[Zone Travel Updates in Issue 27]

42 minutes ago, AboveTheChemist said:

It should be fairly easy to tack a submenu onto the fast travel menu that uses the LockedOption mechanic to see if a zone has been unlocked as a destination, since the Badge parameter can take multiple badge tags. Something like:

 

LockedOption
{
	DisplayName "Atlas Park"
	Command ""
	Badge AtlasParkTour1 AtlasParkTour2 AtlasParkTour3 AtlasParkTour4 AtlasParkTour5 AtlasParkTour6 AtlasParkTour7 AtlasParkTour8
}

Earning any one of the 8 AP explore badges would show 'Atlas Park' as available. It might need a little reminder at the top that the user needs the Passport badge as well. I'll see if I can come up with a prototype.

Good idea!

I'll PM you the correct list of badges, because it's not a simple 1-8 list for each zone... and there's some spelling errors 🙃

[Zone Travel Updates in Issue 27]

45 minutes ago, majorprankster said:

Welcome to the world of rogue servers where amateur implementations take simple things players love and turn them into convoluted messes and call it progress.

 

Can you honestly say with a straight face that this exploit would've be left alone by a professional team?

Because that's absurd, even for you jubakumbi. It would've been removed immediately with no replacement.

[Zone Travel Updates in Issue 27]

4 minutes ago, cohRock said:

What is "second chance functionality"?  Could these complexities be related to why the power sometimes goes into cooldown even though the player cancelled?  I'm going to speak from ignorance here, and I have no idea if what I say is completely naive.  Could LRT be rethought from a high level?  I am thinking it might be re-implemented as a menu.  Currently the power seems to activate when selected instead of when a destination is chosen.  If it didn't activate until a destination is chosen, would there still be a need for a "second chance"?

The second chance functionality is exactly the thing which prevents it from going on cooldown if you close the menu. What you may be seeing is it going on cooldown if you use the power, close the menu, and then zone through another method. This is intended - well, not exactly intended, but not really something that can be solved.

 

Originally the power went on cooldown immediately, regardless of if you closed the menu or not. Now it can be used again if you close the menu, but only until you zone away. The power isn't able to detect if you use the LRT menu to zone, or some other method.

[Zone Travel Updates in Issue 27]

5 minutes ago, Jacke said:

I think we can all agree that there's now quite a bit of knowledge new players need to learn to play City of Heroes even middlin'ly well.  And that they should be able to get more of that knowledge in the default game as opposed to going outside of it.

 

There's a Tip system being developed to help guide players through a Zone's Badges, but there's so much more.  The existing tutorials, Outbreak/Breakout/Destroyed Galaxy City, as well as the initial mission arcs, like the Shooting Stars arcs, do cover some things, but I think they don't quite cover enough.  And I don't think they're advertised as a tutorial either.  That's important because they aren't required content, so they should have some indication

 

But vital things are not covered.  There's no mention of Reward Merits, except briefly when a toon earns them, same as the first Invention Salvage drop and the first time logging in at a Day Job location.  I think the Shooting Stars missions cover the Auction House in passing, but it may not be enough.

 

Taking a look at the current tutorial system and improving that is something that needs a greater priority.  A new player who's never played or heard of City of Heroes should be offered a good way to get that basic knowledge that will help them play well and better enjoy the game.

I do agree with all of this as well.

 

Remember the game was originally live from 2004 to 2012, an era where YouTube and video guides were nowhere near as prolific. My hope is that once we're able to lift the ban on videos, content creators will produce some video guides for newer players to help fill this gap.

[Zone Travel Updates in Issue 27]

20 minutes ago, cohRock said:

• Reward badgers.  To activate the power, one needs all the exploration badges in at least one zone, earning the exploration accolade (EA) for that zone.  My idea would be to reduce LRT's recharge time by 6 seconds for each EA one has.  For example, if 10 EA, then the recharge time would be reduced by 10*6sec, or one minute. The recharge could be calculated on login, and updated on earning of another EA.  Having just one exploration badge in a zone would still add that zone to the list, but having all the zone's badges would slightly improve the power overall.

Just speaking for myself here - I do like the sound of this, but I'm not sure how feasible it is due to how complex the cooldown for this power already is (we use a very intricate hack to make the second chance functionality work).

[Zone Travel Updates in Issue 27]

1 hour ago, tidge said:

LRT: Quality of Life Suggestion Follows

 

Can the LRT zone interface be modified such that the (accessible by alignment) zones a character does not have access to (because they have not collected the beacon badge) appear in a different font (such as red italic) rather than simply not appearing on the list?

 

Not only would this help players identify which badges they have not collected for the LRT power, but it would double as a nicer mechanism than scrolling through the Exploration tab of the badge window.

11 minutes ago, cohRock said:

• (Easy) Make the list of unlocked zones always available.  Currently, once you use the power, you cannot see the list again until LRT's recharge is complete.  This could be done in at least two ways.  The first is to make the power always available, even during recharge.  The entries in its zone list would be ghosted while recharging.  A possibly easier-to-implement solution is to keep a 2nd zone list in the Detailed Info for the power.  One could simply look at that instead of activating the power itself.  Note:  inconsistently, the power goes into recharge even when [Cancel] is selected.  IMO this is a bug, and the power should not be "used" unless the character actually travels.

Unfortunately none of these specific suggestions are as easy as they sound to implement, but I do agree we need to find a good way to show the list of zones you do and do not have access to without needing to put the power on cooldown.

[Zone Travel Updates in Issue 27]

1 hour ago, ZacKing said:

How many under level 50s will get it?

These are some stats from just Everlasting a few weeks ago, and they aren't entirely accurate as they don't include players who purchased the Pocket D power and don't own one of the accolades:

• 59% of characters at level 50
• 47% of characters at level 32 or above
• 25% of characters at level 10 or above

1 hour ago, ZacKing said:

unlocking all zones on all alts regardless of level and getting it set up with all zones is a lot of hoop jumping in a game that already has too much hoop jumping for accolades, incarnates and such.  now you're adding a big time sink and inf sink for people with a lot of alts.  this kind of stuff was needed for a live, pay to play game, not so much here.

This isn't a fair assessment though, because you didn't have direct connections to every single individual zone before i27 (unless you were using the more extreme version of the exploit). You had access to bases (which had fewer and less convenient drop-off points than they now have). Base access takes a 5 minute tour of a single zone to unlock.

 

Direct access to individual zones requires a bit more investment and is a reward for actually exploring the world. You don't need it, the same way that you don't need purple enhancements or your own personal summoned base portal.

1 hour ago, ZacKing said:

TT SHOULD cost 10 mil and have the recharge it does because it's a direct port for the entire team right to the mission door.  Making the base portal P2W the same price and recharge doesn't make sense at all.  it doesn't operate the same way.  You have to load screen to a base, then load screen to a zone and then travel normally to the mission door.  You're pricing two different things the same even though they don't work the same. 

I agree, teleporting directly to a mission shouldn't be as easily accessible. That's why they don't actually operate the same way.

• Supergroup Portal = 10 million inf, 10 minute cooldown
• Team Transporter = 10 million inf, 30 minute cooldown

This was one of the many changes we made in direct response to feedback during beta, the Supergroup Portal had a 30 minute cooldown originally.

[Zone Travel Updates in Issue 27]

1 hour ago, Lockpick said:

Faultline is not appearing after gathering exploration badges in the zone.  Added to the bug reports forum as well.

That's fixed already, should be in the next patch 🙂

[Zone Travel Updates in Issue 27]

4 hours ago, magicjtv said:

My Feedback

Overall I think these changes are positive, but I do have three complaints.

Hello! Thanks for your feedback.

4 hours ago, magicjtv said:

• Making the accolade power per-toon is extremely burdensome. I have 40 level 50 characters. Multiply that by the number of zones and then by the number of exploration badges in each zone. I'm simply not going to spend weeks getting the travel accolades. A per-account or per-SG solution would be doable from my perspective.

We actually ran the numbers, something like 60-70% of existing level 50 characters should've had access to Long Range Teleporter off-the-bat, and LRT allows you to enter your base using the existing /enterbasefrompasscode command after using it - meaning you only need to go and gather those badges if you wish to teleport directly to those zones without going through a base. If you don't have LRT, it's a quick 5 minute tour around a single zone to unlock it.

 

4 hours ago, magicjtv said:

• Having the base portal drop you off near the train station reduces the value of that portal. I can already get to the train station with the Ouro portal. The base portal taking you to the train adds nothing. In fact, it makes travel worse because I used to be able to pick the train or the portal based on which one was closer to where I was going. In cases where I actually wanted a portal to drop me off near a train, I could use Kings Row.

This is reasonable. I agree that for a few cases - especially for players who had memorized exactly where all the drop off locations were for the various methods of teleportation - this new system can be slightly less convenient. Our goal here however was to make zone travel more consistent, understandable and accessible for all players. Dropping in and out of the same portal location was a big part of that.

4 hours ago, magicjtv said:

• 10 million influence is too much for the SG Teleport. I'll need 400 million just to get my 50s the power. Again, you're asking me to spend weeks on this. And nearly half a billion influence.

This however I'm not sure I agree with, but I think the real issue here is an understanding one. The portal is an additive extra, just like Team Transporter (the power which teleports your entire team to the mission, it also costs 10 million).

 

LRT and Ouro are free, with Base Transporter (teleport self to base) and Mission Transporter (teleport self to mission) both coming in at 1 million each. For just 2 million you can fast travel roughly 5 times every 10 minutes, and that's not including the times you're already close to a base portal. Essentially - the summoned base portal doesn't really speed up your travel. It's a cool toy to have, and can be nice to help your teammates with, but that's about it.

 

This feedback is really helpful though, and it's starting to become clear what one of the biggest problems is - the perception that the summoned base portal is required to access your base remotely, when in fact you can use either Base Transporter or Long Range Teleporter to do this as well. LRT specifically doesn't communicate that it allows you to use /ebfp at all, so unless you've been told it does that, you'd have no idea. This is definitely something we need to improve.

[Issue 27: Second Chances, Page 1 - Out Now!]

12 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

But Jimmy, now you have me double posting.  I look like a forum hog!

You posted the same thing five times yesterday.

 

Fleas shouldn't be allowed to use computers.

[Issue 27: Second Chances, Page 1 - Out Now!]

As a reminder, discussion about the zone travel changes belong in the zone travel thread. I've moved some posts from here to that thread.

[That is Why You Fail]

46 minutes ago, Gavric said:

I have seen the power sets.  This is not about the broken parts of the original game; that's a much longer post.  This is about what the current development team is doing poorly.  Tradition is not the goal.  Improvement is the goal.  They shouldn't be making poor choices because that's what their forebears did.

It’s not broken.

 

Blasters are glass cannons with a mix of ranged and melee attacks. The focus is range, sure, but almost all Blaster secondary sets have a melee component.

 

If you want something purely ranged, other ATs are available, or you can skip the melee powers.

16 minutes ago, Gavric said:

Then fix it in testing, not post-launch.  Don't get people hyped about awesome new content and deliver it with a known bug.

Sorry buddy, but this is over the line.

 

You are more than welcome to provide your critique, but you you aren’t free to make snide comments about minor bugs in content that was developed for free by volunteers over hundreds of hours, especially if you didn’t contribute to the testing process.

[Zone Travel Updates in Issue 27]

Some quick things based on feedback we've seen that'll be in the next patch:

• Fixed the Faultline Long Range Teleporter unlock looking at the badges in Echo: Faultline rather than Faultline proper
• Teleportation powers in P2W now have text descriptions rather than just saying "Buy me!"
• Zones in LRT are now coloured based on their location
  • These colours are just a first pass and can be adjusted - please give us your feedback!

[Stealth nerf to doorways?]

In all seriousness, there's been no change to doorways.

 

We also don't "stealth nerf" things, ever. If something isn't in the patch notes, it's because of one of the following reasons:

1. We forgot it / missed it (almost always this) and it'll be added if someone points this out to us
2. It's an unintended change (ie: a bug) and it'll be fixed if someone points it out to us
3. It's an exploit fix, which we generally do not include in the patch notes until we're confident the fix works and does not need to be rolled back

[Zone Travel Updates in Issue 27]

2 minutes ago, Archiviste said:

Bumping this because I have a similar issue:

 

This character (Beatriz da Fontaine, on Everlasting) had the Rapid Response Member Accolade before I27, but does not have the Rapid Response Portal in her power list (the option is accordingly greyed out in Fast Travel). Do I have to "earn charges" by logging out near a SG portal to make the Accolade power appear ?
 

Answer was delayed a bit:

14 hours ago, Jimmy said:

Sorry, I missed that.

 

The power doesn't appear automatically. Day Job powers require that you be logged out at the relevant destination in order to earn charges. See the Wiki for more info.

 

If you logged in by the base portal after i27, then it would've retroactively counted the time (as Day Jobs are applied based on when and where you log in, not out).

[Zone Travel Updates in Issue 27]

8 minutes ago, Drakwatch said:

Can't you use the /enterbasefrompasscode from inside a base? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the command as it is now has a cooldown, so you could in theory travel to a SG base, use /enterbasefrompasscode and then pop from one base to the next without going back to a different zone. From there you should be able to travel to any zone that the base has a portal to. Is that not what you're looking to do?

This is correct.

 

You can zip between bases instantly, and you can pop in and out of bases easily if you want to use the auction house, as the base beacons now drop you at the base portal.

[Zone Travel Updates in Issue 27]

36 minutes ago, KeepDistance said:

FWIW I read your comment the same way Blackbird71 did. I really don't feel like my feedback on this topic is going to be welcome, so I'm pretty disinclined to give it.

New feedback is always welcome, and will definitely be read. We just don’t appreciate the same posters repeating their arguments and clogging up the forum - that makes it harder for us to see the posts from new contributors such as yourself.

 

I may have overstepped the mark a little with that post. A better explanation of what I was trying to say: the view that anything less than unrestricted access to /ebfp (or something identical) is unacceptable isn’t a helpful position to take, because if your position is that immovable, then there’s simply no discussion worth having.

 

There are, however, many details that we definitely were open to discussing, but obviously the scope for change is far more limited now that the beta is over. I highly recommend engaging in the beta process early if you want your feedback to be considered.

 

An example of one of those topics hotly discussed during the beta phase was the wide variety of options available. Some players wanted to combine everything, and others wanted to keep the variety.

 

Consolidating everything into a single power definitely wasn’t a majority opinion, and it’s important to take all viewpoints into account. Some consolidation was done - Pocket D became LRT instead of remaining a separate option, /ebfp was added to several powers, allowing you to use just that command more often if you want to, and the fast travel menu was added - but it’s a fine line to walk between those who want variety and those who want simplicity.

[Zone Travel Updates in Issue 27]

4 minutes ago, Gunrunner said:

But.  But.  BUT.  We really need to see an in-depth explanation of just what this game-breaking exploit was.  Now it's been leaked that this 'sploit has been around since Live, and I cannot believe it was only recently discovered.  Y'all have to do better then that.  The finest QOL bit that has ever been, has been removed and replaced with a plies of possibly useful replacements, and I for one want to know why.  "Oh, it was never supposed to be there!" simply does not cut it.

See here:

12 hours ago, Jimmy said:

The following change was omitted from the beta patch notes:

• Fixed several exploits with /enterbasefrompasscode and other related commands
  • It was previously possible to enter any map in the game, from any location, at any point in time - even mission maps, bases, and arena matches belonging to other players
  • We aren't going to go into any more detail as these exploits may or may not be functional on other servers

[The Good, the Bad, the Fugly [ issue 27 ]]

4 minutes ago, Twisted Toon said:

I tend to remind people that the devs that are running this game are woefully underpaid volunteers (Who have actual day jobs), when said people are almost demanding wide sweeping changes/additions to the game.

And, to be fair, in the context of the travel changes, this is entirely relevant.

 

If we had proper resources, this would've been fixed up and replaced within weeks - or even days - of it being discovered last year. The only reason there's such an uproar about it now is because we chose to have it remain available until we fixed it because of the side benefits it provided. We could've simply removed it immediately with no replacement - and honestly, if something like this appears again, we will probably do exactly that.

[Zone Travel Updates in Issue 27]

1 minute ago, Blackbird71 said:

You're assuming the base is a transit point and not the destination.

If the base is your destination, then all of these options let you get there, so I'm still not sure what your point is.

1 minute ago, Blackbird71 said:

Reducing feedback and complaints about the complexity of the multiple powers now required to maintain close to the same rate of travel as "I want to cheat," is not only unhelpful to the discussion, but is also just plain rude.

Please don't put words into my mouth. I specifically said "I want to cheat and teleport at any time with zero investment". That's not the same thing as concerns about complexity and implementation. If you read very next sentence, you'll see that.

 

Blackbird, based on your replies here and throughout the beta process, I really don't feel you're discussing this in good faith, so I'm just going to put an end to our exchange here because it's not going anywhere helpful for anyone.

[Zone Travel Updates in Issue 27]

Just now, Blackfeather said:

Speaking about that, I messaged you a little while back in PMs about posting the specific formulas involved with that on the HC Wiki club forum - you mentioned reminding you about it here. Would definitely be interested in seeing them!

Yeah, later this week, I've got a lot to get through, plus I'm actually playing the game on the live servers for the first time in months now that all my test server characters have been mercilessly discarded 🙂

[Zone Travel Updates in Issue 27]

2 minutes ago, Goldieray said:

Where should one post issues/questions like this that are not complaint or counter-complaint?

 

From the patch notes, I thought it was here. But maybe not.

Sorry, I missed that.

 

The power doesn't appear automatically. Day Job powers require that you be logged out at the relevant destination in order to earn charges. See the Wiki for more info.

 

If you logged in by the base portal after i27, then it would've retroactively counted the time (as Day Jobs are applied based on when and where you log in, not out).

[Zone Travel Updates in Issue 27]

1 minute ago, KeepDistance said:

I take this to mean you'll be addressing LFG teleporting too at some point? That is a teleport power that has zero investment, no cooldown, and a plethora of destinations.

Highly unlikely. It's a very messy, very inconvenient system. The downsides of using it (must be solo / quit the team, can't be on a TF, limited destinations, destinations that are level-locked, and a very clunky UI) far outweigh the benefits, and therefore doesn't have anywhere near the same impact on the game. Plus, it wouldn't be simple to decouple it from the other functionality of the LFG menu.

[Beta Server (Brainstorm): Impending Server Wipe in 24 Hours]

Hello!

Due to some oddities that occurred during the i27 testing process, it has become necessary for us to wipe the Brainstorm character database before we can commence any future testing. We will therefore be wiping the database later this week.

 

If you have any costumes or character builds on Brainstorm that you wish to save, please do so now.

 

The wipe will occur no earlier than 1am UTC on Thursday the 26th of November (24 hours from now), so save everything you need before then!

 

 

[Zone Travel Updates in Issue 27]

55 minutes ago, Blackbird71 said:

Which is still not faster than the previously available option.  Faster than other options, yes, but not faster than the fastest option we used to have.

I disagree. The 2s~ cast times are not equivalent to the travel time saved on the other end (or by the brand new teleport destinations). Plus when using LRT you actually save even more time, as you skip the base entirely. A speedrunning team with all the relevant powers will absolutely never not have a portal or team transporter available.

55 minutes ago, Blackbird71 said:

Did you read what you quoted?  That statement was specifically in response to a comment about the Day Job powers, and I was pointing out the drawbacks to those powers specifically.  So far as "mixing and matching," the need to do so is what makes this such a complicated and unnecessary mess.  Plus, it seems to be contradictory to this:

Yes, I did.

 

Your comments are relating to the Day Job powers, and they are calling out intrinsic features present in all Day Jobs, not something unique to these powers that we have added. Once again, you are completely free to ignore the Day Job powers if you don't like them, there's plenty of other options available. Just because you don't like them, we're not going to remove them, because other people do wish to use them.

 

Honestly, feedback on specific components or powers of this system that ignores the wider context just isn't that helpful. Feedback that boils down to "I want to cheat and teleport at any time with zero investment" is also not that helpful, because it's a viewpoint that's fundamentally not shared by anyone on the team. Feedback about implementation absolutely is helpful and we did act on much of it. If you read through the original feedback thread and the many, many changes made since the first beta build (and the potential future developments detailed in this thread), you will see exactly that.

Travel powers exist for a reason. Trainers, stores, and crafting locations exist out in the world for a reason. All of the zones in the game have various connections to each other for a reason. All of these other travel options existed in the live game for a reason. The command obviated huge parts of the game. That's not a good thing. If you think otherwise, then I'm not sure how you ever enjoyed the game during retail.