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

Discussion in 'Zones and Population' started by ARCHIVED-littleman17, Nov 13, 2005.

  1. ARCHIVED-Terq Guest

    I definitely agree with the teleporter in Sol Eye. Make it flagged, like the teleporter in Lavastorm. Those Nagafen trudges are rediculous. Trudge there once, and then get flagged. I have mentioned this in other posts somewhere along the line.

    Lower level content is always (or should always) be made progressively easier or more convenient, so that new players aren't overwhelmingly and hopelessly behind the curve. Like the recent changes to the heritage quests and to tradeskilling, this would be a great fix.
  2. ARCHIVED-Arielle Nightshade Guest

    Would like to add Sol Eye to the list...after having been there yesterday. With a well rounded lvl 50 group - we had an exceedingly difficult fight down to the update for Efreeti boots. NOT because it is a challenging zone..but because mobs were popping out of nowhere. Our Coercer had their 'see invis' spell up..so it wasn't invisible mobs, it was plain buggy. Once down the elevator to the bridge where the golems and cinder bats were - things got pretty bad. Before that, the aggro ranges of the miners seemed way to large.

    Also for a lvl 50 group of 4 (Guardian, Templar, Ranger, Coercer) fighting 49 heroics - xp should have been MUCH better than .10 percent per kill, IMO. We wanted the HQ update, or we would have quitted the zone much sooner. It was a slog, not a challenging, fun time.

    This used to be an awesome zone - fun, challenging, visually beautiful. Now, I think it might be broken. :( Most groups I know don't fight in it, they just get group invis and run down for the things they need. No wonder.
    Message Edited by Arielle Nightshade on 11-20-2005 09:03 AM
  3. ARCHIVED-Stormykat Guest

    Worst Zones:

    Deathfist Citadel - The lag is horrible, the constantly being barraged with attacking orcs is horrible. The fact that to complete the Zek creature catalogue quest you HAVE to kill Emporer Fyst (cause you need to catalogue the lion in the ring event) is horrible. It makes for one confusing, stressful zone.

    Qeynos Harbour - On one hand I love having my apartment there because everything is there (the broker, the fence, the bells, the carpet to SS, the bank, the mender etc etc) but on the other hand, the lag is worse than any other zone in the game.

    Nektropos Castle - I love the spooky castle, however I hate having to go through the whole process of unlocking doors and killing sisters every single bloody time I want to kill Everling. Please please, fix this.

    Tomb of Valor - This quest is a royal pain to get access to if I recall.. and for what? A teeny instance with hardly anything to do in it. I think it should have been a lot bigger for such an involved access quest.







    Best Zones

    Draftling Tower - neatest zone ever! I love the unique beehive look

    The Feerrott - I love the music, the scenery, and the quests! So many quests for really nice pieces of equipment.

    Nektulos Forest - This zone is completely underrated. There are so many quests in this zone and so much to do, I really like it. Now with the griffon towers it will be a lot easier to travel around.
  4. ARCHIVED-Fortai Guest

    I'm gonna try to avoid issues of LAG, because obviously different people have different degrees of LAG.
    The Worst:
    1.) Many Zones in the City of Qeynos: First off, all of the Qeynos zones are designed BEAUTIFULLY. The architecture is great, the graphics are nice, there are a lot of NPCs, it's a work of art. The problem is the lack of community inside these zones (actual players). The propulation of Players is usually dead. I know there are obviously better things to do (go out and actually FIGHT for example), but for an MMO which is made of actual people, I would like to see the capitol city have more of a reason for people to be there. Crafters, for instance, are forced to be down underground like hermits, in their own instances. Why not have crafting outside? A community of traders. It would help build the community.
    2.) Zek: The mines: The "cant see target" thing is really a pain, so much of a pain that most of the time mobs have to be pulled out of the tunnels to the main areas, just so we can attack them. It wouldn't be as bad if the mobs had the "can't see target" problem also, but, um yeah, no.
    3.) Nektrops Castle: Beautifully Designed zone. Fun as hell. But, as stated in many threads, Billy is a problem. A big problem. I would like to throw that doll in a garbage disposal, and laugh as I watch him spin around into oblivion. Also, the process of killing the sisters, should not have to be done each time we need to go see Maltus Everling. It's the only HALLMARK quest that I know of, that has to be repeated!
    4.) Solusek Eye: There needs to be more of a reason for people to be here except for Naggy. It's get in, get out, which is sad. It's a shame because this zone is designed so well. It could be such a great zone if there were more to do. It needs to be utilized... reinvented.
    5.) Stormhold and Blackburrow: Dying because of bugs, and not player error, should not ever happen in a game. The invisible mobs and "cant see target" thing is the cause of this.

    The Best - I wanted to put this here as an example of what I think is done right
    Enchanted Lands: There is always something to do here. Before you can complete one quest, you get two more, and so on. Lots of content, it's hard to get bored. It's a pretty zone, mobs are spaced nicely. Good zone for people who don't want to risk much (stay near the docs), to people who want a challenge (go fight some nightbloods)
    Runnyeye: Excellent learning curve - easy at the start with solo mobs to get the group warmed up, then the challenge increases. Good spawn times allow multiple groups to fight through Runnyeye, without getting into arguments. Excellent example of risk vs reward. If you are willing to risk more, and go deep, and into the instances, you may get an oak root, a rough opal, or perhaps some Fabled stuff. A group can have a lot of fun in here.
    Message Edited by liquidsol on 11-15-2005 01:03 PM
  5. ARCHIVED-Dajuuk Guest

    I like the storyline of Stormhold and enjoyed spending time leveling up in there. The dungeon feel led to a sense of excitement and exploration that was alot of fun. That being said however, the issue with NPC's attacking you while standing in the ceiling or in a wall is very frustrating. Trying to reposition the NPC so that you and your groupmates stop getting the you can not see your target message can be very frustrating in confined spaces. In Stormhold in particular its really bad because of the narrow hallways. You can't "pull" an NPC even extremely short distances becuase its almost guaranteed that if it has to move at all it will end up in the terrain. For that reason even though I think overall it could be one of the best zones in the game I would have to rate it as the worst.

    The forest ruins newbie zone in Qeynos is another nice zone that has some issues. First of all, there are very few quests that originate in this zone and most of the ones that would bring you here involve the forgotton guardians. Those beasts are tough for their level. Not many people end up grouping at those low levels so finding support to take them out is very difficult. Unfortunately that ruined citadel and its heroic content dominates the landscape of the zone. Compared to Oakmyst Forest this zone feels lacking. I don't know maybe changing the guardians to ^ solo content would help. Maybe just the ones in the courtyard, leaving the rest of the ruins to the heriocs. It just needs more spice somehow.

    While I haven't had too much problems with lag. The lag I've noticed in DFC and other area's mentioned is pretty minimal. But I have actually started avoiding Qeynos harbor as it is very difficult to get through that zone with the incredible amount of lag it generates. I'd rather have to zone 2 extra times to get somewhere then try to run through QH.

    That would be it for my worst zone list. Nek Forest deserves an Honorable mention though. The way the mountains break the zone up and force you to travel long distances out of your way to get anywhere, had a way of driving me crazy. I haven't spent any time there recently but I imagine that the addition of griffon towers solved alot of that though.

    As for some of my favorite zones I have just recently started exploring Lavastorm and Everfrost. I have really been enjoying those two zones. Visually they are very appealing and I have enjoyed the challenge. I spent alot of time in both Enchanted Lands and Zek and really enjoyed both of them. I liked EL better overall though I think Zek gave a better sense of accomplishment while completing the quests. The mines in Zek have the same pathing issues as SH but other than that its a great zone.
  6. ARCHIVED-Magik01 Guest

    I already left my feedback about certain zones, but I read someone's post that mentioned 'Freeport'. Really, what is up with this city? I know it houses all us evil people, but does that mean that we do not appreciate beauty? Good gods, that place looks just horrible. Everything is old and battered looking, all the trees are dead, there is no grass, shrubbery, etc. I like the architecture and layout of the city, but it really needs work. Just because we are evil, doesn't mean we like to live in the slums. I moved to a 3 room house in North Freeport, and STILL can't get live trees and grass! And why don't we have windows in our houses?
  7. ARCHIVED-Guy De Alsace Guest

    While we are on the subject I want to mention the Condemned Catacombs. There's just too many monsters! I mean this area uses the same map as the Down Below except that 60% of it has been blocked off. The rest of the zone is completely choked out with tons and tons of Goblins. The last room has so many mobs in it its hard to count them. There are at least two named ^^^ and an Epic x2 in the same room along with around 20 other goblins.

    Your fps sinks through the floor with so many monsters in one area.

    Since there's an epic in there and the rest of the zone isnt epic, how are you supposed to raid it?
  8. ARCHIVED-Shailen Guest

    I don't believe you can bring 12 people into this zone anyway, even if you wanted to. I think its a 1 group instance. Those epics were from before the CU, where it wasn't uncommon for a really tough boss fight to involve an x2 that a single group was expected to kill. This was how the EL boat right used to work before they nerfed it into oblivion. These were some really really good fights in my opinion. I remember the first time I tried the EL boat or Catacombs. We got spanked both times, but then it was a matter of analyzing the encounter, finding the right mix of classes, and skills, and going in and trying again. Even with a good strat they were tough fights that always felt rewarding to win.

    HOWEVER, post CU, I doubt a single group of 30s is taking out that x2, if its at high a con as it was compared to everything else in there. For him to be white/blue most of the rest of the zone will be low green as I recall. If you green him, then the rest of the zone is grey. Again though I haven't been in this zone since the CU.
  9. ARCHIVED-Fortai Guest

    DFC has way way too many waves of Orc mobs. It is exciting at parts, but the infinite spawns become more of a pain. It's like they were put in there just to make the raid more time consuming. Time does not equal challenge, as we learned from some of the Heritage quests.
  10. ARCHIVED-Hackz Guest

    My top 5 worst zones...

    1. Ferrott - Mobs random placed everywhere and the zone looks exactly the same wherever iam.. looks like they used 3 tree models and put them close together through the entire zone and then made a road and some stones. I almost never go there :(

    2. Nektolus - somewhat better than Ferrott but still the same, follow a road...

    --they should open up the zone so you could go wherever you liked, and make it more spooky fantasy with a red sky or something, add some more sounds like screams and creepy laughs in the distance. Also a tale of a big terrible monster running around in nektolus that would attack you on sight! "Imagine running around in nek and suddenly a terrible scream came behind you...dead :D"

    3. Zek - I don't know why but i just hate it :/ feels like it's just to much

    4. Fallen Gate - Mobs mobs mobs everywhere! can't move a inch before you get attacked, imo it destroys the creepy feeling of being in the long lost neriak.
    if they only made some new darkelf zombies i would sure like that :)

    5. Edgewater Drains - Never been there and never will if i don't have to.

    I would say fix the old zones before adding new :(
  11. ARCHIVED-cfteague2 Guest

    Lavastorm is a good example of what I think makes a bad zone.
    The zone starts with a trivial amount of solo content. (the fire lizards at the dock) But that solo content is ruined by the named heroic fire lizard that can pop. Extra bonus points are the fact that the named is in aggro range of the respawn point, giving you a chance for a death-loop.
    Next is the goblins in the cave. They are solo. Except there is a heroic goblin wandering the cave.
    Beyond the cave are some solo goblins, but the area is littered with kos see invis heroics. Mercifully they are almost all fixed mobs, not wandering, but this generally makes it very hard zone to explore.
    The zone does not allow a solo player much hunting room; without invis, you can't even get to most of the zone solo. I don't know what the zone was like prior to LU13, but since then heroics mean death to soloists.
    Even if the zone is intended for groups, you need a "waiting area" near zone in, with enough solo mobs for 2-3 separate solo players to hunt, while they are waiting for a group.
    All in all, I find LS a very nice looking zone, but the zone is empty all the time, because it's a royal pain. I never go there looking for a group because I know nobody will be there LFG. (there may be groups there, but chances are they will be full and so not helpful when I am LFG)
    As a contrast, look at EL or ZEK. From the dock, you are not restricted to a narrow space with wandering heroics. You have room to manuver and can go around the heroic wasps, bears, etc in EL, or around the tougher orcs in Zek.
    Anyways, in sum:
    * potential death-loops = bad
    * narrow spaces you MUST pass through, with heroics = bad
    * see invis heroics near solo mobs = bad (tho less bad if they dont wander)
    * zones too tightly packed with monsters, are bad. You need some "open spaces" where you can ditch aggro from mobs you aren't looking to fight, where you won't get aggro from other mobs.

    Oh also, Id like to add a note about PoF: I was looking to zone into MajDul (at the time I didnt know there was no "on foot" way to zone there) so I walked about where I remembered the carpet taking me. I zoned into PoF, near the cyclops. My computer zones a little slow, I often have the server consider me "in" a zone a few seconds before I have control. Well, the cyclops (58+++) was kos and in aggro range of the zone in point. It was quite unfun to be killed while my computer was still catching up from zoning. Please make sure no kos mob's normal placement/pathing is in aggro range of a zone line.
    Message Edited by cfteague2 on 11-22-2005 04:50 PM
  12. ARCHIVED-Shailen Guest

    So basically your problem is that some zones are designed to be done by groups of high level adventurers? Yes the cyclops thing can be a little annoying, but by and large PoF is so amazingly fun I can't really complain to much. That entire zone is some of the best grouping I've had in this game.
  13. ARCHIVED-MrWolfie Guest

    Actually, his point is that in areas OBVIOUSLY designated for solo players (there being large concentrations of solo content) the inclusion of heroic content is not appropriate. Trying to pull solo mobs from under the nose of heroics is, at the least, infuriating and at worst, game-stopping.
    I didn't see any remarks in his post that were anti-group content, esp. in relation to PoF ~ his only complaint there was the Cyclops' positioning so close to the zone in. Also, I wouldn't say that zoning and being dead even before I have control of my character was "a little annoying" ~ some understatement that is!

    And, how about a raid zoning into BSV and by the time the MT has zoned in all the casters (with quicker PCs/broadband) are dead?

    A little more consideration for REAL LIFE limitations might normally be considered good game design...
  14. ARCHIVED-KudLenka Guest

    i think that nobody isn denying group oriented players their fun. the problem is in how heoric and solo content is distributed trough overland zones. Taking the risk of repeating myself i think that overland zones should be more solo fiendly with solo content of all levels available without too much frustration. There is notning bad with heoric encounters in overland zones, they just need to be placed in manner which will not interferre with more casual solo/duo play. Aggressive heroics guarding way to solo contents somewhat deafeat the purpose of the solo content they protect. Few wandering heroic mobs may add some spice - if you allow players enough room to avoid them or to run from them when needed. there are so many zones and instances group and epic only, its just fair to ask for this.
    i would like to add something bit else too in this thread - its everfrost design - as much as it is possible to get to the land without getting eaten by the heroic sharks, the placement of the boat bells makes no sense at all. Not only it is idiotic but it is also confusing for players who come to that place first time.
  15. ARCHIVED-Admhel Guest

    top 5
    1. (Lefts of Rujark, Deathfist Citadel, Zek) any zone that has an orc except commonlands (i've noticed they are very laggy)
    2. Nektulos - even a lvl 30 caster can die by just passing through from all the greens running around
    3. Sol Eye - too [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] far...

    4. Ferrott - a huge zone to cross to xp in cazic thule which has crappy xp compared to perma

    5. ANY ZONE that is labeled a raid zone, or an instanced zone that drops wooden chests from named mobs.
  16. ARCHIVED-Obadiah Guest

    1. Qeynos Harbor. Anything but my fastest machine and it's a slideshow. I haven't seen all of the expansion zones, but thus far QH is the only zone in the game in which I experience this. Doesn't matter if there are 50 people there or 10. It stinks. If pretty much everywhere else is fine, there's no good reason for this zone to be so ridiculously laggy. Lagged horribly an hour ago on a PC with 1G of memory with settings on Very High Performance and 12 players in the zone. Meanwhile North Qeynos, EF, TS, and Baubbleshire were all smooth as silk. It's not user PCs, it's Qeynos Harbor. One zone shouldn't require 2GB of RAM if all the others are fine at 512 or 1G.
    2. Nek Castle. Haven't been to the "Return" yet, but the first one was the buggiest, crashiest, most waste-of-time-ish zone in the game thus far. To venture into this zone before it was trivial to your group was no fun, and doing so after it was trivial is, well, trivial. The concepts and story in the place are OK, but spending 3 hours trying to spawn a swine lord, spending an hour zoning in and out to get an instance with the swine lord and some Billys up - neither option is something I'd consider fun. I was lucky enough to finish both HQs inside the zone in three long, frustrating journeys inside, and will never go back again. A large portion of the time wasted inside was spent waiting for group members to log back in - or them waiting for me to log back in. Lockout timer didn't help matters, forcing people to stay til 3AM or however long it took to wade through the crashes.
    3. EDIT: I had Qeynos Harbor listed here originally. But I should add DFC. As I first read and pondered this interesting thread I considered DFC, but I thought. "You know, it was really OK the second time when they had obviously made some tweaks." But that's not entirely true. You want idiotic? We made pretty good time getting through this zone the second time I did it. Only problems were that some people were farther along on the Greenhood quest, and had been there before. So they talked to the appropriate NPCs before everyone else had talked to Selinda. So. . . those NPCs were gone. That's not my complaint though. Here we've slaughtered our way through this citadel, and we stand before Fyst himself. . . . "Hail, Emperor Fyst". Nada. Talk about removing immersion. Ya, we're all gonna stand here for an hour while a couple folks go back and try to figure out what freaking named mob we missed. You're telling me this guy won't attack me until I kill some Octopus in the sewers?!?!?!? We just 2 feet away from him dancing and sipping tea, and he's OK with that until some OCTOPUS IN THE SEWERS IS DEAD?!?!?!? WTH logic is there behind that!?!?!? Don't know how I forgot about that.
    4. Nek Forest. Maybe this is better with the arrival of the towers, but this place has always been a PITA to get around in. It is the capital of needless walking. It might not be so bad were it not for all of the hills that LOOK like you should be able to walk over them.
    5. Qeynos Harbor. EDIT2: No, wait. If what they're doing in Test holds, then Lavastorm needs to be added. Turning the Sentry guarding the tunnel into a sissy? Come on. For all of you who complained about this, there's another MMO that might be more to your liking:
    http://www.sanriotown.com/onlinegame/index.php?s=introduction
    Message Edited by Obadiah on 11-23-2005 02:24 PM
    Message Edited by Obadiah on 11-24-2005 05:07 PM
  17. ARCHIVED-Shailen Guest

    I don't think they are OBVIOUSLY meant for either. I think they're meant for both.

    My problem is that the way SOE "fixes" things, rather than do the intelligent thing and remove the 1 roaming heroic in that solo area at the begining, they will nerf every goblin in there to be solo, or worse yet, huge portions of this zone will become solo. Again religating groups to dungeons.

    If you've traveled and been in this zone since the early days (January or so) you'd see that by and large this zone is definate not designed for soloing. Just the idea behind the teleporter sort of proves this some.

    Initially everything past the beach was heroic, with few, if any, solos that I can recall. Since then however they made the first nerf that added solo content to the early or mid portions of overland zones. This added the first solo goblins, and made more stuff by the beach accessible. At this point the ONE roamer should have been removed. Following this, they needed T5 writs, so they just made MORE solo mobs, so that they had an area for solo T5 writs. Generally the rest of the was left as is, and you can still see that if you walk the whole zone up to the porter. The temple is one big heroic roadblock, you won't get up to the porter or sol eye without a group, and I'm pretty sure thats as intended. Everything before that even, the valcano pass, the golems, down to the first spire. Its all heroic heroic heroic. Posting that he expects this to all be passable by solos sort of ruins the intent of the zone, and knowing how SOE works they'll ruin the whole zone trying to fix it.

    The intent of the zone as I see it, is getting a group together and making the difficult adventurous trek through these tight heroic spaces up to the porter to get access to Sol Eye. Its like an access quest of sorts. I see this zone more like some of the linear dungeon crawls than I do like an overland zone and thats fine with me, there's too few large diverse group focused zones in this game now.

    Totally different point as to PoF. I said I agreed that the cyclops placement sorta sucks, all I said about that was that i liked the zone and experience so much, that the 2-3 deaths I took zoning in there out of like 40 didn't really bother me.
  18. ARCHIVED-cfteague2 Guest

    Shailen, I have no problem with PoF, except that the cyclops wander into kos range of the zone in point. If the zone in point was moved back, or the cyclops didn't wander as near as they do, it would be fine. The cyclops dont see invis, so I suppose I could zone in invis, but that's the kind of thing I know now, after a very cheap death.
    For lavastorm, what I don't like about it is the confining spaces, which become serious obstacles. It would be nice if there were more solo content somewhere in the zone, so that you could get some exp while waiting for a group. But the heart of the problem is that the heroics become obstables for a single player. Unless the group comes to meet you at zone it, just moving around to meet up with a group is dangerous for a single player.
    I like the artistic content of LS, and I do wish I could spend more time there. But the headaches of the zone, compared to DoF, mean that I know it will be a LONG wait for a group, if I goto LS and wait for a group. So I don't bother. (And of course, it's only because of everyone with that attitude that it's hard to get a group, but that's part of my point -- when a zone is annoying to move around in, people avoid it, making it empty, and then making it a bad zone to group in.) As proof I offer the average emptiness of LS on my server...
  19. ARCHIVED-SaintPeter Guest

    Live Update 17b Beta Update Notes Wrote:
    - The Sootfoot goblins have assigned a somewhat weaker sentry to patrol the entry tunnel to Lavastorm.
    - There should no longer be epic x2 encounters spawning or roaming through Stormhold.
    Don't let anyone every tell you SOE doesn't listen :)
    Obviously, doesn't come even close to fixing all the things in this thread, but does hit two "low hanging fruit".
  20. ARCHIVED-Obadiah Guest