Zone Travel Updates in Issue 27

[Glacier Peak]

On 11/26/2020 at 4:02 PM, Flintlock Burnfur said:

Maybe it's the fact that I'm 50 years old, but I just don't find the changes made to the way you teleport to a base that big a deal.  I kinda like 'em, and to be honest I would walk to a base porter before using the exploit (there's been a couple of times I used the exploit, but often that was to show off a base when I wasn't on with a character that was in that SG).  Overall, I don't mind the changes.  The only real issues I had was with A) teleport abilities in Mystic Flight and Speed of Sound and both of those still work as before B) the fact that Myst Haven has Echo: Galaxy City as a teleport point and all I need to do is remove that one C) the teleport travel power and I quickly respecced outta that one.

The most reasonable post I have read here. 

 

Edited April 26, 2021 by Glacier Peak

[Grouchybeast]

6 hours ago, Jimmy said:

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.

How about awarding a badge for unlocking each LRT zone?  Then at least they could be in a group in the badge window, and you could scan down the list and see which were missing.

 

Also my badger would get so many new badges the first time they logged in, oh, my God, I'm getting giddy just imagining it.

[Glacier Peak]

1 minute ago, Grouchybeast said:

How about awarding a badge for unlocking each LRT zone?  Then at least they could be in a group in the badge window, and you could scan down the list and see which were missing.

 

Also my badger would get so many new badges the first time they logged in, oh, my God, I'm getting giddy just imagining it.

They could even use the current accolade badges given for acquiring all the exploration badges in each zone and put them in a new category of badges. Maybe Sightseeing? 

[Marshman]

Looks great to me!  Thanks @Jimmy!!!!  Gives plenty of information just on inspection/layout alone.  Very helpful!!!  The true test is if someone who doesn't play and walked in and saw this menu would they be able to mostly figure out whats going on and I'd say yes indeed!

[Jimmy]

44 minutes ago, ZacKing said:

So the majority of characters below 50 will not get this automatically.  That's what was suspected. 

Correct. Nobody ever suggested otherwise, so I'm not sure why this is a surprise. LRT takes about 5 minutes to unlock, and you also get some free XP and merits for your trouble. I seriously struggle to understand what the problem with this is.

46 minutes ago, ZacKing said:

As far as now getting direct access to every zone, thanks but that isn't what some people asked for.  Some of us actually like visiting bases and didn't need a way to bypass them completely. you keep pushing the LRTP thing but again, thanks it wasn't what some of us asked for.   You're ignoring the community that was built around simple access to them. 

LRT allows base access. The very post you quoted mentions this multiple times. Why do you choose to continue to ignore this fact? The only reason I can see is that you wish to continue arguing?

48 minutes ago, ZacKing said:

and Supergroup Portal = 10 million inf.  TT = 10 million inf.  Where is the inf price difference again?  One should cost more than the other because it's a direct drop to the mission door for an entire team.  The other isn't.  you're pricing a Toyota the same as a Ferrari.

This is called moving the goalposts. Let me quote your own words (emphasis mine):

8 hours 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. 

And my response:

6 hours ago, Jimmy said:

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.

See how I clearly responded to your point, and after realising you were incorrect, you decided to simply ignore the facts again.

52 minutes ago, ZacKing said:

I realize I'm talking to a brick wall here, just hoping that next time you all consider actually engaging the community a little more to help flesh out ideas before making sweeping changes. 

No, you're talking from behind a brick wall, and it's obvious that engaging with you any further isn't a good use of anyone's time.

[Jimmy]

2 hours ago, Nerio72 said:

For heaven's sake go cook a turkey man! 🦃

Happy Thankgodwerealmostdonewith2020 Day!

2 hours ago, GM Widower said:

He's British. 😛

I actually was born in the USA... but turkey is a very dull meat, so I'll pass.

 

I much prefer our November tradition. Older countries know how to celebrate in style.

[Widower]

15 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

I actually was born in the USA...

You never told me that!

[Replacement]

3 hours ago, Jimmy said:

And a question: Is this too colourful? Should the text and the background be coloured, or just the background?

Depending on how hard this is to mock up (is this just CSS?), I'd love to see a version with colorful backgrounds but standard white text.  I think it would certainly be playing it more safe with color blind players.

[Nerio72]

23 minutes ago, GM Widower said:

You never told me that!

This

 

Brought to you by @Nerio72

[dominatr37]

So how do I get this mysterious long range teleporter accolade? That's the most important question.

 

[Luminara]

47 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

turkey is a very dull meat

 

Learn how to cook it, instead of killing and eating it in the dirt, silly cat.  It tastes much better when properly smoked and basted.  😛

[Jimmy]

29 minutes ago, Replacement said:

Depending on how hard this is to mock up (is this just CSS?), I'd love to see a version with colorful backgrounds but standard white text.  I think it would certainly be playing it more safe with color blind players.

 

My boyfriend (who's incredibly colourblind) actually had more problems with this, as the darker background colours have much less contrast between them than the bright coloured foreground text.

[Jimmy]

6 minutes ago, dominatr37 said:

So how do I get this mysterious long range teleporter accolade? That's the most important question.

You know, that's a good point. It's not actually mentioned in the main body of the post. I'll add it in shortly.

 

The answer:

On 11/24/2020 at 1:42 PM, Jimmy said:

Long Range Teleporter is unlocked by the Passport Accolade, which can be acquired by earning:

• An exploration accolade in any zone with a Base Portal (see the "Complete Base Portal List" below for reference), or
• The Pocket D VIP Gold Club Member badge (for spending 1 hour in Pocket D)

[Replacement]

1 minute ago, Jimmy said:

<image snip>

My boyfriend (who's incredibly colourblind) actually had more problems with this, as the darker background colours have much less contrast between them than the bright coloured foreground text.

Oh I hadn't thought about that.  You're saying the white-on-yellow, white-on-purple, etc?  That makes a lot of sense.  Thanks for whipping this together to check it!

 

(I'm a little embarrassed I didn't think about this, considering I'm in the process of a pretty big accessibility update of websites at work...)

[Glacier Peak]

15 minutes ago, dominatr37 said:

So how do I get this mysterious long range teleporter accolade? That's the most important question.

 

 Long Range Teleporter

• Long Range Teleporter is unlocked by the gaining the Passport Accolade, which can be acquired by earning:
  • An exploration accolade in any zone with a Base Portal (see the "Complete Base Portal List" below for reference), or
  • The Pocket D VIP Gold Club Member badge (for spending 1 hour in Pocket D)

 

• Complete Base Portal List

• Paragon City
  • Atlas Park
  • Kings Row (Base Portal moved down to ground level)
  • The Hollows (Base Portal added)
  • Perez Park (Base Portal added)
  • Skyway City (Base Portal moved up to the small park with Synapse and Mynx, near the Monorail)
  • Steel Canyon
  • Boomtown (Base Portal added)
  • Faultline
  • Talos Island
  • Striga Isle (Base Portal added)
  • Independence Port (Base Portal moved slightly to be right next to the Monorail, allowing easy access to both sides of the zone)
  • Terra Volta (Base Portal added)
  • Croatoa
  • Brickstown
  • Crey's Folly (Base Portal added)
  • Founders' Falls
  • Eden (Base Portal added)
  • Rikti War Zone
  • Kallisti Wharf
  • Peregrine Island (Base Portal moved down to ground level)
  • Dark Astoria
• Extradimensional
  • Pocket D
  • Cascade Archipelago (Base Portal & Beacon added)
  • Firebase Zulu (Base Portal & Beacon added)
  • The Chantry (Base Portal & Beacon added)
  • The Storm Palace (Base Portal & Beacon added)
• The Rogue Isles
  • Mercy Island
  • Port Oakes
  • Cap au Diable
  • Sharkhead Isle
  • Nerva Archipelago (Base Portal moved slightly to be right next to the Black Helicopter line, allowing easy access to both sides of the zone)
  • St. Martial
  • Grandville (Base Portal moved down from the top of the tower to the main square)
• Praetoria
  • Imperial City (Base Portal & Beacon added)
  • Neutropolis (Base Portal & Beacon added)
  • Nova Praetoria (Base Portal & Beacon added)
  • First Ward (Base Portal added)
  • Night Ward (Base Portal added)
• The following zones have had their beacons removed:
  • Echo: Dark Astoria
    • These beacons will now be directed to Dark Astoria
  • Echo: Galaxy City
    • These beacons have been destroyed by an energy spike of unknown origin
  • Note: Both of these zones can still be accessed through Ouroboros

[Jacke]

7 hours ago, Blackbird71 said:

That's a matter of opinion; many have expressed that they preferred the old drop-off points, or at least having the variety of drop-off points for different transport methods.

Just as one example, one of my frequent destinations was Steel Canyon.  The base teleport dropoff was near the North Tram station.  Between the locations near that dropoff, and what I could easily get to by taking the Tram to the South end, I could get to all of my most common destinations faster than I can now with the dropoff at the center of the map.  At least for SC, the current situation is less convenient.

 

I often used the Steel Canyon Base teleport exit too.  I've now switch to Talos Island (which I use as my blueside Ouro exit) as the Base portal is even closer to its PTA Station.  Similarly, for the University or the Midnighter Club, Founders' Falls or Croatoa blueside, Cap Au Diable redside.

[macskull]

1 hour ago, TheSpiritFox said:

It is miserably boring, insanely repetitive, and generally can take a solid half hour per character to complete. If someone has 40 50s that's just an extra 20 hours added to sink into the game.

If the only thing you want is a rough recreation of the previous behavior of /enterbasefrompasscode, you only need to unlock one zone for LRT since you can use the command after activating the power. You only need to unlock multiple zones on every character if you want those zones to be on the destination list, but there's not really a need to do that. Activate the power, use your base macro, and go to the zone you want from your SG base. It takes all of about two minutes to unlock the Atlas Park exploration accolade on a character with travel powers. The only real difference between now and before is LRT requires a couple minutes to unlock and can only be used once every 10 minutes, but there are four other base TP powers you can cycle through plus the Ouroboros portal and LFG teleporter when practical.

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

You know after going through it all, I really dont care about most of your changes one way or another. But I have to ask who thought taking away the actual power pool long range teleport and replacing it with a shit tp foe power was a good idea? My teleport pool LRT had a nice low CD making it actually useful and on the toons who sued it preffered even over the old base macro shit. And I dont mind you giving everyone a generic version, thats fine too. But why take away the best top tier aspect of the teleport pool, and all we get in turn is combat tp which is honestly meh at best because really its not that useful in combat still lol?

 

I mean sorry but for those of use who used the actual old TP LRT power, and used it to liberally travel around the game world quickly, this feels like a pretty big nerf to an actual legit power.

 

Could you of not just given the teleport pool lrt the new fast cast time and leave it in, so those who willingly invested in the power had some way to be a better long range teleporter then those using a generic power?

[Jacke]

7 hours ago, Apparition said:

[ to unlock Ouro portal ]

 

Step 1: Take the TUNNEL system in Atlas Park or Mercy Island, or a SG base to Night Ward.  Enter the mansion.  Get the badge.

 

Step 2: Enter the Midnight Club mansion and head to Cimerora.  Grab either of the exploration badges in Cimerora.  Congratulations, you have a brand new Ouroboros Portal.  Use it with care.

 

That's great!

 

Step 2 is actually a bit more complex, as the Midnight Mansion in Night Ward in Praetoria doesn't have the portal to Cimerora, only the Midnighter Club back passages on Primal Earth.  And players may not be familiar with the best routes to the Midnighter Club.  So, in greater detail:

 

 

Step 1: Take the TUNNEL system in Atlas Park (at the PTA tram) or Mercy Island (at the docks), or a SG Base teleporter to Night Ward.  Enter the Midnight Mansion.  Get the "Midnight Squad" Accomplishment Badge, to be able to enter the Midnighter Club.

 

Step 2:  Get to a Midnighter Club at a University.  Easiest via SG Base teleporter to either Founders' Falls, Croatoa, or Cap Au Diable, as all have a SG portal on the University grounds.  Via TUNNEL redside is easy, go to Cap Au Diable, the exit is at the North Docks just south of the University.  Via TUNNEL blueside is more complex.  Best is likely via TUNNEL to Founders' Falls, then west into the river.  Swim in the centre of the river north until you get to the docks just at the SE corner of the University.  Then go west tight against the wall until you come to the doors, which go directly into the Midnighter Club.

 

Step 3: Go up the stairs to the back door into the back passages that connect all 4 Midnighter Club front rooms.  At the T intersection is the special Pillar of Ice and Flame.  Touch it to be sent to Cimerora, which will award the "Entrusted With the Secret" Ouroboros Badge and the Ouroboros Portal power.

 

Step 4: Returning from Cimerora is quickest via Ouroboros.  Use the portal power to go there.  If adventurous, go to the top of the spire to get the Exploration Badge there.  Then back to either Atlas Park (by City Hall) or Cap Au Diable (by the North Docks).

Edited November 27, 2020 by Jacke

[Glacier Peak]

22 minutes ago, Llewellyn Blackwell said:

You know after going through it all, I really dont care about most of your changes one way or another. But I have to ask who thought taking away the actual power pool long range teleport and replacing it with a shit tp foe power was a good idea? My teleport pool LRT had a nice low CD making it actually useful and on the toons who sued it preffered even over the old base macro shit. And I dont mind you giving everyone a generic version, thats fine too. But why take away the best top tier aspect of the teleport pool, and all we get in turn is combat tp which is honestly meh at best because really its not that useful in combat still lol?

 

I mean sorry but for those of use who used the actual old TP LRT power, and used it to liberally travel around the game world quickly, this feels like a pretty big nerf to an actual legit power.

 

Could you of not just given the teleport pool lrt the new fast cast time and leave it in, so those who willingly invested in the power had some way to be a better long range teleporter then those using a generic power?

The OG Long Range Teleport and the Warshade version had a synonymous exploit associated with it.

[Grindingsucks]

Everyone is entitled to voice have and express their opinion.  But, I swear, if anyone bitches about moving the SG portal from up on that skyscraper in Grandville, down to the ground, I'll scream.  😛

[dominatr37]

Hi again, gang, I have another question. where is the new contact located for the new mission set? For the blue side missions?

 

Edited November 27, 2020 by dominatr37

[Glacier Peak]

3 minutes ago, dominatr37 said:

Hi again, gang, I have another question. where is the new contact located for teh new mission set?

New Story Arc: The Graveyard Shift (Hero, Level 20-29)

FBSA NetOps Agent Watkins has set up a small command station in North Steel Canyon, as an optimal location to investigate... something. Being somewhat dodgy about his assignment, he has constantly referred heroes to Positron first, to establish a reputation. The tasks that Agent Watkins has for you are no small feats, and involve the clean-up of one of the city's most exciting showdowns. Heroes 20 and above should seek him out, and bring plenty of club soda to wash out any stains.

• Contact: Agent Watkins, Steel Canyon
  • Listed in Ouroboros under Champion (Level 25-29) > The Graveyard Shift (27.01)

New Story Arc: The Freakish Lab of Dr. Vahzilok (Villain, Level 30-39)

A notorious and well-admired sociopath of the Rogue Isles has put out a straight-forward distress call through the Broker network, asking individuals of highly dubious moral constitution to save her neck in the name of Science. Doc Buzzsaw is being stalked by a notable ne'er-do-well and the price on her head is significantly less than the value of preserving it. Villains of level 30 and beyond should seek her out in Sharkhead Isle, in the usual place, and relief will wash over you after the discovery that her attachment to bank accounts has disappeared in the face of her mortality, as an added bonus.

• Contact: Doc Buzzsaw, Sharkhead Isle
  • Listed in Ouroboros under Captain (Level 35-39) > The Freakish Lab of Dr. Vahzilok (27.02)

[Jacke]

5 hours ago, Jimmy said:

 

Some improvements:

• Pretty background colours
• Locked zones are also listed (but we still want there to be a way for you to see them without burning the cooldown)
• Shadow Shard moved to the bottom

And a question: Is this too colourful? Should the text and the background be coloured, or just the background?

@Jimmy, when the colour scheme is settled for the best performance including for those colourblind, could it also be used on the other zone popups, for the PTA tram, the Rogue Isles Ferry, the Rogue Isles Black Helicopters, and the Praetorian CTA, but especially for the the Free Fire Zone PvP Helicopters, Smuggler's Submarine, TUNNEL, Ouroboros. and Base Teleporters, as those last ones have multiple destinations in more than one of the groupings.

 

Which means another colour is needed for the PvP Zones.

[dominatr37]

Yeah , but WHERE in steel Canyon? Its not exactly readily visible. I'm flying around and getting bored with it already, ttying to find this needle in a  haystack.