Focused Feedback: Travel Updates: Base Teleportation, Long Range Teleporter Accolade, Special TP Powers

[Tad Cooper]

I figured the idea with removing the VIP pass and the auction house powers was to appease people like me who were complaining that there were too many powers. There are still enough that the menu is a welcome addition, but the missed clicks argument resonates with me. Three ways to get in to bases from practically anywhere (five with day job charges, which seem to load up pretty quickly, or at least faster than I thought) every 10 minutes seems very usable to me in a small amount of testing.

 

I really appreciate the change to the faster animation. I'm also wicked hyped about the popmenu "PowerReady" addition that was just added and is used in the new menu. That's gonna be super useful.

 

I'm not thrilled that MoMLTF is about to get even more annoying, but I appreciate that saying, "Ha ha, I'm a time traveler. Screw you guys I'm out!" in mission 2 is probably against the spirit of the thing. Guess I'll have to figure out how you're actually supposed to leave that map... I don't think I've ever seen anyone do it.

[RoboKnight]

The GM-only command /enterbasefrompasscode is no longer available for players to use unconditionally, and can now only be used:
        Within 45 feet of a base portal (including the new summoned portals)
So it's basically useless once i27 goes live then.
You might as well just click on the base portal itself.

[Ironblade]

24 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

It's not a super big deal, but I'd prefer to keep the Pocket D TP as well.

Me too.  😞

In anticipation of this update, I went through all my characters and had them spend the time in Pocket D to get the power.  Also, Pocket D just seemed different and special.  I mean, I have the actual, physical Pocket D VIP Pass sitting on my desk right now.

 

On the other updates:

 

The Fast Travel Menu is nothing less than spiffy!  The icon is cool; the menu is simple and well-implemented and it elegantly addresses the issue of taking up tray space.  Bravo.

QUESTION:  I never had any of these in my tray - I use keybinds.  Since the menu calls the powers by text, I assume using keybinds for the powers will be unchanged.  Is that correct?

 

Long Range Teleporter - Can't complain.  My first thought was getting just a single exploration badge made it too easy, but if we replace "too easy" with "casual friendly" I think it makes it easily accessible to a lot of players who would never even consider trying to get all the zone accolades.  And after leaving enterbasefrompasscode in the game for so long, this should satisfy most people.

 

All helicopters to and from PvP zones are now connected.  Damn.  I never gave that a single thought, yet it makes perfect sense and makes things much simpler.  Everyone will have their favorite helicopter location to use for all the zones.

 

So. . . absolutely brilliant second pass on the update.

[ShardWarrior]

39 minutes ago, Blackbird71 said:

On the changes in general, the problem that remains is the limitation of power use - specifically the charges needed for each use, and the opportunity cost of recharging these in place of working towards other day jobs.

The solution to having too many powers needed for travel is NOT making a specific travel power menu, it's making it so that only a handful of powers at most would be needed for effective travel.  Give the players options, let them choose which powers they want to acquire and use, but make sure that at most only 2-3 powers are needed to do the job.

Agree with this.  If we need a pop-up menu for the various travel to type powers, we probably have too many.  Discussing this among friends in game, someone asked a good question - how easy is all of this going to be for a new player?

Edited October 31, 2020 by ShardWarrior

[skoryy]

What's the difference between Pocket D having its own button and Pocket D being on the LRT list?  An extra click?

[Ironblade]

1 minute ago, skoryy said:

What's the difference between Pocket D having its own button and Pocket D being on the LRT list?  An extra click?

Mainly that, as a separate power, it would have its own recharge.

[Jimmy]

Just now, Ironblade said:

Mainly that, as a separate power, it would have its own recharge.

Right, but in comparison to live this is not something that has been lost - in fact, the cooldown is much shorter.

[Ironblade]

5 minutes ago, RoboKnight said:

The GM-only command /enterbasefrompasscode is no longer available for players to use unconditionally, and can now only be used:
        Within 45 feet of a base portal (including the new summoned portals)
So it's basically useless once i27 goes live then.
You might as well just click on the base portal itself.

Almost.  A lot of people (myself included) have set up macros or keybinds for multiple bases.  This way they will still work.

[Ironblade]

4 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

Right, but in comparison to live this is not something that has been lost - in fact, the cooldown is much shorter.

But - if we're talking about two separate powers, you can use them back to back.  Consolidated into one power, they share a cooldown.

 

Edit:  And SENTIMENTAL VALUE!  😛

Edited October 31, 2020 by Ironblade

[ShardWarrior]

Hate to sound like a broken record so I apologize, but do we really need 4 different base port powers?  Would it not be easier to just make one? 

[Jimmy]

Just now, Ironblade said:

But - if we're talking about two separate powers, you can use them back to back.  Consolidated into one power, they share a cooldown.

The LRT accolade does not exist on live though.

As far as a live is concerned, Pocket D has just been updated with new functionality, you're not losing out on having two separate cooldowns unless you were the <2% of players who had LRT in their build.

[QuiJon]

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. 

 

 

[Pzn]

The new update fixes the issues I had with the changes entirely.  The changes to the p2w sg portal make it an adequate replacement for the macro without needing to mess with badging.   Thank you for listening to feedback and making it more convenient for those of us with many alts.

 

[Mystic Fortune]

23 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

Right, but in comparison to live this is not something that has been lost - in fact, the cooldown is much shorter.

 

15 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

The LRT accolade does not exist on live though.

As far as a live is concerned, Pocket D has just been updated with new functionality, you're not losing out on having two separate cooldowns unless you were the <2% of players who had LRT in their build.

 

...but it's not the same thing, no matter how you want to spin it. You are removing the Pocket D VIP pass and adding it's destination to the Long Range Teleporter.

 

Two entirely different powers. Both of which existed together in the previous beta build.

 

If, say you had other, more exciting plans for the Pocket D VIP pass planned for the future. I guess that would be a somewhat valid reason... but that doesn't seem to be the case here. The reason being provided is a chance to arbitrarily consolidate some options.

Edited October 31, 2020 by Mystic Fortune

[skoryy]

2 minutes ago, Mystic Fortune said:

You are removing the Pocket D VIP pass and adding it's destination to the Long Range Teleporter.

 

Two entirely different powers. Both of which existed together in the previous beta build.

I'm still at a loss as to why consolidating two powers that do the same thing is a problem, when we're in the same thread discussing that we might have too many buttons.

[Ironblade]

6 minutes ago, skoryy said:

I'm still at a loss as to why consolidating two powers that do the same thing is a problem, when we're in the same thread discussing that we might have too many buttons.

Well, it was two different groups of people making each of those arguments.  Plus, the new Fast Travel menu solves the too many buttons issue.  The Pocket D Teleporter would just be one more option in the pop-up menu.

[Mystic Fortune]

If you start down that avenue, you might as well consolidate the Mission Transporter and Team Transporter, because just like Pocket D VIP pass and Long Range Teleporter are being compared. Mission Teleporter and Team Transporter do basically the same thing... or Base Transporter and Supergroup Portal for that matter.

Edited October 31, 2020 by Mystic Fortune

[skoryy]

1 minute ago, Mystic Fortune said:

If you start down that avenue, you might as well consolidate the Mission Transporter and Team Transporter, because just like Pocket D VIP pass and Long Range Teleporter are being compared. Mission Teleporter and Team Transporter do basically the same thing... or Base Transporters and Supergroup Portal for that matter.

I mean, that's not totally unreasonable.  If you cut down on the recharge time, they're still up fast while you solve the too many buttons problem.

[Mystic Fortune]

2 minutes ago, skoryy said:

I mean, that's not totally unreasonable.  If you cut down on the recharge time, they're still up fast while you solve the too many buttons problem.

I was being sarcastic...

[Lines]

14 minutes ago, skoryy said:

I'm still at a loss as to why consolidating two powers that do the same thing is a problem, when we're in the same thread discussing that we might have too many buttons.

It's because you can't please everyone.

 

I'm lucky to be one of the pleased ones, though.

[RoboKnight]

52 minutes ago, Ironblade said:

Almost.  A lot of people (myself included) have set up macros or keybinds for multiple bases.  This way they will still work.

One big selling point of the base tp macro's is being able to go to your base from anywhere in the game. 45 feet away is pretty much just clicking distance & still makes them useless. You might as well just enter the code manually instead.

Edited October 31, 2020 by RoboKnight

[ShardWarrior]

17 minutes ago, Mystic Fortune said:

If you start down that avenue, you might as well consolidate the Mission Transporter and Team Transporter, because just like Pocket D VIP pass and Long Range Teleporter are being compared. Mission Teleporter and Team Transporter do basically the same thing... or Base Transporter and Supergroup Portal for that matter.

That is actually not a bad idea at all.  Again, they both do the same exact thing, so do we really need both?

[Keen]

The Pocket D VIP Pass was kind of cool because it would TP you inside the VIP Lounge. I won't miss it terribly, just stating that its theme was interesting. I suspect the band despawn issues were due to the anti-gank mechanics that would also despawn things like Practice Dummies in RWZ.

[Lines]

2 minutes ago, RoboKnight said:

One big selling point of the base tp macro's is being able to go to your base from anywhere in the game. 45 feet away is pretty much just clicking distance & still makes them useless. You might as well just enter the code instead.

Months ago, when devs first talked about removing the command, one prevalent response was not to remove the functionality that allowed people to manage multiple bases through macros. For example, it's especially helpful for roleplayers who use bases as scenes.

 

I'm not one of those people who might ever need the command, but I'm glad it's there and the transition will hopefully be smooth for those who will use it that way.

[ABlueThingy]

12 minutes ago, RoboKnight said:

One big selling point of the base tp macro's is being able to go to your base from anywhere in the game. 45 feet away is pretty much just clicking distance & still makes them useless. You might as well just enter the code manually instead.

I believe the point is that now you can get a power to summon a base portal in any zone, once summoned you can use the macro to instantly pop into a base of your choosing.

 

If I understand it all correctly