Lavastorm needs some loving

[DeliciousHalflings]

Originally Posted by Jibartik [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

you ruined qeynos hills youll not ruin lavastorm!

Lavastorm was ruined long before I got here.

[DeliciousHalflings]

Originally Posted by Ooloo [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

what? why is one of your 14 posts that?

It's 16 now, and clearly because I was agreeing with you about how awful the random 'volcano' explosion is while running through LS.

[reznor_]

Originally Posted by Ooloo [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Not to mention the pants-shitting lavastorm explosion noise, which after 20 years I still always forget about and it scares the shit out of me every time

Every god damn time

[Chortles Snortles]

lavabore

[Keza]

Originally Posted by DeliciousHalflings [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Lavastorm sucks. Period. There's a reason why 20+ years later people still use the same 'hotspots' for leveling and other zones are practically empty. If you enjoy the zone, good on you, keep the mobs for yourself. Overall, between the need for levitate to have remotely efficient travel, no major landmarks to direct people other than 'X direction from rings', and a general ugliness, even with a ZEM I suspect most people would pass on Lavastorm in favor of a better zone.

There's a reason people still play WoW instead of FFXIV despite FF being superior in every way in regards to both being themepark MMORPGs. It's because that's what they do and they'll do it because they do it and they won't stop doing it because that's not what they do until they stop doing it which they never will. The reason people go to Oasis is because they do. They did in the past, they do now and they will in the future. They likely don't even know if the mobs in LS are easier or harder than Oasis. These kinds of people need alluring bait to be lured from their caves, like ZEM changes. That said, I don't think Lavastorm needs ZEM changes as it's already viable. It just needs people to actually go there instead of saying it's bad without having any idea what they're talking about.

The only plausible argument against LS would be the terrain hiding enemies. Otherwise it's a centrally located with a TP that makes it easily accessible with several similarly leveled zones connecting directly to it allowing you to go 1-max while barely moving from a city. As for landmarks, there are many, so I'm not sure what you're talking about. You can usually see one by climbing any random hill. Shadowmen rings, gypsy camps, goblin camps, Najena, Nek ZL, and the caldera. It's really simple to remember that the giant caldera is directly across the zone from the Nek ZL, rings are topleft, Najena is bottom right and Shadowmen are bottom left with nothing topright and camps in the middle. You always have a landmark.

I feel like people claiming LS is bad have never tried leveling in a truly bad zone. Anything with goblins is terrible. Tiny hallways, tons of adds, healing through walls, fleeing and massive wizard nukes. You need to make meta groups unless you have twinks/PLs to survive. You'd have to pay most people to exp in Dalnir. Fifteen minutes to get there with a port and knowing the path, trapped once you fall down and an NPC potentially guarding the exit that can obliterate max level players in an instant with an OPAF melee proc. Now that's a zone that wouldn't see groups traverse even with a ZEM buff.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Originally Posted by Keza [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

There's a reason people still play WoW instead of FFXIV despite FF being superior in every way in regards to both being themepark MMORPGs. It's because that's what they do and they'll do it because they do it and they won't stop doing it because that's not what they do until they stop doing it which they never will. The reason people go to Oasis is because they do. They did in the past, they do now and they will in the future. They likely don't even know if the mobs in LS are easier or harder than Oasis. These kinds of people need alluring bait to be lured from their caves, like ZEM changes. That said, I don't think Lavastorm needs ZEM changes as it's already viable. It just needs people to actually go there instead of saying it's bad without having any idea what they're talking about.

The only plausible argument against LS would be the terrain hiding enemies. Otherwise it's a centrally located with a TP that makes it easily accessible with several similarly leveled zones connecting directly to it allowing you to go 1-max while barely moving from a city. As for landmarks, there are many, so I'm not sure what you're talking about. You can usually see one by climbing any random hill. Shadowmen rings, gypsy camps, goblin camps, Najena, Nek ZL, and the caldera. It's really simple to remember that the giant caldera is directly across the zone from the Nek ZL, rings are topleft, Najena is bottom right and Shadowmen are bottom left with nothing topright and camps in the middle. You always have a landmark.

I feel like people claiming LS is bad have never tried leveling in a truly bad zone. Anything with goblins is terrible. Tiny hallways, tons of adds, healing through walls, fleeing and massive wizard nukes. You need to make meta groups unless you have twinks/PLs to survive. You'd have to pay most people to exp in Dalnir. Fifteen minutes to get there with a port and knowing the path, trapped once you fall down and an NPC potentially guarding the exit that can obliterate max level players in an instant with an OPAF melee proc. Now that's a zone that wouldn't see groups traverse even with a ZEM buff.

I leveled in Lavastorm and Najena on live. It is certainly do-able, and I don't remember it being bad. However, the reason why people leveled in Lavastorm on live was probably because it was easier to do a corpse run (can be bound in Neriak). People were probably more likely to pick race based on starting location as well, unlike P99. Ports were harder to come by back then, and a lack of game knowledge made traveling much more dangerous. Also, Oasis was more dangerous on live due to lag, viewing distance being reduced, and trains. You were much more likely to get killed by a Sand Giant or train.

On P99 that doesn't matter quite as much since ports are easy, game knowledge is prevalent, computers can play the game at max viewing distance, and many people are twinked. Oasis is generally easier to play in than Lavastorm on P99 because the only true obstacles are random Sand Giants, which are generally easy to see and avoid, and trains aren't really a thing in Oasis anymore.

The problem with Lavastorm is the mob level range is in a bit of a weird spot. Oasis and the Ro's can occupy you from early teens until early 20s. Lavastorm peters out sooner than early 20s if memory serves, and then you have to run elsewhere anyway. Leveling from 1-30 doesn't take that long if you know what you are doing, so the leveling progression in the desert is better anyway. You could go into Najena after Lavastorm peters out, but it is more dangerous.

[cd288]

People leveled in LS because they weren’t fully aware of other options. There’s a reason that once knowledge started filtering out better Oasis was always crowded and LS was empty

[ReoDobbs]

Tbf I don't understand how/why they come up with the ZEM changes they do. Or even when, why decrease ZEMS across the board two months ago after so many have leveled? Seems like a great way to punish newer players.

Anyway the ZEM differences of zones seems to be getting less and less different so people are just going to find the laziest/easiest zones to escape if things get hairy if there's no risk vs reward.

I think both Lavastorm and Dragnor's Cayldron ZEMS should be through the roof

[Zendir]

Originally Posted by ReoDobbs [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Tbf I don't understand how/why they come up with the ZEM changes they do. Or even when, why decrease ZEMS across the board two months ago after so many have leveled? Seems like a great way to punish newer players.

Anyway the ZEM differences of zones seems to be getting less and less different so people are just going to find the laziest/easiest zones to escape if things get hairy if there's no risk vs reward.

I think both Lavastorm and Dragnor's Cayldron ZEMS should be through the roof

Looking at the outdoor zones for ZEM, I dont see any with a bonus ZEM. I see many Kunark outdoor zones with negative ZEM(Which is total BS), even though I remember those places were great XP places.

I think the devs here feel the risk v reward is for dungeons. Things can go wrong in a heartbeat a whole lot quicker in a dungeon than an outdoor zone, for the most part.

[Gustoo]

Kunark EXP was dog shit on live, it was only a good leveling spot because a lot of people were leveling up and only in kunark could you just plop a group down in the middle of a gigantic zone and start pulling to your group.

It was like camp fires at a beach the first groups were in easier closer to zone line spots and other groups got further away to have pulls to themselves and stuff.

But the EXP was terrible it was just the constant churn that made it overall OK but still basically worse than any old world zone but those only supported 2 or so groups at a time.