Kings Row detectives

[Duuk]

Can either Freitag be made everyone's detective contact or can Becktrees go hang out on the sidewalk with him?

 

I get jealous of the people who has quick and easy vs having to manuever around the stupid police station.

[Crazyleo]

Every zone has this issue. It's not just a King's Row thing.

 

[Greycat]

Honestly, I'd move them both *in*side. They're detectives, not Walmart greeters.

[Black Zot]

42 minutes ago, Greycat said:

Honestly, I'd move them both *in*side. They're detectives, not Walmart greeters.

 

If you're going to do that, then turn off the damn alarms.  Boy that's hard on the head!

[Vanden]

8 hours ago, Black Zot said:

If you're going to do that, then turn off the damn alarms.  Boy that's hard on the head!

 

The alarms only sound if the station is in the midst of a breakout attempt 

[Take One]

11 hours ago, Vanden said:

 

The alarms only sound if the station is in the midst of a breakout attempt 

 

Must be a day ending in 'Y'

[Duuk]

This kind of thing is my "problem" with CoX that keeps it from being perfect.  It was made in an era where "make the players run around so they stay online more" was considered good game design.  I really wish contacts were all in good placement and storylines were all confined to the zone they start in.  It makes me run newspaper/radio mishes more than content, which is sad, because the content storylines are SOOO good.  But I don't want to run from Steel Canyon to Atlas Park and back every 6 minutes so I can read good content.

[Wobegone]

1 hour ago, MadCow99 said:

This kind of thing is my "problem" with CoX that keeps it from being perfect.  It was made in an era where "make the players run around so they stay online more" was considered good game design.  I really wish contacts were all in good placement and storylines were all confined to the zone they start in.  It makes me run newspaper/radio mishes more than content, which is sad, because the content storylines are SOOO good.  But I don't want to run from Steel Canyon to Atlas Park and back every 6 minutes so I can read good content.

 

Are you talking about a (few) particular mission(s)  or the game in general?

 

Travel time between missions and zones has largely been eliminated with all of the different teleport options.  There are travel options from the P2W vendor from the getgo, and it takes perhaps 10 minutes looking up and finding the Exploration Badges in Atlas for the first time, opening up a zone Teleportation power.  From there, a bit of street sweeping in each zone for one Exploration Badge opens up that zone for teleportation.  Add to that Mission Teleport, Team Teleport, Base Teleport, and Ouroboros and travel times between zones is really fast.  I can't think of another MMO where travel is faster.  Even before the options we have now, CoH probably had the fastest travel times between zones.

 

 

[Duuk]

Those are work-arounds.  With loading times.  It just bugs me and I seem to be the only one.

[TheZag]

I took the fight from a northern zone to a southern zone on warcraft and it was like 15 minutes.  I havent played warcraft in a long time but even going the old school slow way is faster to get from atlas park to the hive - green line to steel, yellow line to talos,  run to FF, run to eden, run to the hive.  So i never even noticed the few seconds to find a contact.

[GraspingVileTerror]

It bugs me a bit too, @MadCow99.  It's just that in the grand scheme of things that "bug me a bit" with this game, I'm more concerned about a laundry list of issues that I feel are more pressing.
However, as far as issues with a small turnaround to get a solution, popping Becktrees outside (or at least closer to the entrance inside the precinct) feels like it should be relatively inconsequential to slip in to an update.  Sure, some things might go wrong given the overall fragility of this game's code, I believe the odds of success are favourable.

 

The real hurdle, as I see it, is convincing a Dev (in the case of editing maps, I think it would be @Faultline) that the collective convenience this offers players outweighs the following factors:
- Dev time to make the change and confirm it works correctly, and then work that change in to the scheduled patches.
- Contending with players who may complain that it "dumbs down" the game (there are some VERY vocal people in this camp).

- Contending with players who may complain that they feel the positions of the Contacts/Dectectives/Brokers/various NPCs are perfect as-is for any number of personal reasons.

- Contending with players who may complain that all Detectives and Brokers should receive equal treatment (or at least the Port Oakes Brokers).

 

And that's assuming any of the Devs (let alone the one(s) responsible for map changes) will care enough to get to that level of consideration.  I've personally found it impossible to convince any of them to care about something they don't already care about.

I'll be rooting for you, MadCow, but I'm not sure I can be much more help than this.

[Itikar]

That Port Oakes broker near the lighthouse is sure annoying, by the way.

[GraspingVileTerror]

 

(Sorry, @Itikar.  Bob is a little more sarcastic-looking than I would have liked, and I don't actually think you're comment is a baseless complaint, but your post did kind of illustrate one of my points quite handily.)

[Riverdusk]

You definitely aren't the only one @MadCow99.  I know I read on these forums a long time ago of a player that'd actually run to PI right after creating a character to make sure they got the outside detective contact for PI.  If not, reroll until they did.  They figured the PI one is the one you end up using the most.  I thought it was pretty clever, but I always forget to try it myself.

 

In the grand scheme of things, no it isn't a big deal, but I'd certainly be okay with this suggestion.

[Faultline]

I'll see what happens if I make it possible to Dismiss your Detective contact. It should assign you a new one when you re-enter the zone, and if you're lucky it will be a different one, but it may take a bunch of retries. Adds a way to switch Detectives for players who care without impacting anything else.

 

Edit: done, will be on today's patch to Brainstorm.

[Vanden]

4 hours ago, Faultline said:

Edit: done, will be on today's patch to Brainstorm.

 

“But I have a family to feed!”

 

[Itikar]

...finally... ...getting... ...the brokers... ...I... ....always... ...wanted...

[GraspingVileTerror]

Yes, @Itikar!  At last!  It is GLORIOUS!

After fifteen years . . . my OCD . . . is satiated. (For now!  Dun dun duuuuuuuuun!)

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/32386-focused-feedback-tasks/

Being able to cherry-pick the appropriate Brokers (and Detectives too, I guess) for my characters is a deeply satisfying experience.  

[Apparition]

I'll admit.  Every character I start out red side, immediately after the tutorial, I train up to level 2, and head to Sharkhead Isle to see what broker the character gets.  If I get Kara the Scorpion, great.  I head back to Mercy Island, talk with Kalinda, and off I go.  On the other hand, if it's Mickey the Filtch, I reroll the character and try again for Kara the Scorpion.   So this is a nice change.  Thank you. 

[Wavicle]

On 11/4/2021 at 4:13 PM, GraspingVileTerror said:

 I've personally found it impossible to convince any of them to care about something they don't already care about.

 

Seems this comment did not age well. XD

[Itikar]

It's incredible how fast this proposal was approved. Really, kudos, HC devs. ❤️

[Duuk]

I step away from my desk for like 10 minutes and there is an amazing change.  I love this game.

[Faultline]

On 11/6/2021 at 3:20 AM, Itikar said:

It's incredible how fast this proposal was approved. Really, kudos, HC devs. ❤️

 

It just so happens that it was a very easy change to make, took 25 minutes including internal testing and bugfixing. Most other proposals are nowhere near as straightforward.