Make Circle of Thorns maps less confusing

[LemonBars]

The other day I spent about 45 minutes in a mission searching for the last of glowie on a Circle of Thorns underground city map during the Ghost Widow patron arc. The location of the last glowie, a magical spell ingredient, was even marked on my map after I found the second ingredient, but it took me about 45 minutes to locate the passageway leading to that part of the map. I got lost and backtracked all over the map several times. I was unable to auto complete the mission because I had already used my auto complete on another mission the day before. 

 

Anyway, I think some of the Circle of Thorns maps are more frustrating that fun. The decor and atmosphere of the city is great, but could we open up the maps a little bit by getting rid of some of the dark maze-like passageways and hidden areas and dead ends? I hate mazes and puzzle games. I've quit several video games just because I kept getting lost all the time. No fun. Fortunately most City of Heroes maps are either simple or feature just a small amount of navigational challenges. But the Circle of Thorns maps are something else. Terrible. Please consider updating them, simplifying them a bit. Thank you!

 

P.S. I can't believe this game is back and free to play and there are actually people updating this game. Thank you so much! I will be watching for when donations are open! I have more money now than I had when the game shut down. 

[UltraAlt]

Some of the maps in the game are made to be maze/puzzle maps.

Perez Forest maze for sure.

 

There is also a council map or two with some tricky passage ways.

 

one cave map where there is a passageway that loops around and under another map section.

 

It's fun from the puzzle perspective. but I can see how you would think it is frustrating, but I find that to be less frustrating than a mob hiding under a set of stairs somewhere or accidently knocking a critter through a wall and having no way to defeat it.

[Rudra]

Reveal power available from P2W. Never get lost again.

[biostem]

8 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Reveal power available from P2W. Never get lost again.

The problem is the maps don't really depict paths up to or below the "main" level.  I recall a cave map where there's a wee little ramp leading up to a sort of loft area, (might be the infamous "pancake room" now that I think about it).  At the very least, a little better color differentiation between floors, walls, and ceilings could go a long way...

[Rudra]

1 hour ago, biostem said:

The problem is the maps don't really depict paths up to or below the "main" level.  I recall a cave map where there's a wee little ramp leading up to a sort of loft area, (might be the infamous "pancake room" now that I think about it).  At the very least, a little better color differentiation between floors, walls, and ceilings could go a long way...

The problem you are describing is not a Reveal problem. It is a map drawing problem. Regardless of whether you explore the cave and draw those rooms in yourself or use Reveal to see the full map layout the results are the same. What the OP said though is that:

2 hours ago, LemonBars said:

The location of the last glowie, a magical spell ingredient, was even marked on my map after I found the second ingredient, but it took me about 45 minutes to locate the passageway leading to that part of the map. I got lost and backtracked all over the map several times.

 

Reveal would have prevented that problem by showing the map's full layout so the author would know where the missed branch to the glowie was and would know where (s)he was on the full map.

 

(And yes, the little area that seems like a loft in the cave maps is the top level of the layer cake room. And there are two ways up in there. One is the ramp and the other is to jump, fly, or teleport up through the convenient hole in the 4th level's ceiling. If you use Reveal and see a rather large room on a non-Troll cave map? It's the layer cake room. I can't remember what the wrap-around room looks like on the map, but it is fairly evident. The wrap-around room being what I am now going to call the room @UltraAlt was talking about.)

[Coyotedancer]

Isn't "this place is a total maze/I have no clue where we are" sort-of the point of Oranbegan maps? 

 

If I were going to start changing maps, I'd start with the archnoid caves red-side, myself. It's hard to tell what's a wall made of irregular rocks in there and what's a side-passage.

[UltraAlt]

9 hours ago, Rudra said:

(And yes, the little area that seems like a loft in the cave maps is the top level of the layer cake room. And there are two ways up in there. One is the ramp and the other is to jump, fly, or teleport up through the convenient hole in the 4th level's ceiling. If you use Reveal and see a rather large room on a non-Troll cave map? It's the layer cake room. I can't remember what the wrap-around room looks like on the map, but it is fairly evident. The wrap-around room being what I am now going to call the room @UltraAlt was talking about.)

 

Just so it's clear, I wasn't talking about the top-level of the "layer cake" room. 

The one that I'm talking about is one of the newer cave maps from CoV or CoH:GR. 

[UltraAlt]

1 hour ago, Coyotedancer said:

Isn't "this place is a total maze/I have no clue where we are" sort-of the point of Oranbegan maps? 

 

And they did already make it easier to get around.

 

I remember when the portals teleported you to a random portal and it was very easy for teams to be split up all over the place. Characters would have to go back through portals repeatedly to all end up in the same place ... sometimes with an ambush waiting as soon as you came out the other side!

[Rudra]

2 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

 

Just so it's clear, I wasn't talking about the top-level of the "layer cake" room. 

The one that I'm talking about is one of the newer cave maps from CoV or CoH:GR. 

I am well aware and had thought I had sufficiently differentiated bewtween the layer cake room and the wrap-around room in my post. The "loft area" on the cave maps is the top most level of the layer cake room. Then I said that the room you were talking about I was henceforth calling the wrap-around room. The split loop room that either deposits you on a higher level or lower level of the cave map depending on which way you approach the room from and works like a railway spiral looping back on itself without closing as opposed to the 5 tiers of the same room that comprises the cave layer cake room. So if anyone is still confused?

 

Cave Layer Cake Room:

Is presented as a surprisingly large room on the map with only a single path in. Has 5 levels with a single entrance/exit. Entrance/exit is on the 3rd/middle level. Top level looks like a stone loft. Bottom level looks like a swimming pool for rodents and other small animals.

 

Wrap-Around Room:

Is a transitionary room most commonly accessed from the map entrance by ascending a large ramp that almost bisects the ramp's large room (with a pond in the back section of said ramp room). The wrap-around room can appear as a dead-end when you first enter it from this direction, but has a sharply angled down path just around a corner in the room that loops back under the path you came up from and leads to another hall on a lower level of the cave. On some maps, the access is reversed and you instead enter through a regular hall and then descend the ramp room out the other side of the wrap-around room. The ramp and wrap-around rooms are always linked and can effectively be considered the same room.

 

Is that more helpful?

 

(Edit: And yes, I am specifically saying 'cave layer cake room' because there is also an Arachnos layer cake room which is actually more difficult to clear when you are required to. I say this because I found a Freakshow standing on one of the pipes at the top of the room well away from any of the platforms or ramps where there is no access during a timed kill all. I finished that 90 minute timed kill all with less than 10 seconds left on the clock because of him.)

Edited April 5, 2023 by Rudra

[Doomguide2005]

     I don't have much experience with Reveal but unless it somehow draws a different map or I misunderstand the OP it wouldn't help the issue the OP was having on that map.  And I get their frustration as telling what passes over or under each other on the map (a fully revealed one) is difficult on a good day at times.  The maps do a lousy job at height changes.  But that's just part of the game and especially in literature confusing passages and dead ends are often used to delay and confuse intruders.  If getting too frustrated log off, grab a different character and run something else and try again (or auto complete) another time.

[UltraAlt]

53 minutes ago, Rudra said:

I am well aware and had thought I had sufficiently differentiated

 

I thought that was where you were going, but I wasn't sure.

So I asked for clarification.

Thanks!

 

55 minutes ago, Rudra said:

because there is also an Arachnos layer cake room which is actually more difficult to clear

 

I appear to have somehow avoided that one.

 

56 minutes ago, Rudra said:

I say this because I found a Freakshow standing on one of the pipes at the top of the room well away from any of the platforms or ramps where there is no access during a timed kill all. I finished that 90 minute timed kill all with less than 10 seconds left on the clock because of him.)

 

Always a thrill to cut the correct wire one second before the doomsday device goes off!

[Rudra]

The maps don't show elevation regardless of how they are revealed, correct. However, the OP states "it took me about 45 minutes to locate the passageway leading to that part of the map", and using Reveal would have shown the missed passage to get to the glowie on the map. It would not show any elevation changes, but most cave maps don't have the wrap-around room elevation changes and the rooms with the different elevations don't need the elevations shown. Click the marker on the map and it shows you where the glowie is, including its elevation. Use the map to get to that area and look at where the triangle indicator is.

[Luminara]

3 hours ago, Coyotedancer said:

Isn't "this place is a total maze/I have no clue where we are" sort-of the point of Oranbegan maps?

 

And sewer maps.  And office maps.  And tunnel maps.  And lab maps.  And warehouse maps.  And... the only maps Cryptic/Paragon made which weren't mazes were outdoor maps, and even some of those are mazes (city block maps filled with objectives and hostages).

[UltraAlt]

7 minutes ago, Doomguide2005 said:

 I don't have much experience with Reveal but unless it somehow draws a different map or I misunderstand the OP it wouldn't help the issue the OP was having on that map.

 

It reveals the entire map, so if there is some area you haven't explored yet it will suddenly show up on the map.

Just because a red marker shows up on the map out in the middle of some area of the map you haven't explored yet, it doesn't show you the sections of the map that have access to it.

Thus, reveal shows you what sections of the map will take you to the red marker, but you will still have to figure out how to access that section of the map.

 

If it is the map I'm thinking about, you have to go over a wall and down into an area that looks like a dead end that actually opens up into a section of tunnel that takes you to the room with the glowie.

[Doomguide2005]

I knew it would Reveal the entire map.  The problem i suspect the OP is/was having is interpreting the revealed map to locate the correct "up, over, under and around" to get to the indicated spot.  It's certainly what slows me down at times (spoken as someone who could readily run around the purple layer cake or Perez Park with no issue ... but those memories are now a bit old and even misleading at times)

[biostem]

Even a simple adjustment, like making elevated areas lighter in color, and lower ones darker, then marking ramps or stairs in another color, would help greatly...

[UltraAlt]

30 minutes ago, Doomguide2005 said:

but those memories are now a bit old and even misleading at times

 

Yeah. With you.

[srmalloy]

2 hours ago, Rudra said:

Wrap-Around Room:

Is a transitionary room most commonly accessed from the map entrance by ascending a large ramp that almost bisects the ramp's large room (with a pond in the back section of said ramp room).

As I recall, it's commonly entered (as in moving deeper into the map) showing you the pool in the background, an arch in front of you framing the pool, and a ramp on the right that rises as it curves around to the left above the pool; at the left side it turns sharply right into a rising tunnel (magma in cracks to your left in a wider section), turning right again into a large chamber where you go along the ledge with a large bowl to your left. At the other side of the chamber, the path turns right again into a tunnel angling down. Having the room turned around in the map so you're coming up the tunnel to turn left at the bowl chamber is much less common in my experience.

 

The possible spawn points that I've seen in that 'room' are under the arch near the front, at the back of the pool, a short way up the ramp on the right, on the ramp about midway across the back, just before the second turn to the right, and midway on the ledge in the bowl chamber. Nothing seems to spawn down in the bowl itself, although I've watched a mob stupidly walk off the ledge and drop into the bowl. (yes, this is from memory; after the first couple of hundred times you go through the same room, you learn the little details)

[Rudra]

1 hour ago, Doomguide2005 said:

I knew it would Reveal the entire map.  The problem i suspect the OP is/was having is interpreting the revealed map to locate the correct "up, over, under and around" to get to the indicated spot.  It's certainly what slows me down at times (spoken as someone who could readily run around the purple layer cake or Perez Park with no issue ... but those memories are now a bit old and even misleading at times)

The problem as the OP states was:

 

17 hours ago, LemonBars said:

it took me about 45 minutes to locate the passageway leading to that part of the map

 

 

The stated problem was not traversing or interpreting the revealed map for up, over, under, around, or anything else of that nature. It was the inability to find a branch of the map that had not been used by the author yet. This happens frequently when you get turned around and confused. It happens frequently to me, at which point I open up the map, at which point I go "Aha! That's where I am and there is where I need to go!". It happens frequently to my friends which is why they immediately use Reveal when they enter a cave map and run with the map window open. If the author had stated that they could not find the glowie because it was above them or below them despite standing at the marker on the map, I would agree with you. However, the author rather plainly states the inability to find the correct passage to reach a part of the map the author plainly had not yet reached. Using Reveal would alleviate that because all the passages would then be on the map.

Edited April 5, 2023 by Rudra
Spelling.

[Doomguide2005]

@Rudrai see what you're saying.  Maybe it's different for the OP as even with the map with all the black gone can be a nightmare to figure our whether I need to go up or down in my search for the passage leading to where I want go.  It's only the decade plus (like a lot of us) of repeatedly doing the maps let's me navigate through them at times because I barely need any sort of map to do so.  The mere appearance of the red marker and I've a pretty solid idea of where and how to get there.  But I can recall the early days when 1) no markers even appeared, 2) I'd never seen the map before and 3) Neither Reveal nor auto-complete were options for a player.  So yes a whole lot less hair pulling these days with QoL changes but the map itself leaves something to be desired in making clear what goes where when multiple levels overlap.

[Gobbledygook]

If the maps are changed to be less confusing, what am I gonna bitch talk about in team chat?

 

 

[Rudra]

20 minutes ago, Gobbledygook said:

If the maps are changed to be less confusing, what am I gonna bitch talk about in team chat?

 

 

The weather? In the cave? 😜

[Coyotedancer]

If it's a DE mission... the "trees" growing in the middle of the cavern. In the dark. With no sunlight. 

 

Yeeeeah....  Trees. Sure.

 

<_<

 

YOU GUYS AREN'T FOOLING ANYONE!

[srmalloy]

9 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

If it's a DE mission... the "trees" growing in the middle of the cavern. In the dark. With no sunlight. 

No less innocuous than the 'trees' growing in the middle of a hall in an office building...

[Coyotedancer]

1 minute ago, srmalloy said:

No less innocuous than the 'trees' growing in the middle of a hall in an office building...

 

True, that. 😝