Tram Indicator for if South or North is Closer to Mission Entrance

[Zeraphia]

Hello!

 

I am aware with a lot of game knowledge, you can usually point out which train is closer to a specific mission but sometimes you unfortunately can't, and it causes delay and confusion when a team approaches the entrance to a mission. While there are things like mission teleporter and team transporter, I don't think you can always rely on teammates to have that available. I think if the capability to have the tram indicate that choosing this section in the north or south is closer to the active selected mission would help a lot of people (especially those who are newer) out!

[The_Warpact]

You do realize if you hop back on the tram if you're at the further tram it loads in a second right?

[Zeraphia]

29 minutes ago, The_Warpact said:

You do realize if you hop back on the tram if you're at the further tram it loads in a second right?

Maybe so, but you need to consider you usually end up displaced from the primary tram's entrance and have to walk around the station into that entrance, and there is still a high likelihood that the tram will be doing it's "busy windup" animation.

Edited March 28, 2022 by Zeraphia

[Rudra]

It's pure nuisance factor, but yeah, every time I take the tram to the wrong terminal in zone, when I get to the tram door, I have to wait for it to cycle for use. How about if the trams just work like ferries? Maybe? Please?

[TheZag]

I think this isnt needed.  We already had the green line and yellow line combined and all of the ferries combined and tunnel connection.  To get from Atlas Park to Peregrine Island,  we used to have to go to the train in atlas,  take it to steel canyon,  run from south steel to north steel,  take the train to talos,  run across talos to the ferry and take it to PI.  Now we tunnel connection from atlas straight to PI.  Seems fast enough for me.

[Rudra]

TUNNEL connects Atlas, Talos, Founder's, and PI. None of those have player drop offs at opposite ends of the zone like Steel Canyon, Skyway City, and Independence Port. And the OP is specifically asking about zones with two player drop off points from trams. None of which TUNNEL connects to. And I almost always pick the wrong drop off point. Even when I run with the premise that I tend to do that and go with the other choice. So having a flag for closest terminal, or even better, having trams that don't let you  be able to click them working like the ferries instead, would be great.

[The_Warpact]

42 minutes ago, Zeraphia said:

Maybe so, but you need to consider you usually end up displaced from the primary tram's entrance and have to walk around the station into that entrance, and there is still a high likelihood that the tram will be doing it's "busy windup" animation.

I seriously doubt that this will happen. A couple seconds inconvenience compared to the devs actually coding a toon to take the closer of the trams.

I could see them fixing the tram waiting bug though.

[biostem]

Does the game do any calculations insofar as which POIs are closer or further from a mission entrance?  While on the surface this may not seem like a big request, if there is no system in place besides "what zone is mission X in", then such a system would have to be added, which means yet another calculation/system that could go wrong.  Yes, it can be annoying, but to walk back to the "boarding" section of the tram station and reenter isn't that time consuming.  If anything, maybe we can do way with the issue of having to wait for a tram to arrive, and just make it a static one with the doors open...

[TheZag]

My point was that the green and yellow line trams used to be entirely seperate.  It didnt use to be possible to select what one you wanted.  From atlas you could go to kings row, skyway, galaxy city, and steel canyon.  In the zones with both tram lines you had to run across to use the other tram to get to IP,  talos, brickstown and wherever else the yellow line went.  I would be more inclined to have it drop you at whatever tram that matched the original destination for the line you were coming from.  But im also satisfied with the current joined travel system.

 

I dont think door coordinate location is shared cross zone,  just what zone the mission is in.  So the tram wouldnt know if north or south is closer.  The most likely improvement would be having the tram work like the ferry with the menu popup when you get close to the door.  Nothing stops a hero from fighting crime in this city except for an open door.

[Rudra]

Let's be honest. While the game does track mission location even when in other zones, otherwise team transporter and mission transporter wouldn't work, there will be no flags added to the trams other than 'mission is in this zone'. My guess would be because the game has specific preset mission doors that most missions choose from randomly. (Some use set doors rather than random.) This just requires the game to track which map and associated coordinates for the door transport powers, or which map for flagging trams. Now we would need to have the game track that, look up grid coordinates for the trams, perform separate calculations to determine distance between mission and each tram, compare the distances, and then assign a flag to a specific tram. And in cases such as seems to happen surprisingly often in Skyway City and to a lesser extent in Independence Port, when the mission door is equidistant to the trams, which tram is the calculation supposed to flag? So like @biostem said, this would require the addition of unnecessary calculations for the game, and adds more room for failure.

 

However, in multiple threads the request for changing how the trams work to mirror the ferries has been brought up. And not just by me. So, devs, if you are reading this, can we please please please please PLEASE get trams that don't lock us out from selecting our destinations? Can we please get trams that work like the ferries? So at least then when we choose the wrong tram we aren't stuck standing at the tram gate waiting to be able to select it?

Edited March 29, 2022 by Rudra
Edited to change "additional" to "unnecessary" to avoid redundancy.

[Jacktar]

I so want a badge (or better still a series of badges with an accolade) called “Duh other end again” or whatever, for number of times I have chosen the wrong one!

Come to think about it, I don’t think I can recall a single time since live I have actually chosen the “Right End”. 😢😢🥴

RNG hates me…..😤

[UltraAlt]

14 hours ago, Zeraphia said:

I think if the capability to have the tram indicate that choosing this section in the north or south is closer to the active selected mission would help a lot of people (especially those who are newer) out!

 

I think this is a relatively low priority in regard to quality of life issues, but that isn't to dismiss your post as you thought about it enough to post about it.

 

Today people are all about instant-gratification in gaming.

When City of Heroes came out it was about exploring the world and building up to a feeling of being super-heroic. 

With limited travel speed at lower levels, THE CITY was a really big place, and it could be a challenging to get from place to place. Often you would want to travel together as a group to get from mission to mission - especially if you weren't flying. (Flying/hovering was like the pause button. You really didn't even have to fly up very high to be far enough away from enemies that none of them were threats. This often wasn't the case on the ground, especially in hazard zones with random patrols).

 

I think that some have already pointed out that the trams had separate lines and you had to travel from one tram to the other or to a ship to get to some locations. There weren't base teleporters. Mission and Team-Mission teleport weren't a thing.

If you could get there faster, it was kind of on you to have recall friend to help pull your slower teammates to missions. (People weren't rushing ahead and entering into missions before the whole team was assembled to enter missions. Lots of courtesy and teamwork back then - not so much exemplar-ing down back then).

 

So where am I going with this seemling long rant?

 

It's all about the journey, exploration, and teamwork.

 

I like flying, jumping, and running around THE CITY, but even I get stuck in that "get to the next mission fast thing". Really for me, that's more for my teammates than for myself. Other people are in a rush, so I try to help them out - you know, being a hero.

 

So you have already pointed out some things that can help the situation. I think these are the main things that help.

If teammates don't have the powers to move the team around quickly, then try to help them out with the influence so they can.

I don't suggest pushing it on anyone, but suggesting it or talking about it to prod them into talking about it so the opening comes up to offer influence to help them get the powers would be the way that I would go. If people aren't interested, I want them to learn and explore the game and enjoy doing that.

If you are the first one to zone into a large part of THE CITY, it is the friendly thing to do to call out which tram to use.

"The mission is on the north side" or even just "North".

Help out your slower teammates instead of leaving them in the dust.

If you are really fast, that's great, but prove you are a hero and help out others less powerful than you get Teleport Target. 

 

Once those three things are covered, you have the basics.

The recharge times on large teams will make most of this always available.

 

The next level would be the Bases and Oroborus portals.

It's easy enough to setup or get access to a base with teleporters to all the zones in THE CITY.

The dayjob for parking at a sg portal and patroller (parking outside/gaining patrol xp) give you access to not only charges of base teleport for yourself, but also sg portal that your whole team (anyone actually) can use. Both Talos and IP (and some others, but Talos is the nexus for me) have base portals next to a tram, so getting to a tram from a base can be very fast. (It may seem weird, but it is often better to go to Talos and take the tram instead of going directly to a zone from the base).

Oroborus portals is most useful as a method of getting to "board train" missions. They recharge fast, and it should be obvious how quickly you can give this power to teammates.

 

Once again, none of this is to dismiss your idea. The game is about being creative.

But the game is also about exploring THE CITY and enjoying the journey.

[GM Impervium]

I've found that a good rule of thumb, for older missions, anyway, is to figure out which trainline would be the bigger pain in the butt to get to before the lines were merged. For example, if you're in Atlas, and a mission takes you to Steel Canyon, go to the North end/green line. Because back in the day, the devs would have counted on you going to the south/yellow station and having to hoof it all the way across the zone.

 

Of course, this requires a bit of old school knowledge, but you can always check the city map to see which train line is which and try to figure out where your current train would and wouldn't take you, and make your decision from there. 🙂

[Six-Six]

what happens when the mission door is smack in the middle of the two trams? will the game break and Paragon collapse unto itself?

[TheZag]

42 minutes ago, Six-Six said:

what happens when the mission door is smack in the middle of the two trams? will the game break and Paragon collapse unto itself?

 

A kinetic melee/regen scrapper is placed in the nexus between the trams and sucked into the void to save paragon.

[UltraAlt]

48 minutes ago, Six-Six said:

what happens when the mission door is smack in the middle of the two trams? will the game break and Paragon collapse unto itself?

 

I certainly hope not.

Please don't destroy this Multiverse. I survived the destruction of one Multiverse. I don't want to have to endure the destruction of another Multiverse.

[UltraAlt]

6 minutes ago, TheZag said:

A kinetic melee/regen scrapper is placed in the nexus between the trams and sucked into the void to save paragon.

 

Whew. that was close.

[TheZag]

29 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

 

Whew. that was close.

 

No, we are doomed.  Where will we find someone using that power combo?

[lemming]

2 hours ago, TheZag said:

 

No, we are doomed.  Where will we find someone using that power combo?

I'm semi-tempted to do so.  Though after I finish my Stone/Kin tank

[Doomguide2005]

8 hours ago, TheZag said:

 

No, we are doomed.  Where will we find someone using that power combo?

Hey don't bring me into this.