Lost Souls. For the main reason of how much you have to do just to get farther into the zone. In my opinion there should just be one access quest that gets you through the whole entire zone.

5. Sol's Eye enormous zone, with incredible lag, once you reach the giant paths over the lava one lag spike can throw you back up to the top and you have to start over going wherever you we're headed (usually to nagalik or nagafen's lair).
4. Deathfist Citadel - yes its laggy, yes its full of useless mobs, but thankfully if you do things right you only have to go in once.
3. Permafrost - this zone serves no purpose what so ever in terms of quests, its nothing but a grind zone and a kill 3 contested that are now almost useless in terms of killing.
2. Clefts of Rujark - same as sol's eye lots of lag (don't know what it is with lag and zones with a massive orc population) but knockback attacks on a bridge = teh suk.
1. My house - not only can't I see half of the furniture (chandiliers) but I have so much junk it takes forever to load the zone and move anywhere without lagging to death, and I have to pay upkeep on the stupid thing just so I can sell stuff offline, I would sell it but you have so much junk its impossible to move... At least I was smart and put my Shimmering citadel carpet in the first room.

1. DFC
2. DFC
3. DFC
4. DFC
5. DFC

lag galore. p4 3.2 ghz geforce 6800 ultra, 2 gig ram. nothing else is running in the background (not even firefox). still dfc is lagfest. esp when the moronic grey orcs run around in packs.
and yes it is in very high quality I play the game. I refuse to play with less with a card worth 500 bucks (when I got it).

qh it is a slow down compared to other zones but since all but 1 of my toons are from freeport I do not care much about it

To bad you are incorrect Tuna, I know people with very high end puters that have the same issues that people with minimal computers have in the same zones.

Nek Castle has had issues since release, memory leak, massive lag, pathing.

DFC same thing and the diffrent instance such as Assault has graphic glitches as you walk thru doors, pathing is a issue.

Just going off my top 5

1 DFC I agree awesome concept but to many pathing issues, memory leaks, graphic problems
2 Nek Castle same as above
3 Zek not sure but seems to have either some kinda memory leak issue, or just really bad zone lag, especially near the initial fort area, also think there could be more done with the quests in this zone and more of a assault type feel like you are going after the armies of orcs or defending the settler camp from the assault of orcs
4 Sol Eye once again memory leaks, pathing, situational zone lag, graphics bugs, by the time you can get to this zone it is not worth exping in.
5 Serpent sewers/vermyns snye the 2nd level sewer zones both FP and Qeynos side. Have massive zone lag issues, pathing probs, memory leaks, I have bugged reported these since a week after the game went live and they have never gotten improved.

There are a few others but most of the issue is wasted possibilities or just plain mob placement/over crowding/under populated wasted space.

Bingo!!! Agree completely. I have a decent computer I built, and I have NO consistant lag in ANY zone. Early on when the patch went in where could re-bind yourself, QH at the bells had some noticible lag, but it vanished.

Being in groups and having someone say "CoR is lagging me out all the time, I can't go with you there" I ask about his system and he says "Well, I have a P3, 512 megs memory, and a nvidia mx400, meets the minimum specs!
Put him on the "never group again with" list, and move on. This is basically what everyone says when I ask them what they have when [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn]ing about lag.

This is not a game you can play with your Gateway or your web surfing computer.

I believe an action rpg company makes one tho.

I just wanted to expand more on my list, since people seem to blame the computer for the lag problems. My computer is brand new and consists of 3GB DDR2, 3.4GHZ P4HT, 128MB PCI-E 6600GT. I have an 8ms 17"LCD set to high performance. I have also tried these zones with my settings set to low. Same results or not a noticeable difference. And I am on Kithicor, if that makes a difference.

I must also say that is what I think makes a zone "bad". I don't look at the level of difficulty or the lack of adventure / quests in a zone to determine if it is bad or good. I have spent a lot of time in all zones and I have my favorites and ones I won't go back to. A bad zone is something that has problems programmatically, i.e. pathing issues, lag, lvl 34 mobs that charm lvl 50 players, etc.
I would describe SH, BB, FG, and other dungeon zones as hard, or even unsoloable. I wouldn't call them the worst zones in the game.
So far all of the postings have been great. So many people are having lag problems in the same areas that it doesn't seem to be just me any more. :smileyvery-happy: I also think it is a good thing that so many people are calling some of these dungeon zones bad because of just the content. Really hard/challenging content means killer XP if you are in a good group. Some of the zones in DoF are just like the lower level ones - lots of heroics and tons of agro! I really hate zones like Living Tombs, Hidden Cache, Clefts of Rujark, because they are so hard, but for some reason I always find myself in them!

#1 Deathfist Citadel - This zone could be so cool, but the lag, invisible mobs, the lag, and oh ya the lag, is just terrible.
#2 Poets Palace (single Group) - DOORS! - Please let people who have completed Capturing Day and Night, open the 3rd floor doors! It is crazy to sit there for upto 15 minutes just to wait for a door to open.
#3 Ahket Ahen - This could be the coolest beginners raid instance in the game, except the loot is terrible. I believe it to not be itemized at this time, but what a shame, because this zone has potential to be great fun.
#4 Silent City - Eye Farming Sucks! In what could be the best looking zone I've ever seen, it's a shame you have to spend so much time farming for the eyes, with just better than average legendary loot drops. Make the eyes, or the Fountain of Life Raid Flaggable please.
#5 Cauldron Hollow - Old School zone, but just a disappointment once I finally got in after getting that many people together to go raid at that level.

see this is where a lot of us would disagree to a point. not everyone likes epic quests, and on zones that are not epic themselves it should not exclude those who can get through the heroic content of the zone. the way should be in this case nuetral since it is pure heroic all the way up to floor 4.

- - - - - -

1) poets palace -

as for the third floor itself this area of a zone is my only gripe at the time. each floor has had a challenge for the mirrors in order to progress up through the palace. floor three happened to have its challenge prior to the mirror in which it then was a very easy quest, but up to that point it was mostly a waiting game for doors to hopefully open at any given time just to get through to each of the three bettle ring events in order to even get to the mirror. so this is where some of us would disagree as far as the doors opening only at the end of an epic quest.

a lot of us have thought that a good solution should be to at least make the doors that open into the mirror room on the 3rd floor able to be open by those who have completed the quest. just seems to be silly to always require the ring events when floor two doesnt require you to do the cyclops ring everytime in order to open the mirror room and floor one doesnt require you to find the secret words in the desk by doing the book rings everytime.

not that its a big deal, but if anything was to be fixed then having some consistancy with the overall zone would be nice. just seems that if we have to wait for the random doors opening each time and have did the mirror access then that floors ring event should also be bypassable. having to take another hour just open a few doors for the X number of time only to talk to an NPC is silly. (nek castle it makes a little more sense as you are actually specifically going in to kill Everling).

now for those who would say "well then no one would ever have to do because just one person would be needed to bypass" i agree that could be true, but this is where the devs get creative. how you ask? well simple. when someone opens the doors to the mirror up to the 4th floor it puts a barrier(similar to the arena barrier that blocks you from going back into starting area) up that only the players who have not did access will have on their PC, or simply the doors do not appear to open to the players that have it and they themselves are still stuck out of the mirror room. this would make it so that the group would still have to do the beetle rings in order to all go up.

2) any zone that has a reuse timer that starts simply on entry, and right now poets is one of them as it stinks to have to go in to simply talk to an NPC and then get a 18hour lock even though you have killed nothing.

if ppl have not killed a mob in the zone then there is no reason for them to have to be locked out. this is not impossible to do for any of the zones, because past changes such as Nek Castle which use to do the same has since been changed to where only if you kill one of the sisters the lock timer starts.

the artificial barriers to control loot is one thing when ppl are actually killing and having the chance to get the loot, but its stupid and useless to insist on just giving instant locks for zones just because a person does what the game intends for them to do which is Adventuring.

many of us continue to see this as a continued unnessecary roadblock just becuase we see something like Scornfeathers Roost for the first time and think to ourselves "oh kewl i wonder what that is" and enter only to see its full of heroics well over our level and then exit out.

personally I don't think any zone that has a lockout time should have said timer start simply on entering. all these types of zones should be made to be only on the first kill that triggers the chance at loot or on certain key kills/named. it only punishes ppl from exploring and creates fear at not wanting to go in cause we may or may not get a lock. and then there is the fact that zones that do have possible locks should actually have a window that pops up saying "Entering this zone will result in a lock of X hours if you meet these requirements while inside. 1) kill any named or 2) enter into the 3rd floor. You currently have no lock out do you still wish to enter Yes or No". the same window should also say "you have X amount of time before you may enter again" when you do have time remaining.

anyway number 2 amounts to a lot more than 5 worst zones ever, but thats my thoughts anyway on what many of us see as a very big downside to fun. roadblocks will never = fun, and thats somethign sony really needs to learn fast and its gonna take more than fancy new access quests that use eyeballs.

I know that this has been posted before, but lag in Clefts of Rujark is HORRID. EVERYONE comments on this. What has also been posted before is a hint at the problem -- the rendering distance seems to be set at maximum for everyone, no matter what their client is set at. Hopefully the devs will come back to this thread

Good feedback thread. Please continue to be constructive and detailed as to why you think these zones are your top 5 worst zones. Thanks

Deathfist Citadel - mainly due to lag and instability - it's one of the few zones I actually lag in. There also seems to be little guiding lore to the zone - at least as far as I could tell - unlike Nektropos Castle.

I can't really complain about other dungeons (EDIT: I should qualify this by noting I haven't played around in DoF yet) aside from issues in corridors where the mobs will move into the walls (Can't See Target) or get stuck on the other side of the ceiling if they move to you or you agro them. I think people say this is invisible mob bug but I have see invis going all the time and if you look at the character models that have the mob targeted you see them looking up.

Stormhold is really bad for that issue. Other zones with tight corridors have the same issue - sewers and Nek Castle (especially the area where the golems and dolls are popping out at the end). Surprisingly enough, I didn't have much of a problem with this in Runnyeye or Cazic-Thule but I suspect that is due to most encounters being in rooms with mostly singles wandering the halls - the geometry also seems to be more simple than Stormhold halls.

Anyway, that is a killer issue as far as I'm concerned.
Message Edited by SmakenDahed on 11-14-2005 03:39 PM

#1 T'haen Epic zone: Quite simply the worst 6 hours I've ever had gaming I think. If not for the fact that we cured the plague, we wouldn't have even made it half way before stopping. There is really ZERO point to killing 800 epic mobs for 1 chest at the end of a buggy encounter. We had people hung up in walls that we had to leave behind, we had people leaving out of boredom. We had people take to drinking, all to get to an epic fight, that likely was never tested. Beatable, sure, but not through any of the graceful intelligent type of tactics we've come to know so well out of the epics in this game. I liked the storyline and concept of bloodlines, but since April I haven't touched 2 seconds of that content because this raid ruined it all. (unlike splitpaw which to this day I still find myself going back to)

#2 Nek Castle the Return: I'm torn on this one. I've had some amazing times in this zone, particularly when it was one of the only really high end group zones before DoF. However the fun came from the groups, not the zones. The whole process of getting keys to open the chests was somewhat annoying. Also we know there is a ton of mobs in here we haven't found yet, but the progression of the zone is just too linear and predictable. By the expansion, trips to Nek2 basically came down to a bunch of invising and killing about a dozen named to chances at master drops, and little more. The first Nek castle was so great because despite there being a progression, it was a rather open ended process to doing it.

#3 Edgewater Drains (and beyond): Admittedly its been a very long time since I'd been here, but I hated this zone. I know there was TONS of content in this zone I didn't get to, and that there is even ANOTHER zone past it, that I hear was great content, but I'll never know because you just want nothing to do with this place. The mob layout, the monotonous feel, and the incredible pain just to get to it and get a group formed up makes it far too much effort. taking an hour to get a group down here and formed was not uncommon, and if you wipe, thatsl ikely the end of the group, as you make a hellish revive and corpse run.

#4 Ahket Akan: "One item that even ONE person in the raid might actually equip, in exchange for a few hours of our time, and likely at least SOME armor debt?". I mean seriously, I love the layout and encounters, but you tend to want to stay away from anything thats a mindless timesink (see #1). I mean even if this place had just a 2% master chance on any of the garbage mobs, and those masters shared a loot table, there'd be some motivation. Add to that maybe a %15 on the medium named, and a better chance on the harder named. Yes, you'll probably end up gettign 10 master chests in that case, but for a 6 day lockout, how is this any different than Spirits of the Lost? We pay to play, we invest time, at least reward us for the time we spend hacking mobs apart.

#5 DFC, but not sure: This is the part of the list where things start to get a little grey. I absolutely HATED having to go into the regular DFC for heritage quests, but I think part of this might have been of my own doing. Is it super buggy, yes, but I am used to that in many zones. I'm not sure what it was about this zone, but it just never settled correctly. It feels somewhat thrown together, and getting the storyline element together enough to progress through it, seemed a little tough. Also its a tough proposition getting a group started in here because its a fairly long trek and you need to organize it like a raid to some extent, but its not a high priority for many people. Would maybe be better if there was some way to do it incrimentally, like poets perhaps. Or, maybe something else, I don't really know.... it just never really FELT like a fun place, just going with my gut here.

EDIT: After the fact realized I should make a special mention of pathing. I know pathing is tough. I also know that EQ2 is absolutely terrible with it at times. There are some zones where this is magnified even worse, CT is a particular nightmarish memory for me. However, most of those zones also had some very nice features I liked, so I didn't list them. The pathing GENERAL issue though, is something huge to consider as it can ruin even the BEST designed zone. Nobody wants fights they can't win because they lost a mob in the floor/wall and it won't reset, or losing a chest in the wall. Also stinks picking up adds you don't see because they are inside a wall.
Message Edited by Shailen on 11-14-2005 01:19 PM

DFC is the worst hands down. You can have the best quests and most awsome enviroments but if you can't play the zone then it is the worst. Figthing the LD monster all the way to Emperor Fyst is not my idea of fun. I have a high end comp and turning my settings to extreme perfromence still causes me to crash in DFC. Something is wrong with that zone and throwing more Ghz and ram at the problem isn't going to help. I'm sure there will be a few folks that will say they don't have any problems but in my exp, the avst majority of people LD in DFC.

#1 worst zone of entire game: Tombs of Night. Of all the laggy and leaky zones in this laggy and leaky game, this is an absolute bomb, and is 100% guaranteed to crash my computer within minutes of entering. I'm still mad about having actually paid for access to an unplayable zone. Some of the quests that require you to actually be present in the zone for any length of time are completely uncompleteable for me.
#2 Qeynos Harbor - hate the pointlessly spacious market area/clock tower area, which was obviously inserted to make sure that people had to waste loads of time running to distant bank and mender. (Maybe we need a griffin tower event in QH!) Particularly annoying is the massive lag which is always gumming up this level in the areas between the Inn and the docks - particularly right above the freeport broker. Also dislike the fact that although I run and jump into the water many times every day to check freeport broker, I have to swim like ten blocks to get to a ramp out of the water. the doro to my apartment on teh top floor in QH Inn is also glitchy, and it takes many, many clicks to actually enter my own apartment, as it is always sort of flickering on and off. Apart from the incredibly annoying lag, which causes game to freeze for several seconds every time I pass through, my impression is that devs deliberately introduced these boring inconveniences to make up for the fact that QH would otherwise be the most central and convenient zone to live in.
#3 Temple of Cazic Thule - I hate this zone mostly because I have been tryign to spawn nameds for Screaming mace for months, and because it has been next to impossible to get groups out there. It is simply too far out there. A griffin tower to CT would be a huge boost to those of us who have to solicit groupmates day after day to camp nameds for hundreds of hours in this zone. Would have liked it otherwise, but now its just a [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] daily nightmare.
#4 Deathfyst Citadel. Laggy, buggy and incomprehensible; I hate zones that require you to have some kind of outside users guide to know what route you need to follow, what button you need to push, who you need to hail in what order, etc. Mobs that bug out and go unkillable/invisible, or run away. Deaths that require periodic GM intervention to revive. Shards you can't retrieve.
#5 Nek Castle. At level 53 I STILL have been unable to get inside library, have never been able to spawn billy for missing mask. Hate that you have to follow this complex and confusing order of events and kills. Even when everything is grey it is still tedious. Once you get access to a zone you should be able to keep it; hate that you have to run around through these boring hoops every time you enter the zone. Hate the named mobs that you can camp for 12 hours without a spawn. Especially hate the confusing basement area that - like Tombs of Night - ALWAYS makes me crash.
-------
On the positive site, what was once high up on my list of crap zones - Nektulos Forest - has been vastly improved by the addition of very-much-needed griffin towers. Still sort of hate that we have to take two separate griffin flights to get to bone lake, and from bone lake to anywhere else.

PS To the inevitable whiners: I have over a gig of ram. The problem is not my computer, but zone-specific problems with EQ2.



Message Edited by anomalek on 11-14-2005 12:42 PM
Message Edited by anomalek on 11-14-2005 12:47 PM
Message Edited by anomalek on 11-14-2005 12:49 PM
Message Edited by anomalek on 11-14-2005 12:55 PM
Message Edited by anomalek on 11-14-2005 01:03 PM

1) Nek Forest - The zone just looks so drab, not even menacingly drab (which is what i think was intended), just plain old drab. Other than running to and fro Nek Castle and the first adventure pack, I've avoided this zone pretty much completely. Just not a fun place to spend time.
2) Stormhold - it's quite possible that the issues in there have already been fixed, but back around launch, the pathing was unbearable.
Those are about the only two zones i really have (had) a problem with.
I don't see what the problem folks have with Zek is, it's one of my favorite in the game.

Stormhold still has issues. I was playing around in there with my Warden on Saturday (Nov. 12). I think I had about two deaths because a mob jumped into the ceiling or hid in a wall and beat on me while the tank was getting a "Can't see target" message.