Zone events

[Techwright]

Which zones (if any) that currently have zone events do you feel totally squander the use of that event?  While I am specifically thinking of the zone events Rikti invasion, Nemesis incursion, and Zombie apocalypse, because they appear in so many zones, you may be considering another, including one that only appears in a single zone.

 

For additional zone events, see the unofficial wiki category page.

 

 

Edited November 30 by Techwright
added link

[Sanguinesun]

I dont think any necessarily are squandered if people end up getting together from lfg callouts for em to an extent, but with that said any events like those that spawn in vil or gold side locations are going to most of the time be ignored simply because most of the player population stick to the hero side as a whole.

 

Of course when the MapServe April event occurs then people flock to chasing that event across the entirety of the server no matter the zone but that's a different situation obviously.

 

If this is some sort of indirect line to have devs consider revamping the spawn system to more constantly have them spawning in specific zones, I think the pace is fine as it is.

[Ukase]

So, this is just my take, and there's certainly no evidence to suggest my thoughts are closely similar to anyone else's. 

I have only ever seen 4 zones ever tackle a zone event with any degree of success. I define success as few defeats, a league of 3 or more teams. 

Peregrine Island, right in the ol' parking lot in front of Portal Corp. 

Founders, off from the train, just a bit near where the contact for Kahn TF is, or, in a few other places in that zone. 

Kings Row, down the hill from Blue Steel. 

Talos Island, on the hill. 


If something kicks off in Bricks, or anywhere red side or Praetoria,  there might be a few folks that join in, but they're not very well attended. I see certain events kicking off in the Shadow Shard, and I already know there's no point in going there because nobody's going to make the trip. 

Now, on Excelsior, there are a few leaders who seem to be popular enough to be a draw because their events often lead to success. And those few folks might be able to get enough folks to create a successful environment, but aside from those few folks, it's not likely to happen. 

Now, is this a problem? I guess it could be, if you're looking for one. But for me, it's just a minor annoyance. I'll get in the mission soon enough, or the league if it's of interest to my character. 

[Snarky]

I have seen the Nemesis event handled in various zones (complete with AV death and badge) other than the listed zones.  Likewise Ritki invasion.  Once in a great while the zombie apocalypse.  But even so, these are still pretty standard zones I remember.  Cap, Skyway, etc...   I doubt Gold side or the less travelled (accessible) zones have had much success.  Sure, those of us that know how to get around think "i can be anywhere in 20 seconds...well, any zone) but that is not the case for all players.

[TheMoneyMaker]

19 hours ago, Techwright said:

Which zones (if any) that currently have zone events do you feel totally squander the use of that event?  While I am specifically thinking of the zone events Rikti invasion, Nemesis incursion, and Zombie apocalypse, because they appear in so many zones, you may be considering another, including one that only appears in a single zone.

 

 

 

I consider the various invasion events to be more multi-zone events since they can occur anywhere.  Zone events are the smaller occurrences like the burning buildings in Steel Canyon, the Supa-Trolls in Skyway City, and giant monster appearance that are typically relegated to one zone like Babbage in Boomtown (except when summoned by the Synapse TF), Lusca in IP, Jurassik in Crey's Folly, etc

 

I don't think any of the zones events are wasted but I do think we need more of them, and maybe spread some of the smaller ones out to other zones. Fires should happen in more places than Steel Canyon, but have different enemy groups behind them. Zombie apocalypse is fun, but maybe occasional smaller zombie uprisings in zones that have graveyards, like Striga, Dark Astoria, and Sharkhead.

[Techwright]

20 hours ago, Sanguinesun said:

If this is some sort of indirect line to have devs consider revamping the spawn system to more constantly have them spawning in specific zones, I think the pace is fine as it is.

 

Not necessarily trying to set up something for devs to consider, but rather possibly trying to raise awareness across all players.   I'll admit the question came from a point of frustration where I often see an invasion event that no player attends.  I guess I'm trying to bring to light why that is, and perhaps in the process, find a solution for all.  It could simply be that raising awareness brings people to the less-trafficked areas for invasion events.

 

2 hours ago, Ukase said:

If something kicks off in Bricks, or anywhere red side or Praetoria,  there might be a few folks that join in, but they're not very well attended. I see certain events kicking off in the Shadow Shard, and I already know there's no point in going there because nobody's going to make the trip.

 

2 hours ago, Snarky said:

I have seen the Nemesis event handled in various zones (complete with AV death and badge) other than the listed zones.  Likewise Ritki invasion.  Once in a great while the zombie apocalypse.  But even so, these are still pretty standard zones I remember.  Cap, Skyway, etc...   I doubt Gold side or the less travelled (accessible) zones have had much success.  Sure, those of us that know how to get around think "i can be anywhere in 20 seconds...well, any zone) but that is not the case for all players.

 

I agree with both summations.  From a solution standpoint, I see two areas needing address:

1. Getting there quickly, especially in regards to those zones having pathing not well known.

2.  Knowing where in the zone to set up camp.

 

In regards to these, what might player-driven solutions be?  It would seem to me in the second one, that a group of players locate an optimal spot in each zone that hosts an invasion, one far from police drones and with enough room for a league and its pets to maneuver.  It probably also should be close to zone access of some kind.  Peregrine Island, for example, has the agreed-upon fighting space near the supergroup portal.   Has such research been attempted and published by anyone?  

 

Pathing is more of a problem, and I'm not sure there's a player-created solution to it, but that's why I'm putting the question out there.    Possible solutions from a dev team side mean a lot of work, but some wild ideas might be to remove the invasion from really out-there zones like the Shadow Shard, or create a teleport or an assembly function that will port a character to the event (possibly via the LFG function?), or even show a temporary map path to the access points needed to reach an event, so that even a new player could find it.  But such may never come about, so it would be better to discover a player-based solution.

 

42 minutes ago, TheMoneyMaker said:

 

I consider the various invasion events to be more multi-zone events since they can occur anywhere.  Zone events are the smaller occurrences like the burning buildings in Steel Canyon, the Supa-Trolls in Skyway City, and giant monster appearance that are typically relegated to one zone like Babbage in Boomtown (except when summoned by the Synapse TF), Lusca in IP, Jurassik in Crey's Folly, etc

 

I don't think any of the zones events are wasted but I do think we need more of them, and maybe spread some of the smaller ones out to other zones. Fires should happen in more places than Steel Canyon, but have different enemy groups behind them. Zombie apocalypse is fun, but maybe occasional smaller zombie uprisings in zones that have graveyards, like Striga, Dark Astoria, and Sharkhead.

I've not seen a separation of terminology.  "Zone events" in the wiki cover both.  If the development team has separate terminology, I'd be happy to learn it.  It's actually not a bad idea to separate one-zone events from multiple-zone events.  The latter would probably include the Ghost Ship, since it covers both Talos and Independence Port.

 

I like the idea of having a fire event elsewhere, but I'm concerned about watering down the results (pun intended).  Perhaps a very similar event elsewhere, but with additional badges and perhaps a few change-ups to make it interesting (maybe tossed explosive devices pose a threat).  A different enemy group involved as well, just as you stated.  I'd been thinking along the lines of either different multi-zone events only showing up in lesser-trafficked areas, to encourage visits, or making one of the events only show up in these areas, and the other events say away, to encourage traffic to it.  Again, a player-driven solution is to be preferred, and it simply might be raising awareness, as I state at the start of this post.

 

 

[srmalloy]

2 hours ago, Ukase said:

Peregrine Island, right in the ol' parking lot in front of Portal Corp. 
Founders, off from the train, just a bit near where the contact for Kahn TF is, or, in a few other places in that zone. 
Kings Row, down the hill from Blue Steel. 
Talos Island, on the hill. 

From my experience:

Steel Canyon, east of Positron.

(pre-Shivan) Galaxy City, the plaza east of Babs.

Cap au Diable, plaza NE of the north ferry

[TheMoneyMaker]

2 hours ago, Techwright said:

 

I've not seen a separation of terminology.  "Zone events" in the wiki cover both.  If the development team has separate terminology, I'd be happy to learn it.  It's actually not a bad idea to separate one-zone events from multiple-zone events.  The latter would probably include the Ghost Ship, since it covers both Talos and Independence Port.

 

 

The separation of terminology is entirely my observation of it. I consider zone events to be the ones limited to specific zones. If it's something that can happen anywhere, then it's less of a zone event and more of an event that happens in various zones.....or a multi-zone event.

[Ukase]

A player created solution could be as simple as sharing a base macro for players without the lrtp to use. Then they just have to hustle to a base. Trust me, there will always be some players that make movement harder than it needs to be, either for thematic reasons or ignorance. 

As it stands now, if the XP is (or other rewards are) good, folks will find a way to get where they need to get quickly.

[BasiliskXVIII]

I feel like a big pain point with the zone events is that they don't scale especially well. If I'm just messing around, going from one mission to the next, and happen across the Steel Canyon fire, it's not generally something that I can rush into and run by myself, particularly as a character that's level appropriate to the zone. The fires are particularly bad for that, too, given their reasonably short timer. And for the most part, you have to want to do them for the sake of doing them, because their rewards aren't especially good if you don't badge hunt. If a single hero working from the beginning of the event to the end could reasonably expect to be able to complete it, and would get at least as much reward for it as they would running story missions for the same amount of time, then they might be willing to simply jump in on a whim. And once one person is there, then others may be more willing to help. Having to whip up a group just to hopefully be able to do the event is not a huge amount of effort, but it's also more than none, particularly if you have no idea if anyone's going to bite in time.