Purpose of Regional Gateways? (Eastreach Gap, Nightshade Pass etc)..

It must have been quite a painful decision to remove what was the first and arguably only real structure to enable the Regional economy. There is still the legacy of some region specific npc vendor items and recipes, and of course the legacy of the 'Regional Gateways' themselves.

For those who have joined SOTA fairly recently, the Passes and Gaps used to have to be fought through to gain access to another region; North & South Paladis, Drachvald, Grunvald, by way of examples. The players' understanding (though unconfirmed by the Devs) was that these Regions would be further developed in future to create unique regional economies that players' speculated would be the basis of trade, caravans, fiefdoms etc.

The regional gateways were not appreciated by players however, not at all! They are around Tier 5 and in the early launch period of the game they were both challenging (and still are for new players) and frustratingly time consuming to traverse. So they were removed as gateways.

Hence now they are pretty pointless. They are small zones in their own right, and yes some have a mini boss and some have CPs but as a concept they are obsolete which I think is a shame.

I was wondering therefore if at least some purpose could be brought back to these gateways to bring some flavour and added value to them and the Regions they once guarded. A couple of ideas I had were -

Regional Travellers affinity - If you use a Pass or Gap to traverse to a Region you gain a travellers affinity for that region, which would give you a slight bonus on npc prices, harvests and gathers in that region.

Amulet of welcome - Rather than just passing through, or in addition too, perhaps things could be made more interesting by adding a simple mini quest, puzzle or mini boss challenge to each gateway such that on completing it you obtain an Amulet for that Region which would work as a charm, totem or passport adding some kind of value to your activities in the region.

Both Amulets and affinities would fade on leaving thew region should you leave by running through the gap or replaced by an appropriate amulet or affinity when you traversed a gateway to another region.

These features need not be complex designs and implementations for the Devs, if they were I doubt they would happen, nor do the bonuses need to be great, just enough that players may consider using the gaps and passes if they have the time or inclination to achieve the buffs granted if they plan to work within the region for a while.

 

I think opening them overall was a good decision. It was never about the difficulty of the fighting so much, not for long anyway, but about the need to endure two additional load screens and a pointless run across the map. What we saw is everyone friended everyone and used teleport-to-friend to bypass such restrictions in any case. Now that we have global banks and zone teleports there is even less reason to arbitrarily block the road.

It would make sense if there were, perhaps, goods-transport type quests that required you to 'check in' at an outpost or something in one of these regions, to give them some sort of purpose. I.E. if you were couriering something from Soltown to Spite, you'd have checkins at Eastreach and Vauban, or something you had to do there, etc. There's also potential to 'temporarily close' these (now that we have zone scrolls, wont cause as much hassle) due to an event, like, an avalanche blocks up Brightbone pass and players have to clear it, or there's a sandstorm or a rockslide or whatever. As they are small maps that naturally funnel players through a central area they'd be great staging areas for world event type activities.

 

Some neat ideas there.

 

Having travelling merchants appear on the roads near the control points for a certain time after they are cleared, making it where you have to hold them for a set time, then after that time they go on cooldown, while they are on cooldown, merchants can be seen and interacted with on the roads near them, merchants that perhaps buy hides, cotton, food, and fish etc at full price in accordance with the lore of whatever regions they are in

 

I almost always bypassed them via the lunar rifts. It took a bit longer to get the timing right, but the rift traveling created an adventure that my fairly low-level character could handle back then.

Along the lines of what Arkah said, we could have quests in the NPC towns nearest the near the control points to escort a merchant caravan through the pass to another town on the other side

 

Ooh, that could be a great incentive. Put regional merchants at the entrance to the CP. If you clear the CP, they can progress and once all of the sections are clear they give the players a reward (a rare version of one of the regional items) then spawns on the world map and travels around that region for a while.

If these merchants were the only source of the regional recipes, clothing and deco (i.e. patterns), it would be a great incentive for players to do these events again. Even offline, you could do them with companions to open up these items.

@Chris This needs to happen!