Zone Travel Updates in Issue 27

[Faultline]

36 minutes ago, Blackbird71 said:

Which is the whole problem I've been complaining about; the complexity of needing 3-4 powers to regain the functionality we had previously.  It's quite frankly ridiculous.

Functionality that we said from the beginning wasn't intended and would go away. You see /ebfp as the gold standard for travel, we see it as an aberration that was begrudgingly kept for the sole purpose of bookmarking bases and jump easily between them. Any game system is going to be less efficient and/or expensive than a GM command; pointing this out is both correct, and irrelevant. Using /completemission is also more efficient and cheaper than playing through a mission, which takes a lot of time and 3-4 powers to do -- sometimes a lot more! It's quite frankly ridiculous how complex it is to complete a mission without /completemission.

[Blackbird71]

28 minutes ago, Faultline said:

Functionality that we said from the beginning wasn't intended and would go away. You see /ebfp as the gold standard for travel, we see it as an aberration that was begrudgingly kept for the sole purpose of bookmarking bases and jump easily between them. Any game system is going to be less efficient and/or expensive than a GM command; pointing this out is both correct, and irrelevant. Using /completemission is also more efficient and cheaper than playing through a mission, which takes a lot of time and 3-4 powers to do -- sometimes a lot more! It's quite frankly ridiculous how complex it is to complete a mission without /completemission.

Drawing an equivalency between the two commands is disingenuous to the discussion.  This same point has been discussed several times before, and the two are not comparable.

[Bopper]

5 minutes ago, Blackbird71 said:

Drawing an equivalency between the two commands is disingenuous to the discussion.  This same point has been discussed several times before, and the two are not comparable.

Since they're both GM commands that have no business being used by players, comparing them is appropriate. Comparing a GM command to all of the teleportation options that already exist plus all the teleport options the developers gave us is disingenuous. 

[dtj714]

Some specific feedback -

1. The activation times indicated in the tooltips are generally wrong (say 12 sec instead of 2).

2. Some (most?) of the animations in the Costume Creator are off (show long activations).

3. The actual activation times seem even shorter than what they should be (2 seconds).  They seem virtually instant.  It takes longer to cast regular TP than LRT (hard to test for sure at under 2 seconds)?

4. Can Warshades get their custom TP FX back for at least LRT?

 

Now, in general, I'm going to say something that's probably controversial and/or contrarian, but I just want to put it out there and I'm not going to belabor it or get into a back and forth so hopefully this doesn't just get deleted.  All of these changes were made to compensate for the fact that a known hack/exploit/unintended use of a slash command was removed after being left in for over a year, and none of them should have been.  The prestige powers had long recharges for a reason.  LRT was not universally available for a reason.  Trial/hazard zones were hard to get to for a reason.  With these changes, every mode of transport other than bases and LRT (and Ouro) has been made irrelevant.  No more trams, TUNNEL, boats, helicopters, or plain old hoofing it.  People may whine about it, but they will get LRT for virtually every zone because it is simply the most direct, fastest way to get just about anywhere.  After that, base travel is the de-facto method (as it has been over the past year while the command was being exploited).  It is fundamentally different from COH.  That is the reality.

 

Obviously the devs are entitled to do whatever they want, and they have.  But I think the lesson here is don't let something that isn't supposed to be there lay around for long.  Otherwise, the devs may again find themselves bending over backwards and radically altering core game systems.  Maybe that's the game some want.  Maybe for others it isn't.

[Blackbird71]

31 minutes ago, Bopper said:

Since they're both GM commands that have no business being used by players, comparing them is appropriate.

The impact the two have on gameplay are wildly disparate, and no, comparing them is not appropriate.  There is no justification that can be given for adding a player equivalent to /completemission to the game (except as it already exists as a once per three day option to get around bugged missions).  An argument and justification absolutely can be made for the QoL improvements of adding an ability with similar (not identical) functionality to /ebfp.  Using the lack of availability of /completemission to the playerbase at large as a justification for not restoring an exploit-free version of the functionality that was available with /ebfp shows a lack of good faith in this discussion.

 

In fact the devs have already agreed that adding back such functionality is reasonable, as evidenced by these travel updates.  Where we disagree is where to set the level of difficulty/obstacle to acquiring and using these powers, not their existence or purpose.

Edited November 28, 2020 by Blackbird71

[Blackbird71]

20 minutes ago, dtj714 said:

The prestige powers had long recharges for a reason.  LRT was not universally available for a reason.  Trial/hazard zones were hard to get to for a reason. 

I reject the argument "because reasons;" that's the sort of argument you give a two-year old.  What reasons?  Why does it have to be this way?  This is what has been hotly debated in all of the feedback, and numerous examples have been given of other games and even instances within CoH where these obstacles to fast and even instant travel were removed as significant QoL improvements.  So far, the reasons given have all appeared to be completely arbitrary, and as such I have yet to see a defensible justification for why it has to be the way it is, and why it cannot be made simpler and more direct.

[Bopper]

43 minutes ago, dtj714 said:

Some specific feedback -

1. The activation times indicated in the tooltips are generally wrong (say 12 sec instead of 2).

2. Some (most?) of the animations in the Costume Creator are off (show long activations).

3. The actual activation times seem even shorter than what they should be (2 seconds).  They seem virtually instant.  It takes longer to cast regular TP than LRT (hard to test for sure at under 2 seconds)?

4. Can Warshades get their custom TP FX back for at least LRT?

 

Now, in general, I'm going to say something that's probably controversial and/or contrarian, but I just want to put it out there and I'm not going to belabor it or get into a back and forth so hopefully this doesn't just get deleted.  All of these changes were made to compensate for the fact that a known hack/exploit/unintended use of a slash command was removed after being left in for over a year, and none of them should have been.  The prestige powers had long recharges for a reason.  LRT was not universally available for a reason.  Trial/hazard zones were hard to get to for a reason.  With these changes, every mode of transport other than bases and LRT (and Ouro) has been made irrelevant.  No more trams, TUNNEL, boats, helicopters, or plain old hoofing it.  People may whine about it, but they will get LRT for virtually every zone because it is simply the most direct, fastest way to get just about anywhere.  After that, base travel is the de-facto method (as it has been over the past year while the command was being exploited).  It is fundamentally different from COH.  That is the reality.

 

Obviously the devs are entitled to do whatever they want, and they have.  But I think the lesson here is don't let something that isn't supposed to be there lay around for long.  Otherwise, the devs may again find themselves bending over backwards and radically altering core game systems.  Maybe that's the game some want.  Maybe for others it isn't.

You're right. The devs definitely learned a lesson on compromise with the community. They gifted us a GM command for too long and are now facing backlash over it despite all the hundreds of man hours put into giving us far more than we need, much less deserve. This lesson also was learned for overbuffing, such as giving Shadow Maul a temporary 10 tgt cap when it always should've been 5 and is likely why Eagles Claw got reverted completely, instead of being tweaked.. But I digress. 

 

I'll take your unpopular opinion and I will raise you one. I think the devs gave us too many teleportation/travel options. The extra teleport powers, the reduced activation times, the access to long range teleport without having to use a power pick, only needing one exploration badge (as opposed to the tour badge) to unlock a destination, adding more base portals, giving us the FastTravel macro, and more... it was too generous. I thought when the GM command would be removed I would need to start taking travel powers again. It turns out, I don't. 

Edited November 28, 2020 by Bopper

[Lockpick]

11 minutes ago, Bopper said:

You're right. The devs definitely learned a lesson on compromise with the community. They gifted us a GM command for too long and are now facing backlash over it despite all the hundreds of man hours put into giving us far more than we need, much less deserve. This lesson also was learned for overbuffing, such as giving Shadow Maul a temporary 10 tgt cap when it always should've been 5 and is likely why Eagles Claw got reverted completely, instead of being tweaked.. But I digress. 

 

I'll take your unpopular opinion and I will raise you one. I think the devs gave us too many teleportation/travel options. The extra teleport powers, the reduced activation times, the access to long range teleport without having to use a power pick, only needing one exploration badge (as opposed to the tour badge) to unlock a destination, adding more base portals, giving us the FastTrack macro, and more... it was too generous. I thought when the GM command would be removed I would need to start taking travel powers again. It turns out, I don't. 

 

The major backlash seems to be coming from 2 people who are very vocal.  I agree with you though.  The HC team should have just removed the exploit and provided no alternative.  Then in January maybe they could have provided a new power as part of a new update.  Instead of all the current drama there would have been some future gratitude.

 

[Razor Cure]

Does anyone know which badge/s actually unlock Faultine, for the LRTP? Done it on THREE alts now, each with LRTP unlocked, getting different badges in FL..and not ONE of them unlocked the zone for the accolade.

ANd no, I am not in Echo.

[Blackbird71]

5 minutes ago, Lockpick said:

 

The major backlash seems to be coming from 2 people who are very vocal. 

 

Have I been overly vocal about this?  Absolutely; I won't deny that.  But to say it's only "2 people" ignores the many others who have expressed similar opinions both in this and the original feedback thread, and that's an unfair characterization of the discussion.

[JAMMan0000]

13 hours ago, Jimmy said:

Ok, next up, with some help from @AboveTheChemist and @Jacke:

 

 

This is probably going to be a temporary solution though as we'd like to get something more integrated into the power itself.

I really like this. Nice work guys! Is this version of the mnu file available somewhere, or coming with page 2?

Also, for the summon portal powers would it be possible to incorporate the option to automatically check for and use an existing base portal if within range rather than unnecessarily wasting your own power to summon a redundant portal. Basically do a /efbp for any other portal in the vicinity before executing your own power. Similar to what I did in my custom FastTravel.mnu above, but 'bake that in' to the powers themselves. Or maybe add that to standard FastTravel.mnu for page 2. That would pretty much eliminate any cooldown/charge limit concern for teams. One person drops a portal and everyone automatically shares it for free rather than accidently creating a redundant portal and wasting their own cooldown/charge. A team of 8 sharing 1 or 2 portal summons each would provide more portals than they could ever realistically use. Even each person having just the P2W portal summon power would effectively reduce the cool down to 10 min / 8 = 1.2 min for a full team. Or if you think in terms of the Day Job portal summons, it would effectively increases the number of charges available by x8. And that doesn't even consider each individuals LRTP or Base Transporter powers. I don't think a team could realistically use them that fast and the whole cooldown/charge limit concern becomes mute. The key is making it happen automatically so there is less focus on each individuals limited cooldowns/charges, and more focus on the benefit of effectively unlimited cooldown/charges available to the team. Doesn't do anything for soloing, but then soloing is typically slower and the individuals cooldowns/charges are already adequate. Anyway, just a suggestion. 🙂

Edited November 28, 2020 by JAMMan0000

[Lockpick]

3 minutes ago, Razor Cure said:

Does anyone know which badge/s actually unlock Faultine, for the LRTP? Done it on THREE alts now, each with LRTP unlocked, getting different badges in FL..and not ONE of them unlocked the zone for the accolade.

ANd no, I am not in Echo.

There is a bug for Faultline and the team said it will be fixed in the next update.

[dtj714]

4 minutes ago, Razor Cure said:

Does anyone know which badge/s actually unlock Faultine, for the LRTP? Done it on THREE alts now, each with LRTP unlocked, getting different badges in FL..and not ONE of them unlocked the zone for the accolade.

ANd no, I am not in Echo.

Ironically, you NEED to get a badge in Echo FL to unlock FL.  It's a known bug they said will be fixed next patch.

[Razor Cure]

8 minutes ago, dtj714 said:

Ironically, you NEED to get a badge in Echo FL to unlock FL.  It's a known bug they said will be fixed next patch.

Always? Cause I have it unlocked on one alt..who 100% has never been to Echo. lol

God and Echo FL doesnt have vidiot maps.

Can we not just have a P2W auto unlock for EVERY LRTP zone? Especially PD. Like I want to spend 50 hours there, over all my alts.

Edited November 28, 2020 by Razor Cure

[AboveTheChemist]

14 minutes ago, Razor Cure said:

God and Echo FL doesnt have vidiot maps.

Here's the vidiotmap for Echo: Faultline. You can get the in-game version in the MoreMaps4U pack here.

Edited November 28, 2020 by AboveTheChemist

[NewXToa]

38 minutes ago, Blackbird71 said:

Have I been overly vocal about this?  Absolutely; I won't deny that.  But to say it's only "2 people" ignores the many others who have expressed similar opinions both in this and the original feedback thread, and that's an unfair characterization of the discussion.

I agree. I'm losing interest in continuing the discussion because nobody on the other side seems willing to discuss it in good faith. Faultline drawing a false equivalency between /completemission and /ebfp is the biggest example, but many valid points have been disregarded with a simple "So you want everything given to you free then?", and it's frustrating that they're not willing to admit that other people's opinions are valid too.

 

It makes sense to me that /ebfp is no longer available to players. What doesn't make sense to me is why LRT needs to be so inconvenient to unlock for people who have no interest in exploration badges, and why the cooldown can't be 1-4 minutes rather than 10. To compare it to a hypothetical situation, it's as if they made it a requirement for each hero to have an in-depth backstory in order to unlock fast-travel: People who were in the habit of doing that anyways don't see an issue with it, because they enjoy that sort of thing. People who aren't in the habit of that find it inconvenient, and go to the forums to complain, but are being drowned out by RPers who are being rewarded for something they already do.

 

I have no problem with RPers, or people who want to collect exploration badges. What I don't like is being forced to play the game the same way as them just because they don't understand why I would want to play differently.

Edited November 28, 2020 by NewXToa

[Bopper]

42 minutes ago, JAMMan0000 said:

Is this version of the mnu file available somewhere, or coming with page 2?

Not sure if Homecoming will be making one like that, but I thought I saw some stuff come up in the Tools Forum that might interest you. If I find something, I'll link you to it.

[Glacier Peak]

11 minutes ago, NewXToa said:

I agree. I'm losing interest in continuing the discussion because nobody on the other side seems willing to discuss it in good faith. Faultline drawing a false equivalency between /completemission and /ebfp is the biggest example, but many valid points have been disregarded with a simple "So you want everything given to you free then?", and it's frustrating that they're not willing to admit that other people's opinions are valid too.

 

It makes sense to me that /ebfp is no longer available to players. What doesn't make sense to me is why LRT needs to be so inconvenient to unlock for people who have no interest in exploration badges, and why the cooldown can't be 2-5 minutes rather than 10. To compare it to a hypothetical situation, it's as if they made it a requirement for each hero to have an in-depth backstory in order to unlock fast-travel: People who were in the habit of doing that anyways don't see an issue with it, because they enjoy that sort of thing. People who aren't in the habit of that find it inconvenient, and go to the forums to complain, but are being drowned out by RPers who are being rewarded for something they already do.

 

I have no problem with RPers, or people who want to collect exploration badges. What I don't like is being forced to play the game the same way as them just because they don't think my way is valid.

LRT is literally a 5 minute unlock power. No matter how many times you say it, it is still NOT A REQUIREMENT. You are not being forced to do anything. Get the power or don't get the power. Play how you want or don't play how you want. You can still access your account and play in any style you want to your heart's content. The biggest benefit of this issue has been the increase in accessibility to so many more options of travel for players. It expanded base teleport beacons, making base travel even more relevant, efficient, and easy. It gave us an accolade power which can get us to any zone we desire as long as we have completed the prerequisite to do so. There are FOUR powers that can get us to a given base, let alone the countless zone base portals (more of which were added this issue), the in-game transportation systems via the Tunnel or the Trams/Black Hawk Helicopters, or the good ol' shoe lace express. 

Edited November 28, 2020 by Glacier Peak
zone base portals

[Bopper]

48 minutes ago, JAMMan0000 said:

Is this version of the mnu file available somewhere, or coming with page 2?

Jacke quoted AboveTheChemist, so this link should give you access to both their mnu options. 

 

[Lockpick]

38 minutes ago, Blackbird71 said:

Have I been overly vocal about this?  Absolutely; I won't deny that.  But to say it's only "2 people" ignores the many others who have expressed similar opinions both in this and the original feedback thread, and that's an unfair characterization of the discussion.

I was in the threads when this came out and did the testing.  I expressed my opinion then and tested it again on Live and have expressed my opinion again.  I agree with what you are saying to a certain extent (especially about the recharge), but not the way you are saying it.  At a certain point after a message has been shared multiple times by the same person it becomes less about the message and more about the person providing the message.

• We all knew, or should have known, that /enterbasefrompasscode was a GM code and was considered an exploit.
• We all knew, or should have known, that /enterbasefrompasscode was going to be removed one day.
• We all knew, or should have known, that we should not get used to using /enterbasefrompasscode because it was an exploit and was definitely going away.
• We all knew, or should have known, that when /enterbasefrompasscode was removed that if there was a replacement that the replacement would not be as good or as convenient as the /enterbasefrompasscode GM code.

We are now at that day where the exploit has been removed and the alternative solution is not as good as the GM code, which we should have expected.  What is the point of continually railing about it in an aggressive manner?  The decision has been made and we have to live with it.

 

I do feel you pain though.  I really do.  I thought most of the power adjustments were absolutely not needed.  I expressed my opinion vocally during those discussions and the adjustments were made.  Unfortunately, we are somewhat powerless in the direction of this game unless we want to set up our instances and I have no desire to do that, so I have to live with the decisions the HC team makes and make the best of it.  For the most part I think they have done an excellent job.

 

I also need to remember how miserable I was when CoH shut down and how happy I am to be back in the City.  It could be worse.  A lot worse...

 

[ivanhedgehog]

On 11/24/2020 at 2:08 PM, Glacier Peak said:

I'm looking at three entirely different builds for these changes in the beta forum that addressed many players feedback. I would have to disagree with this opinion. 

The structure of the change was decided before we were even told what was happening. We were pretty pointedly told that our feedback wasnt wanted if it was anything else than polish of the already decided changes. Many stopped giving feedback at that point. The change to the game has made travel quite a bit slower. People will get over it eventually but it was not an improvement to the game.

 

ps:I shouldnt have to have a spreadsheet with all my characters to figure out what zones they have unlocked.  Once you are on the tf and realize that you havent gotten that zone, its too late to fix.

[Faultline]

1 hour ago, NewXToa said:

What doesn't make sense to me is why LRT needs to be so inconvenient to unlock for people who have no interest in exploration badges, and why the cooldown can't be 1-4 minutes rather than 10.

It has been stated multiple times, but it seems people have selective amnesia when it comes to explanations they don't like.

 

You don't want to do exploration badges? Stand idly in Pocket D doing nothing for an hour. You get LRT with just one destination, but that's enough to enable the /ebfp travel hubs. If you want more direct destinations then you have to put on some effort, but they are not required or necessary, proven by everyone being perfectly happy using bases as travel hubs this long.

 

This is not an oversight, this is intended and will not change. Until you show that you can access a zone on your own, passing relevant alignment and level checks, it won't be added to LRT. Getting one exploration badge is the minimum bar to clear to prove that your character can handle that zone; for the same reason, it will not be an account wide unlock.

 

You want a shorter cooldown on /ebfp? Day Job or P2W the Base Transporter and Supergroup Portal powers, which combined can get your cooldown on /ebfp to five uses every 10 minutes. Yes, if you want to use /ebfp three times every 10 minutes you have to spend 11 million inf. This is not an oversight, this is a cost for the convenience.

 

You may not like those explanations but they have been given. The fact that /ebfp allowed instant no cooldown travel to hub bases (and from there to everywhere) for free was an aberration and not intended behavior. It was a GM command. I will compare it to other GM commands. This is not a false equivalency.

[Faultline]

13 minutes ago, ivanhedgehog said:

ps:I shouldnt have to have a spreadsheet with all my characters to figure out what zones they have unlocked.  Once you are on the tf and realize that you havent gotten that zone, its too late to fix.

Activate LRT regardless of what zones you unlocked and while the zone selection menu is up use /ebfp and a travel hub base like you have done for the last year. Every single post complaining that they need to unlock everything in LRT to make it useful is invalid.

 

I don't know if people don't understand that they can use /ebfp while the menu is up, or if they are intentionally choosing to ignore that fact to continue painting the power as useless without a major grind, but either case, any feedback that ignores that /ebfp can be used from LRT is useless, because the person giving it is ignoring a key element of the power. It's like complaining that Phantom Army expires when no other controller pets do, while ignoring they're invincible during that duration.

[NewXToa]

1 hour ago, Glacier Peak said:

LRT is literally a 5 minute unlock power. No matter how many times you say it, it is still NOT A REQUIREMENT. You are not being forced to do anything.

....Unless I want to use Long Range Teleport on more than one toon, in which case it will take me 4 hours to unlock it on all of my 50 toons. I could either do it all in one monotonous chunk, or I could panic through it as fast as possible because I want to join a TF but I don't want to be the one stuck walking to the tram in between missions because I didn't bring enough fast travel powers to have them up on time because I can't be bothered to keep track of whether I have all 3-4 alternatives to LRT on all 50 toons.

 

Let's point this in the other direction: If LRT was made less grindy, there is nothing stopping you from getting exploration badges anyways. As Jacke keeps pointing out, you do get merits for exploration badges! If you want to earn them, good for you. Making LRT more accessible wouldn't make your gameplay experience any worse, whereas your wanting to keep LRT locked behind exploration badges is actively making my experience more grindy.

 

1 hour ago, Lockpick said:

 The decision has been made and we have to live with it.

If they don't care what we think, why is there a feedback thread for us to provide feedback in? Maybe providing feedback won't help, but giving up preemptively definitely won't.

 

46 minutes ago, Faultline said:

You don't want to do exploration badges? Stand idly in Pocket D doing nothing for an hour. You get LRT with just one destination, but that's enough to enable the /ebfp travel hubs. If you want more direct destinations then you have to put on some effort, but they are not required or necessary, proven by everyone being perfectly happy using bases as travel hubs this long.

Because 50 hours of AFK time is so much better than 4 hours of wandering a zone over and over again to get accolades on each alt?

 

46 minutes ago, Faultline said:

This is not an oversight, this is intended and will not change. Until you show that you can access a zone on your own, passing relevant alignment and level checks, it won't be added to LRT. Getting one exploration badge is the minimum bar to clear to prove that your character can handle that zone; for the same reason, it will not be an account wide unlock.

I don't think this is consistent with the changes made in this patch, considering:

1. Ouro is now accessible from level 1, which grants level 1 characters access to zones like Founder's Falls, which they certainly aren't equipped to handle.

2. Base hubs allow access to all zones, see point number 1.

3. This game has an entire system to allow low level characters to participate in higher level content, which is the sidekick/exemplar system. It doesn't make sense lock zones in LRT, especially considering points 1 and 2.

4. Why should you care if anyone wants to bring characters to zones they're not equipped to handle? Why is LRT the one that has a prerequisite to entry, when Ouro, Base Hubs, and the Tram all let players go wherever they want?

 

 

Regardless, exploration badges as a prerequisite to unlock a zone via LRT isn't what I'm really concerned about, because (as you have pointed out) we can use LRT to access base hubs. (I do appreciate that). I just find it bizarre considering the points I just listed off.

 

What frustrates me is the accolade to unlock the LRT in the first place (and the high cooldown). That has nothing to do with making sure characters can pass the minimum bar to handle a zone, it's just locking something convenient for everyone behind something inconvenient for many. If you want a barrier to entry, why can't you find something else? A level requirement, or as much as I hate to suggest it, an inf investment at the P2W vendor.

 

46 minutes ago, Faultline said:

 It was a GM command. I will compare it to other GM commands. This is not a false equivalency.

It is a false equivalency. To use a hyperbolical example ("hyperbolical" looks weird... an exaggerated example), recreational marijuana use is illegal in many states. Murder also tends to be illegal in most places. Saying that wanting legal marijuana use is like wanting legal murder is not a productive argument. Similarly, saying that wanting something similar to /ebfp is like wanting access to /completemission is not a good comparison.

 

 

 

Sorry for the long replies, more people respond in the time it takes me to respond to one thing and then I end up addressing as many as I can and then I end up with a great wall of text that feels more antagonistic than I would like.

Edited November 28, 2020 by NewXToa
minor typos

[Blackbird71]

46 minutes ago, Faultline said:

You may not like those explanations but they have been given.

Except that those are not explanations.  They are decisions for which the only explanations given amount to "because we said so," despite the many reasoned, logical arguments for why the specifics of the decisions can and should be changed.  This is why you are facing such backlash and dissatisfaction over the change.  Talk to us like intelligent adults; give us a reasoned justification for why things have to be the way they are, for why there need to be so many different powers to achieve the same thing, why the cool downs need to be so long, why the costs need to be so high, etc.  And if you can't offer such justifications, then consider that maybe the decision is wrong and should be changed.