Re: Free playing areas
@TheSprinter85In regard to the free roam zones, my idea would indeed be for us to be able to visit them from our neighborhood whenever we liked. Just logon to the game, pop up in the base in your neighborhood on the last character you played, switch sides/characters if you want to, and then hop into whatever transport system they have in the game for such purpose; I'm thinking of having Penny for the Plants and the Zomboss airship for the zombies with a menu to select where to go instead of separate options like in BfN, which were neat but if they add as many zones as I would want to see, it would crowded in your neighborhood in a hurry, and have go play in your chosen zone!
I would imagine 3 zones per side at launch and more added later (maybe even for sale if the game is buy to play, as they would be fun and would more content to enjoy, but wouldn't adversely affect game balance as you can't buy power in the game, and I'm trying different ideas for the game to be sustainable for years so we keep getting new content and support). You could jump in solo, in a group with up to 4 friends, in an open group like Ops in GW and GW2 where anyone can jump in, or you could do a search for open groups looking for more in a particular zone or any for your current chosen side.
It's important that the zones have a lot to do and have reasons to go back, I'm even pondering the idea that while most stuff you unlock is at Rux with coins and buying additional copies of consumables is also at Rux, that perhaps consumables keyed to a free roam zone can only be unlocked and bought in that zone for the zone currency, but that may be too restrictive. I still want it to always be desirable to visit the zones though, so having fun, repeatable activities in the zones is a must.
I feel that the free roam zones in BfN, while initially amazing, wore off after you finished the zones and the story lines in them are just too short. I also would like them to have more active and varied spawn, instead of the fixed spawns we have in BfN. Skirmishes help, but they also feel a bit too predictable. I'd add big zone wide events, more active gnomes, having a lot more AI mob variety, more puzzles, and so on.
Basically for the free roam zones, take what we have in BfN and expand upon it. I know I sound like a broken record at times, but the free roam zones must have taken a ton of effort to make and that effort feels wasted once you finish them and only return to get some XP, we don't even need to break stuff for coins and region currency anymore. This is an area where they can look at something like Warfframe where you always have a reason to visit their instances and their version of free roam zones several times and always feel rewarded.
