DRW, Ulfheim, Crags... please make it stop!

I have to say I feel really bad for all the scene builders who have been busting their asses making all these gorgeous new zones, and meanwhile the lion's share of the player base just runs loops around DRW, Ulfheim and Crags.

Can't say I blame players for it... most are going to go where the xp, gold, loot, and resources are.

The problem is that- for some mysterious reason- the dev team has allowed it to be the case that these three zones are the best place to get all of them simultaneously.

Really... players should have to be choosing what to farm. I don't think it's a good idea to have a few zones where players can farm all of these things simultaneously. Not to mention the performance issues that arise from this kind of scenario.

@DarkStarr - Is any positive action going to be taken to dis-incentivize these zones? Or are we just going to have 90% of the players running loops around the same three zones forever?

 

I was looking at my friends list this weekend and I actually noticed that I could travel to almost anywhere in Novia. Everyone was all spread out doing different things. The rise, the fall, grannus, sequanna, superstition canyon, ravensmoor, pensmawr, krul, and a bunch of others I can't think of off the to of my head.

It was a nice change then what I'm use to seeing in the past. Like you mentioned everyone was always in one of the "best" zones. I have a ridiculous amount of friends on my list, so maybe it's just that the friends you have frequent the same spots?

 

For me, Twin Foothills has been lucrative

 

Ya perhaps a skewed sample. Though a lot of the zones you mentioned are old zones too...

 

I'm not sure what the age of the zone has to do with anything. I was just trying to say I disagree with your OP. Seems a lot more spread out then you are making it sound.

 

The present player base are mostly able to do tier 5( so why go lower), infact it doesn't take a new player long to even progress to that content and as we haven't had any new zones with high tier content that i can think of that's likely the reason you see them in abundance in these scenes.... I would like to see all the new zones that have been done( and i will look through one day) but i think they are all low level. If new higher tier scenes come in then I'm sure the mostly higher level player base we have at present will be seen there.

I am doing Grannus a lot these days, a scene i never did before as always did the Rise for xp/loot, but since its been changed its now more lucrative in what i want from a session than it was before, not as much as the Rise for xp/loot(artifacts although for sellable items it is better) but its outside and i like it there so i do it...a lot.

 

I think I agree with you both. @Jaanelle DeJure and @Adam Crow

When I look in my friends list I see the same as Adam does, it is much more spread out now than ever before. So the devs have been busy building some options for us out there. Which is a great thing. The balance is much better now than before.

But I do agree with @Jaanelle DeJure in that I think it would be better for the game if scenes had some special things going for them so that they would constitute real choices.


I find it strange that there are adventure scenes that rival mines when it comes to ores.
I find it strange that to get wood one don't want to go to deep forests or logging camps but rather sieges.
I find it strange that obsidian crowns are spread equally all over the lands when the empire was much more prominent in specific parts.
etc

I mean, wouldn't it be cool if the regions really would matter.
Where one would go to a region and its scenes to get more of X resource.

Like more Crown drops in Grunvald. (The old heart of the Obsidian empire).
Like more wood and wildlife in Norgard and Noreach.
Like more ores and gems in Drachvald.
Like more artifacts in Elysium and Quel.
Like more books, recipies and lore in South Paladis.

Yes there are some things like that, but it is painted with a very fine pencil and not with broad brush strokes.
Like that all scenes of all tiers in a region had more of X. Not just that Region Y has scene Z that has more.

For instance how many of you can name the region with the most abundant agriculture?
How many can name the most technologically advanced region?
How many can name the most scholarly region?
Which region is known for its blacksmiths? Which region is known for its carpenters? Which region is known for its poets?

Not just from the lore, but actually from what we find in the specific scenes of those regions.

Like the recipes - they are spread out and specific to regions. But can you see the pattern of why a specific recipe went to that region instead of another?

 

Well cause I was talking about all the efforts being put into new zones... They look awesome, have puzzles, traps, side quests... And yet the rewards for adventuring in these zones is not sufficient enough to draw players there.

I can't speak for the scene builders, however if I were one I'd be pretty bummed to be putting in all this work and see hardly anybody there.

 

Yes... Especially regarding the resource distribution.. that was one of the things I thought was so cool was how each region was supposed to be special in terms of the resources found there... Regional economies and all.

It's one of the main reasons I decided to make a Druidess... Thought it would be cool to be a "gathering expert" and know all the ins and outs of where to find stuff.

Actually there IS quite a bit of regional variance in gem nodes. But alas everyone knows if you want gems to farm trolls. :/

 

They should be proud of their work. Keep in mind anything they develop, whether it's puzzles, new visuals, whatever, can be used in other scenes down the road. There is some great scene building going on for sure, but it isn't going to waste by any means.

 

As far as I know, Crag Foothills and Ulfhiem are still cloned scenes.

Hopefully other scenes can be improved like Twins Foothills and Wyrmsands have been so there is more variety for places to go train, explore, etc.

 

That might have something to do with that they've been working un-cloning mostly T1/T2/T3 so far. Can you suggest some un-cloned T5 zones? All I am aware of is a couple of mines. Also, older zones are more likely to be unbalanced in ways that make them better than they should be, and people already know where they are and what they can do in them.

The game still isn't being advertised, so a big part of that is an under-supply of players.

I still want to see the regional economy thing work out. However, it is possible that it really is too easy to travel between regions without using teleports. I do it all the time; 5-10 minutes is nothing if you'll be making a profit. Some people can naturally gain XP easily, some people can naturally travel easily, maybe I'm just one of the latter.

It may turn out that the newer episode continents will be needed to make the world big enough for regional economies to work. But then again, I haven't yet seen any indications of much of anything being found on a regional basis, other than some recipes. So maybe they haven't actually started trying to make it work yet.

 

Well I spent some time adding more people to my friends list to get a better sample size, and they do look more spread out than it appeared previously.

Still- with respect to T5 zones yes a lot of them remain to be uncloned. However- there are all the PvP zones that go largely unused. It would make good sense to make them worth the risk that people would still go there.

I'm in process of surveying the resource tooltips from scenes on the Overworld map. Should get a better sense if there really is much variation in resource by region. So far- there does appear to be higher concentration of pine in Drachvald and of gold in Quel. Still preliminary though, and it will need to be updated as scenes get uncloned. Stay tuned!