What is the point of Lavastorm?

[Typhonian]

What is the sodding point of being solo in that zone, when to access half of it (West Lavastorm), you have to spend an hour fighting your way through hordes of heroic mobs in the Goblet of Ro AND the whole Temple of Ro, only to res back at beginning of the zone if you make a single mistake... P.S. this is indeed a bit of a rant, but why are there not multiple res points for such a big zone?

[TheStateFish]

Multiple rez points would be great, but to answer your initial question, there is no point for a solo toon to be trying to kill the heroic content in the zone... you won't get far.

[Carcophan]

There is also the teleporter which takes you from zone in to the west side of the island in an instant.

[Chog]

Lavastorm was designed as a group outdoor zone.

[Supernova17]

And contains many mobs / events that are part of heritage quests, two Tier5 contested epics, one Tier7 epic avatar, a group and raid zone (Maiden's Gulch) and quite possibly one of the coolest group dungeons at the end of your journey (Solusek's Eye) which is right next to the afore mentioned teleporter. Lavastorm is NOT a solo zone. I would reccomend you travel to the beaches and dunes of the Sinking Sands in the Desert of Flames expansion where there are tons of solo mobs, solo quests and later when you get to around 50 or better, you can head into the Living Tombs which is a hybrid solo / group dungeon.

[HBP]

Carcophan wrote:

There is also the teleporter which takes you from zone in to the west side of the island in an instant.

hehe, that's what he's trying to get to

But I agree that mutiple rez points would be helpful in LS.

[Typhonian]

Supernova17 wrote:

And contains many mobs / events that are part of heritage quests, two Tier5 contested epics, one Tier7 epic avatar, a group and raid zone (Maiden's Gulch) and quite possibly one of the coolest group dungeons at the end of your journey (Solusek's Eye) which is right next to the afore mentioned teleporter. Lavastorm is NOT a solo zone. I would reccomend you travel to the beaches and dunes of the Sinking Sands in the Desert of Flames expansion where there are tons of solo mobs, solo quests and later when you get to around 50 or better, you can head into the Living Tombs which is a hybrid solo / group dungeon.

I'm actually 55, going on 56, and a compulsive quester, and having to wait until much of the zone is grey so I can actually get to do anything other than 10% of the content is not right, IMHO.

[TwistedFaith]

Add Lavastorm to the list of zones that is completely underused. I cannot for the life of me figure out why SoE arnt adding quest lines to this zone. There are SO many zones that are completly ingored in this game due to the lack of quests etc. Oh and while i'm at make that damm 'bee instance' in Rivervale actually useful. Turn it into a proper instance with a lockput, decent loot and named to kill. It would be ideal for people in their mid 40's.

[Typhonian]

Its funny you mention the Bee Instance...I've literally just finished the By Hook or by.... heritage quest, which during the course of doing requires you to go into the zone, come out, talk to an NPC and go back into the zone...but the zone has an 18-hour lockout timer....doh!

[arieste]

Lavastrorm was designed as the hardest zone in the game.  Unlike all other zones, it has a convenient teleporter to take you right across it in a second, the tradeoff cost is that it has no respawn points throughout.  This is because the zone is not meant to be in any way friendly.  It is designed for full groups and to be the hardest zone in the game. 

As to why more quests aren't added to it, this is probably because there is ample content for this level range. 

40-50 zones:

Cazic Thule

Permafrost

Obelisk

Klak'Anon

Everfrost

Sinking Sands

Solusek's Eye

Steamfont

These are just off the top of my head.  LS does feature two major Heritage quests which are both very long and cover the zone from start to finish. 

Now, while the zone may indeed be underused, there is enough content for the level range that it would not be a priority to add more to this particular zone.

[Roriondesexiest]

Typhonian wrote:

Supernova17 wrote:

And contains many mobs / events that are part of heritage quests, two Tier5 contested epics, one Tier7 epic avatar, a group and raid zone (Maiden's Gulch) and quite possibly one of the coolest group dungeons at the end of your journey (Solusek's Eye) which is right next to the afore mentioned teleporter. Lavastorm is NOT a solo zone. I would reccomend you travel to the beaches and dunes of the Sinking Sands in the Desert of Flames expansion where there are tons of solo mobs, solo quests and later when you get to around 50 or better, you can head into the Living Tombs which is a hybrid solo / group dungeon.

I'm actually 55, going on 56, and a compulsive quester, and having to wait until much of the zone is grey so I can actually get to do anything other than 10% of the content is not right, IMHO.

Groups are helpful.

[Muraha]

Typhonian wrote:

Its funny you mention the Bee Instance...I've literally just finished the By Hook or by.... heritage quest, which during the course of doing requires you to go into the zone, come out, talk to an NPC and go back into the zone...but the zone has an 18-hour lockout timer....doh!

This zone only has a lockout timer if you kill a named. The named can be easily avoided one your way to Tap update. I would advise , if you choose to do this with an alt or something, to avoid killing any named and have someone stay in the instance while you get your update so you dont have to kill again. Also, none of the mobs (except the named) see invis so you can just grab a totem of jaguar/chameleon and run down for the update and then go back in and finish your quest. Mobs after the tap update see invis though

[Karlen]

>>>What is the sodding point of being solo in that zone, when to access half of it (West Lavastorm), you have to spend an hour fighting your way through hordes of heroic mobs in the Goblet of Ro AND the whole Temple of Ro, only to res back at beginning of the zone if you make a single mistake...<<< The simple answer is that it is not a good zone for soloing and I don't think it was ever intended to be. The upside is that once you have made the run to activate the teleporter, you can access the west side of lavastorm and have the area essentially to yourself.  It is a nice area for harvesting T5 materials.

[Wabit]

LS was more interesting before the porter was implamented...  going to sol eye was a trip without invis, but we had the entire dungon to ourselves =)...  but there was no solo content past the beach and the enire zone only had like 10 quests total back then...  the single group instances then were the best way to get rares besides raiding...  with 3 quick instances (2 in LS, one in sol eye) it was worth the time of travel... 

its still my fav zone of all, and still underused...  but there is more now than when it was 7 ppl inzone (me and a botgroup)

[KBern]

Typhonian wrote:

Supernova17 wrote:

And contains many mobs / events that are part of heritage quests, two Tier5 contested epics, one Tier7 epic avatar, a group and raid zone (Maiden's Gulch) and quite possibly one of the coolest group dungeons at the end of your journey (Solusek's Eye) which is right next to the afore mentioned teleporter. Lavastorm is NOT a solo zone. I would reccomend you travel to the beaches and dunes of the Sinking Sands in the Desert of Flames expansion where there are tons of solo mobs, solo quests and later when you get to around 50 or better, you can head into the Living Tombs which is a hybrid solo / group dungeon.

I'm actually 55, going on 56, and a compulsive quester, and having to wait until much of the zone is grey so I can actually get to do anything other than 10% of the content is not right, IMHO.

If you cannot get through the zone solo, what makes you think you can even do the quests solo?

This is not a solo zone at all.  It is a very nice zone to group in at the right levels.  It is set up this way for a reason.

[Typhonian]

Saurakk@Guk wrote

If you cannot get through the zone solo, what makes you think you can even do the quests solo?

Because I already *can* do all those quests I can reach solo?

My objection is having to spend an hour carefully threading my way through the zone to reach the quests and areas that I need, and one slightest mistake, or a feign death resisted, or an accidental add from a patrol means a wipe and I have to start all the way from the beginning of the zone. Not everyone has invis, y'know.

They should have taken a leaf out of the Everfrost book. That zone, whilst mostly heroic in a similar way to Lavastorm, is much more accessible, even though that too has a single respawn point.

[Sassinak]

If Sony does any more revamps, Lavastorm should definitely be top of the list.  The world is seriously lacking in casual content at level 40-45.  Steamfont only helped a little. I'd like to see this done to Lavastorm: 1) Change all mobs to non-heroic from the dock to the temple of Ro. 2) Add a revive tent near wizard spires (remove a few rumblers in the area). 3) Punch a tunnel through from the "Najena door" to the Druzaic shrine.  This would give people a (risky) shortcut to Solusek's Eye without the teleporter nonsense. 4) Add uncommon named mobs around the zone, like was done in all of the newer outdoor zones.

[22224446]

HBP wrote:

Carcophan wrote:

There is also the teleporter which takes you from zone in to the west side of the island in an instant.

hehe, that's what he's trying to get to

But I agree that mutiple rez points would be helpful in LS.

ask a conjuror in ur guild to cast a CoH on ya. the pearl is in 1g. the cast is 1m long. so the whole story cannot long longer than 2 mins. enjoy.

btw lavastorm is on of the end-content open world zones in the original game (i mean without expansions, like splitpaw, dof, kos, eof). only 2 (practically its only one) reviving point is a simple timesink.

btw, time is gone, so all of the zones in the original game could use a revamp in many point of views. revive point is one of them as well.

[Beldin_]

Wabit wrote:

LS was more interesting before the porter was implamented...  going to sol eye was a trip without invis, but we had the entire dungon to ourselves =)...  but there was no solo content past the beach and the enire zone only had like 10 quests total back then...  the single group instances then were the best way to get rares besides raiding...  with 3 quick instances (2 in LS, one in sol eye) it was worth the time of travel... 

its still my fav zone of all, and still underused...  but there is more now than when it was 7 ppl inzone (me and a botgroup)

The teleporter was there from the very beginning, at least from March/Febuary,2005 when i was there the first time. And yeah, i also often think that zone could need a revamp to more solo content and some nice questlines like they did with most other outdoor-zones. Even back in 2005 you mostly made the journey to the porter from time to time, made the heritage quests, but at the end mostly people were only there to farm the goblins for City Tasks.

[Typhonian]

Shalla@Valor wrote:

The teleporter was there from the very beginning, at least from March/Febuary,2005 when i was there the first time. And yeah, i also often think that zone could need a revamp to more solo content and some nice questlines like they did with most other outdoor-zones. Even back in 2005 you mostly made the journey to the porter from time to time, made the heritage quests, but at the end mostly people were only there to farm the goblins for City Tasks.

As far as I can work out, that's all people use it for nowadays.

On my server (AB), you find a great deal of people killing goblins in the first area off the beach, one or two further in in the second goblin area across the bridge, perhaps one in the next area with the noxious emissions, and no one, apart from the occasional lvl 70 harvesting, in the rest of the zone. I spent three hours one evening getting through the temple and questing in West Lavastorm, and didn't meet a single other soul there in my whole time.

Its a shame, as the zone has, like Everfrost, great potential. Thematically, its one of the most atmospheric zones in the game, but it really needs either two additional spawn points (one north of the Goblet of Ro, and one in West Lavastorm), or else it needs a way of getting to West Lavastorm much more quickly, like perhaps a tunnel extending backwards from the Banner of Might spawn point behind the first lava pits up on the first ledge.

And West Lavastorm itself, especially near the Avatar of Flame looks as if it was hurridly finished off without much attention paid to it - large areas of flat ground with only the occasional repetitive mob.

[einar4]

 The zone is underutilized because even with a group it is a tedious pain to get through it.  Agro yard trash is one thing, but to have yard trash that is heroic ^^^ stuff is just pointless.  It doesn't have to be made into a solo zone, just make it so that a group can get through the trash easier and get to the fun things.

 Challenge doesn't mean just populating a zone with wall to wall heroic mobs... put some sense into it, make it a working zone that people can have fun in, not a grind zone that takes an hour of mindless grinding just to get anywhere.  It is a 40+ zone after all, make it fun for replayability potential of alts and newbies.