QuiJon

The least useful one because it only takes you to one zone with limited exit options. Which then obligates you to do badge work which honestly shouldnt be required and precludes possibly lower level toons from getting it to be useful because by game design a lower toon shouldnt be running say Peregrine Island yet but by other game design might be SKd with a higher level team. So sure in some cases might be great, for others might not be. At a 1million influence cost which again gates the ability for lower level toons or people that dont have fat stacks of cash on hand. See above only worse, 10m influence cost but same issue gate kept behind a pay way, even if it is made up money it is money many people might need for other purposes. 1m pay wall, see above and the least useful because of the recharge time you are basically only paying for a fast travel power. IMO not the most useful power unless you are on a team with other people that have it. So if you are in a active SG that do TF and SF and people buy it then great makes those times go really fast when you have to do a shard TF or something. However otherwise not really that useful at 1 per 30 minutes for solo play or on a PUG where you are the only one that has it, it really only saves a couple minutes a use. And again pay wall might gate keep it from players. I am not saying the day job is required, but it feels like the design principle you are all looking at also is assume that every one will have everyone of these powers when in fact many players might not. Which is why i say get rid of the first "base teleport" power, combine it with the SG Portal power and make that the entry point. I think no cost but if you must no more then 1m, but less is better, and a 5minute or less recharge. (figure combining 2 powers that had 10 minute recharge makes it equally as useful as those 10 minute timers were) and then that way all players start with equal access at a usable level to replace the slash command at no cost to them. Or just leave the list as is, but cut recharge on base teleport for player to 5 minutes and make it free for every character in a SG. THEN if they want more then that it is a choice for the player. And i am sorry i just noticed after the first quote i was selecting off Lockpicks post after that, this thread was not directed at him. Sorry.

No one is saying that not playing the game with that character is effort. They are saying it imposed a limitation on playing should you desire to build up that characters charges on that power. What if i am running out of charges but am trying to finish my other day job locations? Hell i would almost rather they just make it cost like 1m influence for a 30 recharge power with the 30 second timer. At least if i was running low or out of charges i dont have to park a character i might otherwise be wanting to play to get the charges filled.

But the over all functionality is lacking. We either face longer recharges for the most useful tools, limited charges, cost in influence, cost in time to badge etc. Giving us 5 different tools and then crossing you fingers no one has a problem or can not meet the requirements to obtain them is not as much coverage as just giving people a tool that matches what is being taken away from the one they are previously using. Something i would propose would be more like : 1. p2w vendor as a free power. Base transporter. Takes you alone to your base. 1-2 minute recharge 2 second activation. 2. LRT Free with one explorer accolade 10 minute zones unlocked with obtaining one badge from the zone. 3. SG Base Portal P2w vendor 1m cost opens portal for you and team to go to base 10 minute cool down. 4. Mission transporter p2w 1m cost transports only you to your next mission door 20 minute cool down. 5. Team mission transporter p2w 10m cost transports you and team to next mission door 30 minute cool down. The day job powers become just a bonus if you earn them but not needed to get, leave in the vip pocket D portal just for shits and giggles. But in this way EVERYONE can get the most useful power for nothing just like they get now with a slash command but it wont have the exploits. Then if you want to boost that, you can do the work for the LRT but you dont need to if you dont want to but will gain you the ability to skip loading to your base to get to a new zone so is worth the time if you choose. Then SG portal every 10 minutes for sort of cheap. Mission teleporter is useful not as often but takes you strait to door. Team transport useful even less often but takes whole team to the door. So you automatically get a basic useful power and can choose to make your travel easier from their based on spending or time.

But still less then you have right how in homecoming as they currently operate.

Ok so even with this idea of to many travels and we get a tray for them stuff, it still occurs to me that we are adding in a power to make it so that 2 powers give us mostly exactly what we have been asking for. Base teleporter is 1m from p2w vendor and transports you to your base with a 10 minute recharge (down from 30) SG Portal opens a portal to your base with the only real difference i can gather is it is usable by other people. 10 minute recharge but cost 10m Ok first of all i think 10m to get a base portal is insane to begin with. However in the end both these powers are mostly granting the same thing ease of travel to your base to use transporters or whatever reason. So why not just combine them. Even if you leave it at a 1m (but i think cheaper is better) just make one power that opens the portal usable by anyone while open. With both on a 10 minute recharge means they could each be used 6 times an hour, add that divide into 60 minutes and you get a 5 minute recharge which is what people have been asking for anyway. So i can do 1m per toon if i need to, it combines two different powers and negates the need to play recharge bingo and really doesnt give us anything that the two powers were not already giving us acept a bit more convenience maybe for team members to use our bases.

Ok well a bit to unpack. So a step in the right direction with the changes to LRT. I do like that it only requires 1 accolade to unlock however i would say that after that I kind of still on premise for some reason dont like i have to get a badge in any zone i want to go do. Yes it is not a huge investment, and i guess overall its doable even if you dont really badge the toons. But it does still feel like, intentionally or not, we were given a great QoL improvement and now are told its gone and work for it. But like i said a step in the right direction. I still say that no matter what else changed the p2w base portal should be free or alot less then 1m more like 10k, and have a 5 minute cool down. This is honestly the closest power we are being offered to replacing ebfp. I think of itself it should be able to carry most all the weight that people used the slash command for and it should be at little to no cost to get it. At 5 minutes it doesnt break anything. It still only takes you to your base from which would have have to either use LRT or a teleporter to get to the zone you want to go to and then travel from there to your door. It doesnt allow for the skipping of travel completely like the other porters from pw2 do that cost more and have a large cool down. Essentially giving it a 5 minute timer wont change anything from how the game has performed for the last year or more so i dont see a reason why not to get close to what players had and liked, even if you want to now say allowing the slash command to be kept was a mistake, it wasnt the players mistake i dont think within reason we should have to pay for it. I think between Ouro and the p2w base at 5 minutes and then LRT if you choose to get it and use it, that we can reasonably keep our QoL travel to be able to travel to base between missions if we like, LRT every mission or 2 if we need to and if we need more hop into Ouro and come out at talos to a tram or a tunnel (or the equivalent villain zone). But nit picks aside it is a step in the right direction.

It still would be missed. I have a few toons that i have explorer badges on. I have not read a badge plaque since 2004. And frankly i think i stopped reading those half way through the city also. Clicking a badge plaque or getting an explore badge that you never read still doesnt teach someone the lore. The people that dont care to know it still wont read it, and those that do already know it. So making explorer badges by way of a tour guide or just a requirement for a travel power still doesnt accomplish that goal unless you figure on adding a test afterward to make sure the players have learned it all.

And what makes you think the people complaining about the change just dont "know" they would be having fun? I was playing this game in april of 2004 when your only travel mode was your travel power and a tram network that didnt even go to some places. And you didnt get full travel powers untill level 14. Super group bases were not even around when when they were smaller SG didnt even have full transporters because you actually had to play to earn the resource to buy them and doing so cost you influence during game play. Many of us have played the jump through hoops, how to get here or there BS that this new system wants to impose on us, and we are complaining because we found it detracted from our fun. And most of us have played with what we consider a QoL improvement not an exploit (because we didnt exploit it and not being admin it was just a means of travel to us) and we know we had more fun with the QoL improvement that the slash command gave us. None of us i dont think are saying to leave and exploit in the game, we are just saying it seems we should be able to keep the QoL and plug the exploit. Because that is what we KNOW we found the most fun for us. And we are trying to offer solutions within that spirit.

Only problem with that option really is that having not been able to get your next mission before exiting you dont know if you want to leave the zone when exiting the mission. But hey more options the better i guess.

I sort of disagree with just adding a base teleporter. I mean i am fine with adding one, but that still leaves you with having to do a second load screen to just get to the base. However allowing the exit of Ouro to go to any zone, or maybe anything but hazard zones, might be ok. Still one load to Ouro and one to the zone you want to go to, and if you do need a hazard zone then you can hop to your base. Not quite as flashy as having a base portal do the exact same thing, but the mechanic is already in the game for the ouro portal, its already at a reasonable recharge rate and now since you can get the ouro portal for free at level 1 it kinds of fills the gap then leaving you to choose to pick up any of the base powers you want to your own decisions. Nice idea, something i had not thought of.

I am saying that to obtain and use all these powers means having to prioritize how i am playing the game, something that is commonly not done. For example i can PL a character in AE just fine. I can also get to level 35 and sneak into PUG ITS at +4 on kill mosts and get 4-5 levels in 45 minutes. But if they took all xp out of the AE they are choosing for me now how i play the game. To get all these overlapping powers to fill in a complete slash command use as they have stated it, means if i want the low recharge powers i have to choose to earn those badge but also give up earning other badges to keep them in use. It also means i have to choose to NOT play that toon to earn them in the first place, which means when starting out any alt you would have to park it to earn the powers and not play it. Making a choice for me of what character i want to play vs giving up progress for the power. Oh but i could use LRT, sure but again not so simple. To make it as complete as a base transporter might be means earning the majority of all the explorer badges in the gave save for a few odd zones. That then commits me if i want that to badging, something i dont do on every character i make but for this power would have to. We are the better way to the second anniversary of this game being out again. We all have a ton of alts we have made, even if i just took my top .... 15 lets say that i really really care for and say i want all these thigns on just those 15 i bet with my free time to play we are talking the better part of a week to do all the explorer badges, plus the influence, and frankly most probably have already been logged off around bases to earn those badges, but if i was making a new toon there is what atleast a week of not playing to get that up and running for a toon also. I date back to when we used to have to fly from the north of IP and then take the tram to brickstown and to the gate to south IP because there was only 1 tram in IP and no SG bases to teleport us. I remember having to agro a monster in the hive after hami raids to kill me to travel back to the top of Founders Fall to hop out the gate to Talos because there was no tram in FF and with no bases had to fly from Hive, through Eden, through FF to get back to talos otherwise. I get how to jump around the city quickly i remember doing it, i just dont relish going back to having to do it. What we have now IMO works nicely and balances between the travel power and teleport nicely when going between zones. You can hop to a base for the big trip and then into a new zone and then have to use your travel power. It isnt i cant go back it is why should we need to. Other then it being a exploited slash command the freedom is gives us doesnt break the game, just let us keep it.

No it is not the end of the world. But as you say i have to choose to log off in a certain place, well what if i want to earn the other day jobs now i cant to keep that power working. Sure 1 million influence doesnt sound like a lot, and it isnt cause i farm. For others it might be. Especially for anyone new to the game and then suddenly teams will have to be waiting for those that dont have it to catch up all the time. And really the biggest question i have been asking and no one seems to want to answer is yes it is not the end of the world, neither would be giving us a power like that 1m portal power for free with a 30 second cooldown and then suddenly we have the complete functionality of what we would be losing with the slash command being turned off. So why do we have to do "its not the end of the world" instead of "fix the exploit and give the players the QoL we let them get used to "?

The problem comes in that your other "powers" in case of an oops all come at a cost. That new transporter is like 10m i think you said. well if i have 30 characters i play that is 300m influence to buy that for them all, then there is the 1m dollar one also, now i am up to 330m. (keeping in mind last major patch you cut my ability to farm influence by about a third to half.) Oh but i guess i can just use the free LRT right? Well no not unless i have spent and afternoon farming through explorer badges for that toon i might not be able to get to where i want to go. And that is 30 toons of explorer badges to farm because they are not account wide either. But if i am lucky i could have spent 2 weeks NOT playing my toons so as i can earn the day job badges that give me the best flexibility in recharge times but have a limited amount of uses and to earn more means leaving the toon logged out for long periods of time and not being able to earn new badges while i am doing it. So why not cut the 10 minute recharge to 5. Now i have a portal to open and if i make a mistake i have ouro portal still i can use to hop to a zone to catch a quick tram or tunnel or at least i can do only 1-2 zones to make LRT do that for me as well and that flexibility of use is back and my ability to fill in the gaps doesnt come at the expense of time, influence, and being able to play the parts of the game i wish to play with the time i have to play. That doesnt mean the other powers cant be there, it just means it becomes my choice if i want to take the time to earn them or not.

First off, thank you for replying with some idea of intent to pepper into this conversation. I think it is important to know from what angle the devs were approaching this beyond the "they obviously dont want to do that" being offered by those that think it is ok to speak for you all. I am sure it is very easy to look at data and get to the idea that a number like 1-2 every 10 minutes is a the goal. However the problem with averages is that they are not always true. For example i can come out of a mission and have not gotten a phone and be told to go back to contact which is in another zone. 1 travel through base. Then at that contact be told to go to a fed ex mission in another zone. That makes 2 travels in short progression. Then unpon reaching that one by way of teleporter in base be told to go to yet another zone for a door mission, now that is 3. And hey maybe i get to that door and it is a mission i can stealth to the end of.... there is 4. All that i could finish in 10 minutes. And perhaps after that having gotten the phone maybe a go and hour or more in the same zone without having to use a porter at all. But even if it was enough i would still have to spend 1m per character i create, and explore badge hunting for every zone i want to port to on every character i want that convenience on. And then you say oh well the day job powers then give you flexibility. But for how long. 27 day job locations need to be logged off at a week for each one. So even if i logged off at those two first to get my 60 charges, it is likely i could run out before the next 6 months of day job earning gets me all the badges which means to keep them charged i have to choose to not earn new badges to keep a utility power open. IMO i dont see why the p2w base portal thing can not be a freebie when you belong to a super group and put on a 5 minute recharge. Now between ouro and that you have some basic utility with no further time or cost. And then if i want to do the badging etc for the rest i can do it, but i dont have to do it for every character if i dont want to. And frankly i get the idea of trying to match the use paterns, but does it really cost anything to exceed them? I mean really it is no skin off anyone's nose if the power is up more often then it is needed right? You also mention that a problem that was not known but is now is the number of teleport and travel options that are duplicate fill power slots. However I think you might find that one reason why everyone was so happy with the slash command was that it negated that need. The slash command gave the option to make a macro for your own base that took up one power slot. So there was no need to slot wentworth or base tele or any of those other powers. And though i get the idea of wanting a power to be useful, cutting the time for recharge on that one portal like i discussed above eliminates the need to over stack your slots with travel utility powers because now just a couple of them will fill all your needs you could ever have. So essentially as you say it is something to look at, well it wouldnt have to be if 1-2 powers did everything for people, it would not matter anymore. For the last year all i have had to slot was my Team Teleport power, Mission Teleport and the Macro for my base entry slash command.

I didnt say it was the reason. I said it appears that way because the first complaints where from pvpers because lets face it no one using it to cheat to get a motf badge for their team is likely going to get complaints about his actions. I am saying the appearance the nerf is pvp related is because it allowed for cheating and we saw those complaints first. But it was said to be a admin command that would eventually be blocked. And even those pvpers that complained were NOT complaining about its use in normal game play only asking for it to be nerfed in pvp.

Honestly i feel that way about a few posters that seem to sure of what the devs intentions are. However i will say this in defense of the "not a pvp nerf", over a year ago is the first time i recall a post about the exploitive nature of the slash command, and it was Macskull's post. And in that post he did say he loved the command otherwise, just wanted its use restricted for pvp. So frankly even if the issue gained notice from the player base as a whole because of the complaints from pvp, i dont think the pvp players wanted to lose the ease the slashcommand offered outside of pvp. Essentially i dont think it was the intention to get it nerfed for all, i think they just wanted to stop people from cheating in pvp. Which can be achieved without all these BS teleport hodge-podge.

No they didnt. Is it free to get with no hoops? It is unlimited in how many uses it gets? It is on a reasonable 5 minute recharge timer? No they dont have to give us a reason, but it would be nice for them to at least treat us as partners in this endeavor. I get that they are the devs, i wont agree with every decision made. I also get they have lives outside of this game. But many of us get together every month and donate the funds needed to keep these servers up and running. And though i dont believe that gives us a right to exactly what we want, i do believe it should be taken into account when looking at QoL issues like this. Giving us the one tool we asked for if it is not breaking any other thing and can be done easily should be the starting point of a change not revamping 5 different powers requiring more work and trouble from us and have its ease of use based on an eventual "pass" at changing another mechanic in the game that might be years off for all we know. This is not live, we are all grown up now, i dont need more time sinks in my life. A response a few times from Jimmy has been "its been 4 days, we have jobs" I coudlnt agree more with that statement. Which is why a system that requires a player to badge the entire city on every toon, put off earning day job badges that already would take half a year to get them all at normal rates to keep teleporters charged up and sit through twice as many loading screens etc i find to be a horrible solution to the problem that had an easy elegant solution right in front of us. And i have a right to make that my feedback as do others no matter how many times you or Mac or someone wants to tell us we are wrong. And look if they wanted to avoid these kind of debates after the fact, then ask us when they first adress an issue. They could have put out a pool or asked us before they put work into this how we would like to resolve it and give us the options they had. And who knows if they did that maybe someone would suggest something that made everyone happy that they didnt even think of.

Honestly the problem with these powers was not the interrupt time itself. Though that did seem kind of high. It is what interrupted them. If i recall correctly just someone opening a orro portal near you when the animation was going would stop your teleport. Which is kind of common as you come out of a mission you or someone might go to their base, someone else to the orro portal. It was another reason why the slash command was so easy to use. If these interrupts persist it doesnt really matter how long the interrupt is.

Why should the sum of our experience have to become "tolerable" as the highest achievable standard? My job is "tolerable" that does not mean it is enjoyable. The real big question no one is answering while they defend this is why cant it remain the same? Or similar. I know it can not remain with the slash command but what most are asking for is simple enough. Give us a orro portal for going to our bases. That is it. So while you excuse how tolerable your game experience has become my question is even at this point if they left every teleport change in the game they have made, what would be the problem if we were given a power EXACTLY function like the orro portal that brings up a menu to enter our base or enter a code for another that recharged every 5 minutes? Cause it seems to be the most popular opinion of what people wanted and no reason is being given for why it couldnt have been other then they didnt choose to.

I do get that. My response was not to indicate that we were being ignored but my response was to someone who has responded to several people that it was obvious you all didnt want, for whatever reason, to allow your players to keep the ease of use we had been enjoying. My response was essentially meant to say that the devs have asked us for feedback we are giving it and that if we are not hearing it from the dev team that they wont entertain that wish then it is the option people will keep asking for.

The devs clearly considered that people made maps that exemplared them to level 49 as to get bonuses off both the exempt and that partol xp doesnt get used in AE an exploit. However the difference is that they never really asked for input. That change was stealthed into the game by them with no warning that i recall seeing until it was live on the servers. I dont even recall it being in the beta test notes. They have asked us for feedback on this change. We are telling them what we want and why. They are not telling us anything. As i have said, it would be nice to know the general purpose behind punishing us and taking away the utility the slash command offered when it is not needed to fix the exploit to lose it. You keep saying over and over they have no interest in replacing it well then why. Obviously people liked it. It can be done without exploiting anything, with no pay to win any more there is no monetary reason to lock it away from us. And frankly even if they made a mistake adults own up to them. So lets see a dev say exactly why having instant travel to ones base is a mistake. Sure i get leaving an admin command open was, but the net result what it gave us, why was that a mistake that it can not be replicated now? Why do they feel it is important to make me badge on toons i dont badge, or spend influence on every toon etc, why do i have to hop through all these hoops to be able to avoid watching load screens, which is all this current plan really does, by going this route as has been pointed out, i am being forced to load to a zone i dont want to go to, so i can then load to the base i do want to go to, to then teleport to the zone i want to end up in. Where currently i load to base and go to the zone. Only different is a big pain in the ass setting it all up and then having to watch one extra load screen every time i travel. Seems idiotically stupid imo to punish the players for what you call the dev teams mistakes when the ultimate result is inconsequential to game play. The AE influ nerf i might not have liked or agreed with, but at least you can say it actually had an effect on game play on the servers. This has no effect on our game play just our travel times and load times.

First of all no, they are not replacing an "exploit". There is a game mechanic that was supposed to be an admin command for admins that some how was set for players. That is not an exploit, its an oversight perhaps but not an exploit. The exploit is in how people used it. To escape death. The question comes from the point that they left the command available for use for over a year. It could have been removed instantly. But it was not. Therefore that shows that in and of itself using this power for convenience of travel, role playing etc. was not considered to be breaking any game theory for the devs. And you are right, powers have controls, endurance costs, recharge rates, interupt times etc. However when you look at what the slash command allowed being the only thing the devs ever defined to us as an exploit was using it in pvp and MoTF to escape death and associated penalties it would make sense then to deisgn the replace to work as closely as possible to the slash command but be unexploitable. So what would i suggest? Easy, a portal drop power just like Orro portal. Only upon clicking this portal you get a prompt just like you do at any public base portal to either enter your base or enter a passcode for another base. You could put it on a 5 minute cool down just like orro and put limits to its use on MoTF and pvp zones that prevent the exploits. Really simple and not over complex honestly. And either give it to everyone or make it a p2w for like 1m or something affordable. Maybe people have suggested that on this new system that what is the big deal, you can just orro to Talos and all the major trains and tunnels and base portals are there for you. It is just adding one or two more loads. Well they are right. However my question is, if i can still jump to orro and then immediately leave and go to talos and then jump into my base and go wherever i want, what good reason is there to force me to go back to doing that rather then just give us the button to easily skip strait into my base? I still am not playing. I still am safe from attack all you are doing is forcing me to watch 1-2 more load screens to get to where i will have to rely on my travel power to get to my final door for a mission anyway. And for people that have older computers or bad internet adding more load screens is really just a punitive response to fixing this issue. But even for those of us that luck out with few issues, it isnt adding anything to the play time it is only adding load screens.

And so what exactly is the problem with replacing the old slash command with a new power that doesnt have the exploitability of the slash command but 100 percent of the functionality?? I mean you sit back and say you dont think they were interested in doing that. Well why not? The one thing missing from this conversation is what were the devs motivations for going this insanely unpopular route? I know that is a very slanted view but lets face facts, for over a year now this discussion has been going on that the slashcommand was 1. not ever intended for general use and that 2. the devs were leaving it available while they sought out a resolution. This indicates to me a few things. First that obviously yes at some point the slash command would be going away in that form. It would because as an instant power it was to ease to exploit as an escape button. (i know other things have come up but since they are not public and i dont know what they are i cant discuss them) But the very idea that these escape buttons had been brought forward and the command was not instantly turned off also indicates that the devs knew of the commands popularity, and DIDNT feel that is broke the game to leave open while they crafted their fix for it. We were being told that the devs were looking for a way to keep something as functional without the exploits. And when that came to pass the command would be removed. I dont want to act like i am calling out the devs here cause i am not. But the one thing that seems to be missing from this conversation is WHY. For over a year of people using the command, making centeral travel hubs and role players using it for their reindeer games I think it became really obvious to anyone that at its most basic level the slash command was popular and other then pvp and MOTF didnt really break anything. So when you go into a room or whatever and start throwing around ideas on how to fix the slash command issue how do we arrive at this mixed up pool of powers as a fix that wont even allow for the most basic use of the slash command in the first place without committing players to doing extra things or giving up things they do already do. I feel like a bunch of smart guys and gals would have started out with the idea of just "hey orruo portal but opens the base" as the very first idea. It is simple, fills in all the wants and doesnt require a rework of a quarter of a different system mechanic and doesnt require anything new of the players. So i feel like to go from that to what they are presenting has to have some reason behind it why they think it is needed to make our lives more difficult (in game anyway) by implementing the changes/fix in this manner. And i would be interested in hearing that logic. After all it is kind of hard to provide feedback if we are told the command represents a certain set of problems and we are arguing those points and fixes only to find out that the developers were trying to fix an entire different issue.

Most of the time these are people that have been playing since the game came back. They are playing on old computers with little to no current support or live in areas that just get crappy internet service. But the point remains adding extra loading to these people is essentially a punishment as a solution to a non-problem for everyone else. I have seen some people that say "oh well i can live with it" i have seen no one yet post "good i want to waste a ton of time traveling and jogging through multiple load screens to get to where i wanted to go." I see no reason to defend this convoluted hodgepodge of a fix rather then just allowing players to keep an easy option for travel they had been allowed to grow accustom to without the exploits attached. If a minor subset of players dont like having base transport be easy, guess what, they dont have to use it right? Isnt that always the argument for everything else? If you dont like farming then dont farm. If you dont want to play the market then dont do it. If you dont want to badge then dont. If you want or dont want double xp take your pick. But now suddenly its dont fast travel to base unless you badge, unless you maintain the charges on the badges. No fast travel unless you endlessly spend time gathering explorer badges on multiple characters etc.

LFG is only available as a solo player. If you are on a team it wont work.