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

1) Qeynos Harbor. Lag so bad I sometimes I think I'm in the Bazaar in eq1...
2) Every Indoor zone with "can't see" mobs in ceilings and floors: SH, BB, RoV ...

The only zone I'd list is Solusek Eye and here's the rub -- It's also one of the best designed, prettiest and most interesting zones in the game. The problem is how utterly frustrating it is to have to navigate all the way down into its depths for the 100th time. The vast size of the zone and the challenge involved with that trek is, IMO, fantastic.. For a short while.

I've often thought that one of the absolute best things SOE could do to improve the game would be to offer a new type of Access Quest that would allow you to take shortcuts within existing zones. These access quests would, of course, require you to travel to the furthest reachest of the zone in question, thereby ensuring that you aren't skipping the content altogether. There could be time delays, return trips required or mobs to camp or any number of other mechanisms by which SOE could ensure that multiple trips to the furthest parts of the zone are required. There could also be minimum level requirements to receive these quests.

The advantage to in-zone shortcuts would be that it would allow SOE's art team to have a hayday with zones, making them challenging and complex like SE but without imposing the headache on the players when they go to trek down to Naggy for the 100th time. Also, from a roleplaying standpoint, in-zone access quests can easily fit in with the storyline (e.g. a secret tunnel through the mountains of Zek, etc.)

Here are some smaller zones with problems:
Aquaduct Storage Facility :
- Surrounded by heroic mobs higher level than the quest.
- Zoning in is a death trap, as internal mobs attack as soon as you're in... but you're groupmates are not done zoning.
- No chance to re-enter (quest complete on 1-trip in) to actually do the zone if you die due to the above.
Freeport-to-Qeynos Betrayal Quest Step 2 (Serpent Sewers Mini-Zone)
- NPC porter outside solo zone in agro-range of heroics
- New (post LU#16) zone-in point has internal mobs attacking as soon as you zone in.

The Worst:

Deathfist Citadel - laggy in the extreme, at least 2 members of every group go LD sometime on the way to getting Fyst. This is on reasonable settings with a high end computer ..running 2 gigs of Ram. This zone has so much potential. The storyline is incredibly good, the content challenging but not impossible - the lore is outstanding. However, as a previous poster said - you can't enjoy it if you are LD.

Cauldron Hollow - geez. It's a bit better since the NPC's charm is more easily broken. That fix does work. We have gone in with a 50ish group of adventurers, to clean up unfinished Heritage Quests, only to have a lvl 34 epic mob kick our *****. I have no idea how an appropriately leveled raid group for this zone can complete it. This has to be really demoralizing for these groups.

Stormhold - very bad pathing. Mobs get stuck in walls, can hit and kill you and you can't even find them to hit them. This zone is like DFC - the lore here is so cool, and the potential so great for exploration, questing and xp. The difficulty of the zone doesn't have anything to do with outsmarting and just plain beating the mobs...because 9/10ths of the difficulty here is in the mechanics of the pathing.

Blackburrow - Stormhold, Jr. See above.

Lavastorm - very visually beautiful, but either too easy or too hard....

Those are my pet peeves Thanks for the thread...
Message Edited by Arielle Nightshade on 11-14-2005 03:21 PM
Message Edited by Arielle Nightshade on 11-15-2005 08:41 AM

Echoing what Jindrak said earlier: This is a good feedback thread, and as long as it's kept constructive and on-topic, we'll pay attention to it.

1) Nek - hate the washed out colours , real painful on the eyes. Mountains that force you to walk around them to get anywhere. Spent virtually no time here to 50.

2) Lavastorm. - absolutely nothing for the solo player to do thats not at the beginning. No solo players equal less chance of a pickup group. Dieing and rezzing right at the beggining is also a joke. More quests for groups and soloists. More clearer pathing to avoid aggro to get to the later areas. Has potential cause it looks cool but why make a whole land a heroic Dungeon so to speak.

3) Zek - Gloomy appearance , night there becomes worse. To many heroic mobs running on the roads making exploration more effort than its worth. At the levels where this zone suits - everyone will be in Enchanted Lands / Rivervale. These two zones are pleasing on the eye and have far better layouts for groups and soloists. Zek is the poor cousin in this regard.

4) Nek Castle - too far to get too., too annoying to get into , too much area to navigate. If there were no HQs here would anyone even bother to go ?

5) Qey Harbour - the lag ruins an otherwise nice zone.

Guys should take a leaf out of the WOW book. The dungeons tend to be split in distinct sections to which various keys and quests can allow you to skip to later on. Each dungeon has a definate progression to a named , set of named all offering specific loot. Sometimes I feel in the EQ2 dungeons there is not such a defined path and the furthest reaches of the zone really offer little incentive to go back there (or get there in the first place). in WOW i grinded Dual Mual , Strath , schol all the time. I could never do EQ2 dungeons in the same way as they have inconsistent loot and tend to be hard to get to , hard to get through (usually way to big). The splitpaw dungeons are probably alot more of the right directions, you have a distinct path to travel down and distinct end goal each time your in there.

I will also add my favorites


The worst:

1. All those boring little instances in sinking sands. No challange, no diversity, no fun. One could play tetris instead.

2. Forgotten Lands + Rivervale: I dind`t like to kill wood animals to level. Btw: The Nightbloods look very ridiculous on the green grass. I know they are supposed to represent the forces of evil conquering the island...but...well..they are still standing there. It doesn`t feels like a peacefull country overun by daemons. It just doesn`t fit.

3. Feerrott. Well, I dislike just everything about it. The graphics are repetitious and I just keep loosing my way. I skipped the zone as far as it was possible. Maybe it`s just a matter of taste.

5. There`s no other zone I really dislike, but

Clefts of Rujark, because of lag issues.

Sinking Sands. I really like the zone design, but the game keeps stuttering on me when I`m there. It doesn`t happen everytime, but far too often. My graphics are screwed there very often too.

My favorites:

1. Castle Nektropos. This zone really dragged me into the game. I still play with the people I met in there back at level 32.

2. This spooky castle in Antonica which name I forgot. I never played in Queynos so I never actually played there except for one visit for a heritage quest. But: The design is very great. Especially for a low lvl zone.

3. Zek. I loved the atmosphere, the graphics and the sense of accomplishment as I got there.

4. Lavastorm and Everfrost (including Permafrost) for all the same reasons I liked Zek.

5. Pillars of Flames. The zone looks and feels great. I haven`t done much there yet, but it could be that there is just a lttle bit too less to do. But I`m not sure about that yet.

In short: I like the way the zones are designed. The zones of the old world gave a better impression of a huge world tough.


Jörg

EDIT: Have to add DFC as horrible zone (forgot all about it - most likely some angst induced Freudian phenenomen.) And of course the Oblesic in which you are constantly looking at the ceiling, trying to hit the invisible HAHA-I-Can-Hit-You-through-concrete-mob )
Message Edited by Anachronist on 11-14-2005 03:56 PM

Edgewater Drain - Pretty much exists for a few specific quests, Heroic mobs make it unsoloable at the level it is designed for, and unattractive for a group to spend any time there. This one could have been an instance.
Rivervale. - A nice idea, but why? I'd say about 75% of the zone is ^^^ Heroics and the quests such as Drafling Access that exist here require full groups at the level they are intended for. However, a full group would probably rather go to Runneyeye Citadel, why bother with Rivervale? Quests in it such as the Moppet Master, and the lost Drafling require wading through the heroics with a full group. Just too much frustration for too little fun.
Obelisk of Lost Souls - man, you just don't know fun until you get a bunch of people together to run around trying to get the named monsters to spawn so you can even _start_ this bloody zone. How about once we jump through the rift, we just sacrifice one party member and enter the obelisk. 2 horus trying to get ONE of the four needed MOBs is just way over the top.
Bloodline - Here's a multi step quest progression that requires a huge investment of time for a non-trivial hunting group. Why has this not been made scalable? One person that wants to do it is SOL. Two people that want to do it is SOL. Organizing a group that is able to do it over a period of several sessions... if it greys out between sessions, think they will want to keep it up?
DFC - again, ACCESS should not require the full group, let everyone be able to solo the quest for access, then they can get together and actually raid as a group. As difficult as it can be to get a half dozen people together for a 3-4 hour game session, why do you want to make it so tedious for everyone just to _prepare_ for the raid? Currently, the mobs for Operation Greenhood are the same tiresome ^^^ mobs that your people seem to have a mania for putting everywhere, including in tight groups around the monsters you always claim to be "soloable"

(1) Poet's Palace
-Would be cool if there was a quest (maybe on level 4) which you could do to get a key to open thoses doors instead of sitting there for 15+mins if your unlucky

(2) DFC, Very cool zone, shame its lag city.

(3) The Drafling Tower, I love this place, shame there is nothing there to do, I have meet lots of L60 players who have never even zoned into there. Its one of the coolest looking zones.

There are so many cool zones that are almost always empty. I remember the first time I went into lower Sol's Eye on the lava bridges and going, WOW, this ROCKS! Shame you don't see anyone ever in thoses zones. Maybe a quest to get a portal that takes your from the door down to the forge. Very cool looking zone, my views its still the best looking in the game, shame very few have been there. BTW, is that zone finished? Looks like there is a place for a portal to the underworld there, Fire Giants waiting to go but nothing to go to.
Just in general, too many places with mobs get stuck in walls or invis, but I guess that just goes with the game engine your using. Maybe EQ3 will get that fixed, It happened all the time in EQ1, and its the same in EQ2

1, 2, 3, 4, 5: Freeport: It's painful enough to find your way around that I only have 1 Freeport character, and that one only because I betrayed. Up to level 15 or so, one spends a lot of time in the city and outer-city zones. I would estimate that a Freeport character spends at least twice as much time running around buildings/streets as a Qeynos one does.
Painful.
Qeynos rules, Freeport sucks - not the citizenry, the city planners
Please add some shortcuts and remove some obstacles and don't place things you need to visit regularly down 20 passages and up 4 flights of stairs...
Message Edited by BigDave on 11-15-2005 04:35 AM

1. DFC: Lag, invisible door, floors and walls, pathing problems, hard to navigate. Same reasons and posters have stated above basically.

2. Maj'Dul Arena (and recent opened arenas in Q and FP) Simply pointless and very tedious. No possibility to progression and no rewards, not even any sort of pvp rankings. Would easily have made #1 if it wasn't so easy to avoid. There are never any players there and I totally understand why.

3. Qeynos harbour: Zone is poorly designed with 25% (the harbour area up to the dividing wall with the statue of queen Antonia) as one memory set and the rest as another. When running past this wall drives start going crazy loading textures which result in lag.

4. Stormhold: Very fun zone with a bad rep. Pathing problems with hard mobs roaming trough walls and floors. No logical level progression in zone and hard and tedious quests with poor rewards. Could be a super zone but I guess it takes over a year to fix it (as with DFC)

5. Nek forest: Very hard to navigate with mountains that don’t show on map, few safe zones and a visibility on only a few yards. No clear mob camps and very dull in its appearance. Designers made a very good job of making it eerie but it's not alive (even with dead creatures ;-)

I hope one of the devs will see my post, and NOT bc I want to complain ... but because, after an entire year of playing, this is something that pops into my mind time and again and something I've given more than a little constructive thought to.

First I'd like to say, it's not that I feel there are any truly BAD zones ... it's more like I feel that there are zones that have a LOT of POTENTIAL and it gets WASTED due to some problematic fundamentals in the way of design theory (or lack thereof).
That being said - here are zones I think are fantastic and original from a design perspective - but entirely problematic from the standpoint of "playability" -- and thus, low on fun factor :


In no particular order -


The Drafling Tower
-- a severely underused zone that is one of the most interestingly designed (aesthetically speaking) and unique dungeons in the game. Primary problem I have here: grouping with more than 2 or 3 people is cumbersome due to the excessively narrow tunnels in most of the place. Yes - it's a beehinve ... but see my point under Stormhold, about realism vs. fantasy ...
-- additionally, this dungeon is simply not "advertised" well enough. Except for the Hook or Crook heritage quest, there is very little reason to ever come here - and even then, you first need kill 200 nightbloods to get to that point ...


Stormhold
-- awesome dungeon; very traditional D&D style. But perhaps a bit too literal ... the halls are far too small to accomodate the group of six needed to explore the most interesting and relevant parts of the dungeon. Except for the chessboard and stairs leading to the armory there are virtually no open spaces to enjoy. I do understand that this is most true to what a "dungeon" should be ... however ... this is a game after all ... not everything should be so literal as to ruin the fantasy of it all ...


Lavastorm
-- another fantastic zone, aesthetically speaking, that is wasted due to (here I'd like to say player laziness but I'll just leave that can unopened) .. ahem .. "difficult" mob placement. Personally I like the difficulty of this zone HOWEVER I find it impossible to start a group here bc no one ELSE ever seems to want to bother once they have teleporter access to SE. So the zone is largely un-used.


Nektulos Forest
-- I'm not sure how to pinpoint the problem here. It's not an overly tough zone but it seems that people ignore it in favor of TS. Perhaps by fact that it's perpetually dark ... there are many trees obscuring views ... mobs everywhere ... but people seem to become very upset very fast anytime I've grouped here. I like the zone in general and I think it's far more interesting than any of the other outdoor zones in the game. I wonder if perhaps there can be some incentive given to make grouping here more worthwhile ... slightly better loot for instance ... or larger coin drops. Nothing drastic ... but something to reward players for the added challenge or hassle of grouping here.

Antonica
-- The countryside seems bland and unappealing from a graphical / design perspective. It's not very inspiring to me as a player. The gnoll camps are stagnant and uninteresting - there is no detail - they don't look like camps of any kind. Maybe some additional foliage and some added effects for the mountain tops and some more drastic variations in the colors of fields and grasses. This is supposed to be a verdant mountain valley sporting forests and diverse wildlife ... but it's more like just this big open field with a few landmarks tossed onto monotonous color schemes.


One last thing. I see a lot of people posting about Fallen Gate. I DON'T see the problem with FG. Yes it's a challenging zone but with four toons I've never had a problem going all the way through it with groups. I don't know if people expect they should be able to solo the whole place or to see it all before level 20. I mean it's a tough dungeon and you need to invest time into it. It's got a nice variety of quests and the mob progression is very smooth, I think. The only problem I have here is there is no random drop gear. Maybe this has changed with the other changes (a la Runnyeye) recently but if not I think it should be looked at. At the least - it will give those players who feel it is too tough an incentive to adventure there. BUT PERSONALLY I DON'T WANT IT CHANGED.


kk that's my two dolla to make you holla.

1. DFC : Bad lag, and last time I was there was buggy with doors opening to big hole through planet (not sure if this is fixed or not).
2. Poets Palace: Waiting for the doors on the 3rd floor isn't very fun or challenging.
3. Clefts of Rujark: Very very laggy once you go up the lifts.
4. The clone zone instances in DoF: Same zone filled with snakes, harpies, spiders etc etc etc. Having all these instances based off different zone maps would be nice
=)

1. All of the Freeport race areas because they are not at all representative of their population. They all look like the exact same slum extended and have no hint of being the part of the city that race would live in besides the fact all of the npcs are of that race.

2. Graveyard in Freeport - this zone is just like a maze and is not as friendly to fight in as other starting zones. Its hard to see the mobs.

3. Nektulous Forest - This zone has nothing very attractive in it for groups to grind on. It needs a couple places groups can camp fairly safely with a good amount of pulls like giants/skindancers/crater outside varsoon in TS and a dungeon that is accessable to people of level 25+ like Varsoon. Since you put in griffon towers, making this zone attractive now and splitting the TS population isn't so bad for finding and putting together a group.

4. Stormhold - not enough safe places to fight, annoying mobs you don't even see aggroing on the spiral staircase.

5. Wailing Caves - just kind of a boring dungeon.. not much to see there that feels adventurous.

1) Tombs of Varsoon - I have not been in there is a long time and this is by design. I dread hearing when a guild mate asks for help camping the three named skeletons for access to varsoon or the HQ. This is the one zone that could really benefit from instances. If these three rooms were instanced then the really painful camping and fighting over camps that was not supposed to be brought over from EQ1 would be gone. I do not mind the place holders only having a percentage of spawning the named this is fine but having to fight all these other groups for the right to camp a room and dealing with kill stealers who invis in and grab the named while you are dealing with the last of the place holder mobs is just not fun.
2) Zek. Over all the zone is very good except for the entrance. The docks and the fort you have to pass through is some of the laggiest points for me in the game.
3) Freeport Slums - As said above they are all too generic. I cannot beleive the Tier'Dal would stand to leave longshadow ally as it is for very long. It is very nondiscript and with their haughty pride it would not take long for it to be transformed into some warped version of Neriak. And just imagine the changes ogres and trolls would make to their areas... decorative piles of skulls or worse...
4) Stormhold - Again over all I like this zone. I have many fond memories of fighting and dying in there. The deaths that I did not like were the ones at the hands of the Scions. For that level (and many past) these are some pretty powerful dudes! I would like to see a multi staged warning on when they are going to spawn. Similar to the warnings given when a server is about to shut down. Make them short range warnings for folks in the area of the Scions over say two or three minutes.
(A) A shiver of fear runs through you as you hear the bells toll. Some one is trying to summon the Scions.
(B) A feeling of unsease creeps through your bones as you can feel the Scions try to pierce our reality.
(C) A wave of Dread washed over you as you feel the Scions about to appear.
If they are in the rooms after that... they deserve to die.
5) Lavastorm - this is one of the most confusing zones for me to try to navigate and extremely dangerous. Of course this is not really a bad thing but just one of my least favorite zones.

I would have to say Deathfist Citidel. It really needs to be looked at. When some people on dial up (very good comuters btw) can't go in there to finish heritage quest then that is pretty bad.

Any zone where creatures disappear into walls and attack you nonetheless.
How "retro" in a gen 2 game.

Dance puppets dance! *cough* I mean *shifty look* I got two red name people to reply to this so I am shocked... and all the replies... nearly made my eyes fall out trying to read em all.

I would like to add 3 zones to my list personally.

Nek Castle: Horrid lag and a huge memory leak problem. I crashed twice while trying to do hadden's earing. My tank crashed and decided not to come back so I ended up tanking Everling (as a 36 Ranger) with a Warden and Mystic healing me...

The Clefts of Rujark: Yep memory leak... I can't do the Hadoth Baldes faction quest because of this zone...

Lavastorm: Huge creepy zone (good thing) nearly made my crap my pants the first time I saw it. I got all excited about being able to explore this place... then I came to that first tunnel of gobbies and left... also stupid lack of quests... there are docks throw a [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] village in for crying ot loud.

When I first went to this zone, invis totems did not scale so I was not able to explore the zone solo. Now the totems scale so I think characters who can't invis themselves should be able to explore without much of a problem now. I think it's a lot of these little, unrelated things that get added to the game which help the most.

I would make a note about mob placement and zone's size. In general, zones are too small, and contain too much mobs for their sizes. Every meter, you have a mob. Its silly. One great example is Rivervale; The zone is extremely tiny. Its not a zone, its a park.
Another point is animation. All members of a camp (should I call this a camp ?) make the same animation at the same time. Its hilarious, and stupid. Where is the creativity ? Mobs don't move, they are static, and wait for the adventurer to be killed.

Some comments about zones :

Nek forest : dull colors, its ugly.
Nek Castle : very good ideas, but so much lag. Remove it, and you have perhaps one of the best zones.
Antonica : its big, and gives a sense of adventure. Mob camps are , humm, rather stupid.
Lavastorm : well, one time you have teleporter access, why bother with it ?? Too much heroics mobs. Did the devs make a contest : how many can you place mobs in one meter ??
Feerott : I don't like it. Too many foliage, you see nothing. Too many aggro.
Blackburrow : I hated those invisible mobs, are they still there ?
Stormhold : a good dungeon, but lag and invisible mobs ruined it. I liked to be here, but due to the problems mentioned, it was hard to find a group.
Sinking Sands : the zone is too small for the number of mobs it contains. With the same number, the zone should be at least 2 or 3 times bigger.

I think that in general, zones are too small. DoF is a new continent, well, i feeled cheated. Look at the extensions in EQ1.