The SG registrar in CoH was the desk you went to to start your SG and pay your rent. In addition it would let you search for SGs by name or part thereof, and you could see the "Top 100" SGs as determined by their total prestige accumulated. (Prestige being the currency for things SG-related.) Once you found the SG you were curious about, you would also see their prestige total and whatever description they had posted. Once CoH went free to play, the ability to start a SG or pay SG rent was limited to only subscribers.
Ok now that we have an idea of what the registrar basically did in CoH, I can move on to some examples of faults I found with it. Please note that in fairness that SGs suffered from a bad case of undocumented spaghetti code where a small change could badly break the system in unexpected ways.
Rent: The initial system for base rent was WAY out of proportion as it was a percentage of total prestige EVER EARNED minus rent paid out. Basically rent NEVER went down under that system. Eventually that system was scrapped and replaced with a MUCH cheaper flat rate based on base size and certain amenities. While perhaps it was a little to cheap in my view, it was also friendly to players more casual than I.
The "Top 100": This was rarely useful but I can cite an example where it was. I played on Victory which was a mid-population server. When base rent was out of whack initially, the SGs in the "Top 100" were the ONLY ones that had a chance of being able to participate in base raids. Otherwise the "Top 100" (again on Victory) offered nothing more than bragging rights. I saw several SGs on there YEARS after they had disbanded clogging that list.
The SG description: This often offered the only chance to know if a SG was hero or villain or to post contact info if more members were desired..
Alright now for the suggestions and please feel free to post your own.
1. Document the code please. This is said with love and the knowledge of it's obviousness in hindsight. (Zoning into an empty grid where your base was had an initial coolness factor to it, but we were glad to get bases back the next week.)
2. Rent was fine in the last days of CoH. I was able to maintain my collection of inherited SGs and still work on progressing my "main" up the disliked "Top 100".
3. Additional parameters for searching for SGs. These could be gated with an "Advanced search" tab if initial simplicity is desired. Activity could be measured by toons or globals logged in within various time frames like x amount of weeks. Prestige by time frame could also be an option. A box to check for base raid capability could be helpful, as could a box for SGs that are actively recruiting. Heck if there are SG accolades or the like in CoT, make that a search parameter too.
4 The registrar should ask for intended morality and have an option to list a global for contact info on the SG. If contact info is given, just provide a "contact" button on the SG listing that sends an email with a form letter heading stating who sent it and in regards to which SG.
That's all I can come up with on the spur of the moment. Comments and additional ideas are welcome!
Auto-pay for Rent. I LOATHED the fact that if I couldn't play for a while the rent went unpaid and the Base started shutting down. This despite the fact that I had enough Prestige to run the thing for the next century. Please set up some sort of auto-pay system.
I hated Prestige and I think it was done badly. The exchange rate to buy it was insane and only the uber-wealthy ever used it. I say make it a strictly Influence (or whatever our in-game currency is called) system. Someone forms a SG they get the smallest footprint and enough stuff to run a couple of basic features for free. This stuff cannot be sold back for Inf in any way. If you want more Base, you pay for it. This provides the high-end cash sink that many games seem to need these days to combat inflation.
I like the idea of some sort of search function. Split it up into simple groups (hero, Villain, etc) and then rank by name. Click a button and the list is sorted by most members (active if you please), most Inf spent on the Base or whatever. Another thread has suggested being able to enter a 'Base Bio' sort of like your individual character's Background and I like this idea because it's just text.
Inactive SGs (those that have no active members) drop from the lists but can be found under 'Inactive' in case someone is gone and comes back.
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
I liked prestige.
It encouraged playing the game, solo or with others either in your SG or not. That's a good thing.
If you had more inf than prestige, you could buy prestige. The rate was too high, it was designed to be an inf sink but you'd have taken more out of game by making it cheaper and then more people would have used it. IMHO. I feel this way about lots of high end goods yet Apple products sell just fine so what do I know.
I liked that you never had to choose between buying stuff for your character or paying rent / upgrading the base. You also never had to hassle people for money to be in your SG, everyone could be in for free, prestige did not affect inf-earning rates til level 30? 30 ish?
You didn't need to have cash to start one, a prestige bump per member got you a decent base with just a few people /alts joining.
I don't have a problem with multiple currencies as long as they aren't all completely interchangeable.
So I'd have left it as it was but adjusted the inf/prestige conversion rate. That said there's no reason why some items could not have been cash rather than prestige items.
Neverwinter has various search tags for groups. More information is always useful. I'd definitely like to see some decent search options.
Rent.. ah yes. It wouldn't have been so bad if there hadn't only been the one, massively inconvenient, place to pay the damn thing. Anything that improves this would be awesome, auto-pay would work for me just fine if we could choose to pay from a group / personal account.
I'd like the ability to start your own SG and invite yourself. Neverwinter lets you invite offline players so you create an alt, invite it, swap to it, accept the invite. Voila.. you are now in your SG on your main and alt. CoX relied on someone else helping you which left you open to abuse or having a second account.
The Top 100 should have been more dynamic. There were groups who bought their way to the top with inf/prestige transfers, a more dynamic situation would have looked at how much inf they had made this month, not just the total.
If people won't pay enough to finance its creation, it is not worth creating.
/Segev
As far as how SG's work: I'm okay with something like Prestige if, somewhat like in CoH, it's a measure of your SG's activity level. That makes sense just by definition. Members should automatically earn it while doing missions and it shouldn't have to be a trade-off for other currency or XP. What the rate is or how it's balanced across all the other SG's I'll leave for discussion. I have no strong opinion on whether you should be able to straight-up buy more Prestige with influence. Seems to me, if you want to jump-start a small SG buy buying a bunch of goodies, go ahead. But it should be EXPEN$IVE.
If you have invite powers, you should obviously be able to invite your own alts. Invites should go to your mailbox, where you can accept or decline at any time.(Maybe with some kind of expiration?)
Some kind of search function would be useful. I'd like to see number of ACCOUNTS in an SG, not just members/characters, (I don't need to see who belongs to which, just a total number to compare with # of members) and how much Prestige is earned on average over a given time period. i.e. 50,000/mo. (or whatever).
When someone registers an SG I'd appreciate some fields they could fill out that tell me how regimented their rules are, how heavy their RP gets and whether they are "family friendly". These could just be a 1-5 checkbox system or something.
I also believe strongly that registering an SG should be be limited to subscribers.
Here's an idea: (Using CoH terms) What if base SIZE is linked to Prestige, but base ITEMS are bought with Influence? Rent is based purely on size. Once you buy an item, you own it.
Not sure about Auto-pay rent. If it's set up as above, where you don't use prestige for anything BUT rent, then sure. If your SG is active, no problem. If it's not? Maybe you you have to convert some Influence after all. I'd say, that if non-payment results in locking down the base, you don't have to pay back rent. Just a single month to get it re-opened? I dunno. I'd be rubbish as a landlord. :)
One word: sponsorship.
Neighborhood watch?
Youth initiatives?
Free taxi/shuttle rides home for women at night?
Soup kitchen?
Have your SG sponsor them so that the people and/or vehicles involved in those worthwhile activities sport your SG's colors and/or logo for a week!
(Yes, it's basically a money sink, but it's a spiffy way to provide some 'common man' involvement with communities and it doubles as advertisement.)
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[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
In my view prestige was needed as a second currency. You have to remember that it was introduced with SG bases in issue 6. Inf was in short supply and it wasn't easy to transfer it around. There were no markets and you couldn't email inf period. Most toons were strapped for inf until they hit the level cap. Oh and villains literally started at the same time as bases, so using inf to fund bases would have opened a BIG can of worms over hero/ villain inequality (And you had to have CoV at the time to have bases!). And all this is before we mention the issues of a member leaving and wanting inf back or the SG dissolving.
Gotta agree the inf to prestige exchange rate of 1 million inf for 2000 prestige made little sense. Which admittedly didn't stop me from using it after the end of CoH was announced. But even after the introduction of the auction house and the merging of the red/blue markets when inf was stupid easy to come by it was barely used. For those unfamiliar, 2K prestige could easily be earned solo in under an hour by the time you could start your own SG at level 10.
Also remember that prestige was the second currency introduced. It wasn't until AE tickets came along years later that we got another. (Then the incarnate system added 2 more currencies and it started getting bad.)
I never had a problem with going to a desk to pay rent. On both sides SG teleporters dropped you off in front of the buildings from the get go. And as time wore on, more ways of getting around creeped in. (Pocket D, RWZ, Market teleporters, Revamped Ferry and train lines.) Just never was much of an issue for me and I ran multiple SGs on multiple servers and sides.
No auto pay was a design decision initially I would think. And that made sense under the initial rent system which could have you paying over a million prestige in rent every 2 weeks. Remember under that system rent NEVER went down, only UP. So folks wanting to take advantage of the grace period of up to 4 extra weeks before base access was totally lost to save up enough prestige made some sense. After that you can either blame the undocumented spaghetti code, or the devs unwillingness to nerf a kinder feature of the system. Seeing as the only thing that ever changed at the registrar over the entire life of the game was rent amounts, I'm leaning towards spaghetti code.
Anyway I remembered some other ideas I had for the registrar. Should coalitions interact with the registrar?
First the now expected backgrounds. Coalitions were basically "friended" SGs. They shared a coalition chat channel and each SG could have up to 10 coalies. There was no requirement that SGs had the same coalies so you might end up hearing half a coalition conversation. SG leaders could determine what ranks could hear the coalie chatter and what ranks could enter the SG into a coalition. Having to find the leader toon of a potential coalie on at the same time as you was one of the biggest hurdles in forming a coalition imho.
During the course of the game my main SG formed mutual coalitions with 6 other SGs. We called this construct a super coalition and named it the Midnight Society. We had access to hundreds of players and enjoyed it immensely while it lasted. So with all that said we come to idea number...
5. Mutual coalitions: These should have an option to be nameable, searchable, and contactable.
Nice idea! I like it! Just would need to be expanded for the variety of morality choices, but an excellent start!
I personally hated the Prestige system. It was a currency that for YEARS (plural!) prevented me from being able to "do" what I wanted to do inside my base, which was to DECORATE. Things like [url=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/adsogw/CityScoop2/Issue%2018/SpringKnights/ControlHigh.jpg~original]THIS[/url] and [url=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/adsogw/CityScoop2/Issue%2018/SpringKnights/BackHigh.jpg~original]THIS[/url] that I did in a 2x2 Control Room on a 8x8 plot size base map (here's a [url=http://smg.photobucket.com/user/adsogw/library/CityScoop2/Issue%2018/SpringKnights?sort=3&page=1]link[/url] to the image album). Later on, I did even grander revisions that you can see [url=http://web.archive.org/web/20120906231614/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=232248]HERE[/url] built on the same principles. In the last year, I was able to make my SG base even bigger and fit a 8x8 Great Room into it, which everyone who toured to see it called one of the more inspiring pieces of peaceful atmospherics they'd ever seen, because it was the Night & Day room. Sadly, I can't find any screenshots I took of it ... but it was dark around the walls, had a colonnade that went all the way around the perimeter, but was brilliantly lit (by "daylight") in the center with a "sky framing" ceiling in the center.
In practical terms, the entire Prestige system existed for the purposes of reining in PvP Base Building so as to achieve some semblance of parity between SGs ... and it just failed miserably at that. PvP relevant Prestige costs started at 1000:1 over what was needed for a PvE Base, and just went up from there to stratospheric cost levels. It was just ridiculous how costs were "balanced" so as to make soloist SGs essentially require years of gameplay before they could even modestly upgrade.
Rent was a concept that was long past its expiration date well before the costs of rent were lowered to "nuisance" levels. If you're going to have a Prestige currency at all, might as well use it to "rent" a slot on the Base Raiding calendar for a period of time, rather than using it as a "punishment" for not playing the game. Going to pay rent on your Base was just an unnecessarily tedious thing to do in order to maintain a status quo condition.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
While I may respectfully disagree with much of Redlynne's post, it did remind me of another feature I saw asked for in CoH. The ability to tour bases.
One of the great shames about all the effort that was put into bases by both devs and players imho was that almost no one could SEE what you had done with a base if you didn't belong to the relevant SG or coalition. A box to check on the SG permission form to make your base tourable in a "look but don't touch" fashion. This should be independent of flagging it for PvP for tutorial reasons.
This is one reason why -- particularly with the 'All Your Base' and 'Mogul' Kickstarter rewards -- that I want to see [b]cosmetic[/b] aspects of bases be free -- rooms, corridors, interior decorating, etc. -- but with anything installed in a base that has a functioning game effect (i.e., power, control, and the things that used power and control, storage, etc.) being paid for with whatever currency is defined for it. That way, a lone hero/villain with a personal lair could have it fitted out as a lavish penthouse suite if they chose, while the actual [b]functional[/b] parts of it are relatively limited.
I really like the idea of allowing tours -- look, but don't touch.
Also, i think we should bow to reality and recognize that some players will become incredible base designers, while others (like me) will be indifferent. It should be easy for the indifferent to get help from any willing and skillful designer for his/her base.
Could there be a badge for helping to design 10 bases? Sounds good to me, even though it is a badge I will never earn. :)
I could get behind the idea that Prestige is used to buy the BASE and Inf is used to buy what goes IN it. Base contents still provide the Inf sink the high-end game needs while Prestige is earned without having to ask for donations by SG members.
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
/em lightbulb
The SG Registrar.
One of the things you could set with the SG Registrar would be the ability of non-SG Players to enter your SG Base. Set it up using the "Mission Instance" coding for assigning a Mission Door location to access the Instance (in this case, the SG Base) and have the Mission Door be located [i]right next to the SG Registrar's desk[/i]. The Base Tour Mission would be completed by Exiting the named SG Base. While inside the SG Base, non-SG members are subject to Museum Rules of the "look but don't touch" variety, meaning that the only thing they can interact with is the Entrance Portal into the SG Base.
So a SG Member with the appropriate permission (ie. doesn't have to be the SG Leader) can go to the SG Registrar and flag the SG as being "open" to SG Base Tours.
A Player wanting to Tour the SG Base of a group they are not a member of can go to the SG Registrar, look up the SG Name in the roster of SGs that allow Base Tours, select that SG Base Tour and receive a "Mission" to go Tour that SG Base. The Mission Door that gives them access to the interior of that SG Base is located just a few steps away from the SG Registrar. The Tour Mission is completed when exiting the SG Base through the Entry Portal (meaning you can stay in there as long as you want to).
Note that doing this would allow SGs to host events and costume contests within their Base without needing to engage in Team invite workarounds, requiring at least one SG member "camp" at a Base Portal somewhere in the world, and would allow for a much wider appreciation of talent and styles in the building of SG Bases (cue commercial for The Justice Girls and their extensive "closet space" on Cape Radio).
Basically ... why don't we just make Base Touring a service that can be enabled and "moderated" by a NPC like the SG Registrar? That way if you want to go see someone's Base that they've advertised in the Forums for the game, you don't have to rendezvous with a particular member of the SG (who then has to babysit you while you're in their "house") and Team with them in order to enter a specific SG's Base and Tour it? Just let the SG check a checkbox with the SG Registrar to allow such things to happen without SG members needing to be present and/or participating in the Tour.
Note: I would fully expect PvP SGs to [b]NOT[/b] enable Touring of their Base(s) simply because such information about the disposition of the battlefield and terrain could be used as a tactical advantage in PvP combat when Raiding Bases.
Additional Note: one of the more interesting options for PvP Base Raiding that I can think of is that for the duration of the Base Raid, the two (or more?) SGs participating in the Base Raid are "linked" through their Entry Portal(s) so as to create an offense/defense situation, rather than just having all action take place on "one" SG Base map, with the Raid Teleporter sending attackers to an enemy Base in locations OTHER THAN the Entry Portal (ie. Doorways). SG Base Raiding would be another service run through the SG Registrar NPC on a consensual basis between the two SGs involved (ie. I raid you and you raid me).
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
There is alot of SG functionality being thrown around.
I have a list of things my SG would like to have (not in priority order):
1) SG Symbol
2) SG Uniform
3) SG Colors (so people don't have issues in the tailor customizing their uniform)
4) SG Base Map Location
5) SG Name (unique)
6) SG WikiPage (ingame wiki please!!)
7) SG Leadership Ranks
8) SG Bank/Crafting Rules
Crowd Control Enthusiast
I like the touring option Red. Simply set it so they can't actually touch/take anything and it's all good.
I really like the hosted CC idea. Imagine players building rooms JUST for hosting CCs in with special lighting, tiers for posing etc!
Nice...
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
Museum Rules all the way.
I don't have to imagine it. Hero Dawn [b]DID IT[/b] in their Base.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Yup. Pretty much everything I was thinking. NICE addition on the CC idea! I agree that almost every PvP base would not be flagged for touring, but some folks may want to demonstrate effective PvP building tactics and should have the option to do so if base touring is implemented. (I did just such a tour once with coalies.)
I like the idea of the door swinging both ways during a raid, but I would add that normal entry/exit should still be an option.
I belonged to a SG where just touring the Base was a form of PvP, since you could easily be lost for days and Starve in there. *grin*
Base builder made a Ziggurat in there.
Be Well!
Fireheart
On a list of SG features would be the ability to actually set a "team uniform"
basically just the pieces and colors determined by the leader would be added onto your character as part of their "SG Costume Slot" (free to change as if it was a blank new costume slot)
that way SG's can establish a "look", not just a color scheme.....
there could even be SG locks in place so members of lower ranks could alter some of the costume, but not all of it (always gotta have your SG tights on, but the rest is up to you to fiddle with)
Now, this wouldn't interfere with any of the rest of your costume slots, and there'd still be the "team color" swatches to swap between to be "in team mode"..... but it would be cool as an SG leader to establish that uniform (and make recruits wear it until they'd earned the right to edit it :P)
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
JayBezz I apologize. I tried to provide a good description of what the registrar did in CoH, but I overlooked that it did many of the things on your list as well. By the numbers then...
1. A selection of SG symbols was available upon creation at the registrar. Selection of a symbol was required, but could be changed freely by anyone with the permission to do so.
2. Uniforms were not required by the game for SGs. Many SGs did have official uniforms but in my experience they were the minority.
3 SG colors (2) were selectable at creation and anytime after with permissions. The default selection was dark black for both. Additionally you could select how and where the SG colors would appear when your toon toggled on SG mode at no charge or restriction.
4. SG bases were entered through universally accessible portals in most zones. No map location was needed, but you could always choose to RP it.
5. SGs were named at creation and could only be changed if they were deemed offensive. [b]A practical means of changing the SG name by players would be a nice improvement.[/b] Thanks for the reminder JayBezz!
6. CoH had no ingame wiki, but there was an extensive help menu if you could find it. Still it's not a bad idea.
7. The 5 (later 6) SG ranks has default names that could freely be changed by those with permission.
8. CoH didn't really have a banking system and I'm not sure it suffered for it, but I'll have to leave that topic for others. Eventually the storage bins had individual access permissions based on SG rank. (I think that was the last improvement SGs got before the end though.)
Hope that was helpful for ya.:)
Any part of a character's costume that a SG leader might want to override might be part of their body or the source of their powers. Powered armor wearers, fish men, and mutants like Angel or Beast wouldn't be able to wear the SG uniform if it had to be a pregenerated skin. I know I'm out of uniform, Sarge, but if I shave my afro, I lose my strength.
CoH's base system was developed almost exclusively for very large and coordinated groups (that could bring in large amounts of Prestige) that would eventually get involved in the base v. base PvP raids.
Well, that didn't work out as intended at all. Bases eventually became mostly a small group or even individual thing used mainly as a storage house, portal hub, and architectural construction play time.
Obviously, CoT's base system will have to be built from scratch with a totally different focus from the *original* CoH design.
Former Online Community Manager & Forum Moderator
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Hah... yeah, I thought of that... but the core concept would still be valid.... just ymmv, ya know?
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
Or, as was mentioned in the KS update... have two different "types" of bases...
the small/personal base (batcave) that provides all the usual functions MOST people desire out of a base...
and large setpiece-cum-SG bases (watchtower style) for use in PvP SG raids....
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
I appreciate your addressing this. I understand much of what CoH's system did and very much like many parts of it. Because there is no "Supergroup Functionality" thread I am using this one to expand on what specifically my group of gamer friends would like in our in-game supergroup.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
No problem at all. The registrar was the 1st step in the SG experience and we all want it to be the best it can be. We absolutely want input from those who don't have a CoH reference point to provide balance.
Aye I agree with that.
[OPINION] My sense of it was that the devs drew on their own play experience in designing SGs and the players took a right angle turn to that expectation. They looked at how the devs played with the devs, which wasn't the worst example possible but it didn't mirror their players situations. The devs worked together, ate lunch together, and their kids probably had playdates with each other. All in all they were a MUCH tighter knit group than any SG the players were likely to form which is where it started to unravel a little. If Posi wanted a SG for his new toon he could phone BABs and get that invite no problemo, or find out who to call if BABs couldn't do it just then. These guys were networked and organized. If they wanted a PvP base from scratch they could get 20 people to put in 5 hours teaming each in SG mode and have the base up in about a week. So that was the basis they used as they designed SGs. No indifference or incompetence, just no knowledge of how skewed their perspective was.
For contrast many players didn't personally know any other players. Many others like myself only personally knew 1-2 RL folks that played upon beginning. SGs were a matter of joining one or starting one. And with bases being a feature of CoV, starting one looked pretty cool! Recruiting became a matter of selling your SG to whomever seemed interested and hoping they logged into that toon again sometime within the next week. Maybe even at the same time YOU were playing. And players valued the anonymity of their internet based experience. They were hesitant to give out phone numbers, real names, or even confirm gender to each other. Large teaming runs within 1 SG were out of reach of many, and that affected the chance to build up your base before rent took it's next bite.
I have some expectation that the rise of social media has somewhat dulled the edges of online anonymity since then, but it will still exist.
TL:DR Everyone tends to assume that their experience is normal. I believe the CoH devs did this and were actually in error where SGs were concerned.[/OPINION]
Had another idea, Include the option to have an SG mail for the leaders to get messages to the membership. Not certain if it should go to the account or the toon, but I think it should be opt-in instead of default. The other options for SG communication include the Message Of The Day (MOTD) which risks getting lost amongst a slew of other MOTDs or a whiteboard in the base, which has concerns on how to enforce a T rating on.
CO has an option to mail everyone in the SG IIRC. Such a simple feature yet overlooked...
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
Neverwinter also has guild mail.
CoH had plenty of large group bases.
I'd beware making PvE bases, PvP-able. Just end up with a lot of butthurt PvE'rs.
I think, alongside solo v team play, base size is something you can address just by making a small base easy to achieve and large bases scale either through purchases or just based on membership numbers. Is CoT going to do something dramatically different to this?
What I wouldn't want to see is where you have a base, you have 30 players, now you need 5 million credits and then you have to add "build new room" to a queue and wait two weeks.
-= love the idea of base touring =-
If people won't pay enough to finance its creation, it is not worth creating.
/Segev
Again ... it depends on how you do it. I always figured that the solution to the PvP Pathing Problems was to ADD what amounted to a "PvP Pipe" feature into the editor where a Base Editor could define the "walkable pipe" of space that would be clear of obstacles that connects all the non-decorative destructible items and features of the Base, rather than relying on an automated algorithm to do the job for you (as was present in the beginning when you couldn't put objects inside each other). That would then give you a free and clear "path" from Here To There defined by the Base Editor which would then allow for mazes and obstacles which followed some reasonably simple "rules" for structure that the Base Editor would need to honor. PVP-able "stuff" then just needs to be connected by what amounts to "contact patches" of area between the individual pipe blocks.
The whole thing would wind up working a lot like the way that Power and Water services worked in SimCity, essentially, in that you have a "network" of clear, unobstructed, walkable spaces that connect all the PvP relevant items together to verify that they haven't been put behind indestructible walls or other cheatery.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Has anyone thought of the idea of "Subgroups" in supergroups?
You may join the "X-Men" supergroup but actually work with the "X-Force" squad. The only real benefit of being in a subgroup would be an aesthetic name. I suppose this could also be done with "Affiliate Supergroups", But the reason for subgroups is the ability to share SG resources and give SG authority (leadership etc) to lower branches of the SG without feeling like you're breaking lore AND without starting a second SG.
Avengers, Uncanny Avengers, New Avengers would all be housed in the "Avengers Tower" but could identify themselves inside via their subgroups.
*Obviously Marvel characters used as example. Clones are boring and likely against the EULA*
Crowd Control Enthusiast
Sounds like a decent idea!
Sounds like a good idea. I know there were plenty of SGs in CoH that had broken off into SGs like that. But it always seemed like a pain for SG chat and not everyone using the globals.
Me like! Yeah I know of a LOT of SGs (including my own Redside) that were too big and had to split. Not tough to explain lore-wise at all.
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
I'd like the ability to start your own SG and invite yourself. Neverwinter lets you invite offline players so you create an alt, invite it, swap to it, accept the invite. Voila.. you are now in your SG on your main and alt. CoX relied on someone else helping you which left you open to abuse or having a second account.
THIS! This is the ONE ability I ALWAYS wished I had in CoH! Freaking A!
Roll an alt, add alt to (my own) SG, no assistance required.
Amen!
[quote=GhostHack]On a list of SG features would be the ability to actually set a "team uniform"
Ha, I like this idea too
Fusion Force on Triumph had a SG costume you were supposed to have available. It was somewhat mutable, depending on your avatar, but they made it work. I still remember Batraal the Bound's SG costume. He looked like exactly what he was: a demon with horns and fangs and leathery wings stuffed into an ill-fitting green and white spandex jumpsuit. It was hyasterical. GOD I miss CoH....
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I assume the SG bases will have all the amenities that they had in CoX. Storage for swag, teleporters (or whathaveyou) for getting around town faster, stuff to craft with, etc. For organizational purposes, it would be nice to have a visual version of an SG calendar, so you can plan events. Maybe have the ability to sign up for things on it too. That is, as leader or whatever, I could post a "sign-up sheet" for a trial on a particular day and time. That would be nice.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I would actually like to put down a marker on SG Base amenities.
PLEASE ... [b]NO TELEPORTER PADS[/b] to PvE Zones.
One of the things that I found fault with in City of Heroes, and it certainly wasn't the only game this fault occurs in, was the issue of "navigation" around the worldspace of the game. Specifically, because of the zone structure (and having started playing in Issue 2) I always found myself carrying a mental map of the zone connections between zones and calculating the shortest path from here to there in order to minimize the amount of zone loading necessary to reach destinations. In many ways, I actually found the SG Teleporters to ultimately be ... redundant and unnecessary ... and that's even before Ouroboros arrived on the scene to make zoning happen even faster (since the Ouroboros zone had so little in it, making it load extremely quickly) as a transit hub.
When SG Teleporters were first introduced, they were a wonderful innovation, allowing quick(er) transit around Paragon City (especially) and the Rogue Isles (relatively). A substantial reason for why this was so was because in Paragon City the Yellow Line and Green Line trams were not connected, and the only zone to have stations for both in the same zone was Steel Canyon (Skyway originally didn't have its southern Green Line station). This meant that some kinds of zone trips could involve quite a lot of zoning in order to reach a destination ... even when using the [url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Paragon_Dance_Party]Paragon Dance Party[/url] as a shortcut between Talos Island (by the Natural Store), Steel Canyon (near Icon) and Independence Port (East Power Island).
However, with faster travel comes a very curious phenomenon ... [i]a smaller world[/i].
With SG Teleporters, it suddenly became true that the longest distance to any zone in the game was ... either to [url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/The_Hive]The Hive[/url] or to [url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/The_Storm_Palace]The Storm Palace[/url] at the far end of the [url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Shadow_Shard]Shadow Shard[/url] (back before multi-teleports to the Shard zones were available), which would take no more than 4 zone changes to get to The Hive from anywhere ... and everywhere else was usually either 2-3 zone changes away (and often only 1, especially after the trams and ferries got linked up). This made navigation around Paragon City, especially, too much of a "cinch" and a trifling triviality to be dispensed with in the minimum possible amount of time. Because of how the zones "worked" in terms of moving between and around them, rapid transit from one end of the city (or isles) to the other effectively "shrank" the world in a way that made simply moving around the environment something of a waste of time. In the last year of City of Heroes, it was rare to spend [i]more than 1 minute[/i] getting to a destination actually moving around within zones ... while the rest of the time (sometimes 2-3 minutes) was completely consumed by waiting with zone loading screens. The net result was a city with lots of zones ... but a plethora of short "routes" between them that effectively made the city *feel* MUCH smaller(!) than it actually was.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
heh, I thought about Fusion Force when I read the suggestion about a team costume (basically thinking, "Em had better not set one of those!"). For non-Triumphites, FF's costume scheme ended up feeling very GL Corps to me... it was the basic theme and color layout that you should follow as much as possible, but you were definitely free to tweak parts to fit the character. I had about as much fun coming up with each character's SG-themed costume as I would any one of that character's other, non-SG, costumes. And it was fun to see everyone's little variations when folks got together for events. Good times.
Global: @Second Chances
SG: Fusion Force
"And it's not what I wanted
Oh no, it's not what I planned
See it's not where I thought I'd be
It's just where I am"
Agree with everything written here
NO TELEPORT PADS TO PvE ZONES
Crowd Control Enthusiast
If the risk of people sending out mass SG invites is deemed problematical, the reverse could be implemented with people able to send invite requests to the SG that can be accepted whether that person is online or not.
- - - - -
[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
Thirded on the teleporters. I found them very convenient, especially on a Task Force. But they took away the feeling of being in a metropolitan area. I think I prefer the inconvenience of having to walk or get a fast travel power.
The same goes for the current trend in mission arc placement. Players today seem to want all missions to be "Go fight those thugs across the street, then break up their meeting that's coincidentally in this building right behind me, just like your last two missions." By the time I get to level 20, I want to feel like I'm protecting the city, not a neighborhood. Get rid of Talk To X missions that could be phoned in but aren't, perhaps reduce travel in Task Force style missions, but bring back the old style of mission arcs, where you have to physically go to the power plant out in the sticks to prevent the villain from blowing it up.
Hadn't thought about it but you're right. The ITF was popular because it was FUN. Wide cave tunnels (instead of the narrow kind), cool enemies (and PLENTY of em!) and very little travel between missions. But you had to travel through TIME to get there! I could see story arcs that led to someplace remote, had a couple/three missions and then went someplace else. Travel between EVERY mission of a TF got old fast.
I agree with phoning in missions too. If you need a messenger, find a bicycle. I a super-being darn it!
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
I liked teleporters, if you don't want to use them, don't but I should be able to.
I'd retain them being an unlock via map exploration.
For me, going blueside, they were essential, I had no idea where I was going or how to get there outside the teleporters for the longest time.
There was a couple of TFs spread across a ton of map where they were really handy, I'd hate to get stuck on something like that, waiting for the people who didn't take a travel power.
They're a good way to explain and facilitate travel to non-geographically connected zones like a zone that exists in the shadow lands, somewhere else in time, a floating space platform etc.
If people won't pay enough to finance its creation, it is not worth creating.
/Segev
I am firmly of the position that Pandora's box(x) should remain closed.
Do not give players the ability to disregard the rest of the content you've made. Anytime you give players the ability to do something, they make it impossible to take away. And worse they often have larger ramifications on the social aspect of the game. The people who don't use the "cheats" (my word) are only making themselves worse.
TL:DR: Don't feed your kids cake for breakfast. Kids won't say no, but they don't always know what's best.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
The [b]K[/b]eep [b]I[/b]t [b]S[/b]imple [b]S[/b]tupid solution to the problem of allowing SG invites to offline characters is relatively simple ... limit such invites to accounts that are either on your Friends List or to accounts which already have an alt in the SG Membership. In other words, don't allow "spam" invites to the game population at large.
This is one of the things that I really learned to appreciate about World of Warcraft ... which was that the world was [b]SO BIG[/b] that it actually took TIME to get to places! That's because all the transportation and taxis (either by flight or by ship) took time to complete because they used the game engine to transport you around, rather than relying on an instant teleport system for everything (ala Tram Stations or SG Telepads). There's even an Easter Event in WoW where you have to begin the quest in a starter area and then WALK all the way across a continent IN AN HOUR to reach a lake of boiling water in Ungoro Crater so as to "boil an egg" (which is of course an Easter Egg). If you mount up, get attacked or try and take a flight taxi to get there ... you fail the quest. So you have to WALK across an entire continent in order to complete the quest, and you've got an hour to do it!
I did it on one of my characters that didn't have a speed buffing ability and just barely managed to make it in like 58 minutes ... which made me appreciate how HUGE the world was.
You didn't get that with City of Heroes. Everything was all point-to-point transit, with travel shortcuts practically *littering* the place, such that getting from anywhere to anywhere hardly ever took more than 6 zone screens, which could be completed in less than 10 minutes (and sometimes in less than 5 minutes) ... and that's including wanting to swtich from Redside to Blueside to Goldside. City of Heroes had so many shortcuts to get around towards the end that you pretty much didn't need anything besides Sprint and Ninja Run to get around, with a Jump Pack being an acceptable way to gain height when Ninja Run didn't offer enough height to get over obstacles. When Level 50 characters of any Archetype can run at 60 miles an hour using 1-slot Hurdle, 1-slot Sprint and Ninja Run ... and the movement speed cap for Running is set at 90 miles an hour ... 2/3rds of the speed cap maximum is "plenty" for being able to make short work of really long distances ... even in places like Independence Port, where you'd be arriving less than a minute behind your teammates. In fact, I personally got so good at using Sprint+Ninja Run as my standard "travel" (small "t") Powers, that whenever I was the first to a Mission Door [i]and waiting for the Superspeeders to catch up to me[/i] that I'd just say in Team Chat: "Ninja Run wins again" and on a Task Force I would be the first to the Mission Door at least once during the run.
So I'm definitely of the opinion that "fast travel" ... and especially in the form of zone teleporters, or even worse, Teleport To Mission Door abilities ... make the game world incredibly small. That said, there is something to be said for multi-player "summoning" abilities where 3 teammates together can summon anyone else on the team to come to the summoning location, so as to be able to get everyone together on a Team quickly. THAT is worthwhile.
The most egregious NPC excuses are ones where you can just tell that the entire point is to make you waste time running around. World of Warcraft was especially bad about this. Contacts would be placed in the most "out of the way" place on Continent 1, and they would give you a quest to go to the most "out of the way" place on Continent *2* of the same level range and ask you to go get the most trivial bit of useless nothing from there (because they were just that picky) and bring it back to them. Stuff like "go and get the driftwood from this beach on the OTHER continent in an extremely dangerous location for me because my feet are nailed to the ground and I heard the driftwood over there has special qualities that the driftwood on the beach RIGHT NEXT TO ME doesn't have. [url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Indigo]Indigo[/url] was the worst example of this that I found in City of Heroes. She was located at the bottom left corner of Founder's Falls on top a hill surrounded by Devouring Earth (which strangely never wanted to come and rip her face off), and she'd always be sending me off to Missions in places like Crey's Folly ... [i]all the way at the other end of the game map[/i] ... that she'd supposedly "heard about" (somehow) as being the place where stuff was going down.
Now I could have bought this kind of an excuse if each Neighborhood in each zone had a "local Contact" who would give you exact directions to the Mission Door, and was essentially the "snitch" who had passed along the information to your Mission Contact NPC who'd given you the Mission in the first place. So instead of Indigo (in Founder's Falls) telling me to go do Mission Door 8375201 in Crey's Folly ... she'd send me to me meet her Informant in Tangle Town in Crey's Folly. I'd meet up with the Informant (which could be anything from an NPC to a phone box to a trash dumpster to an armored door) and then the Informant would give me the location of the actual Mission Door 8375201 [i]in that Neighborhood[/i] (in this case, Tangle Town in Crey's Folly). That way, it would feel more like I was following a "trail of breadcrumbs" from the Mission Contact to the Mission Door, rather than just doing a Point A/Point B, do your thing ROFLSTOMPING the NPCs you find in the Mission.
You can only have a "big world" if your Players have to move around in it, and through it, and learn their way around, learning the back alleys and hidden places in it ... rather than by just zooming on by at top speed, resentful of the amount of time they're wasting in getting from Point A to Point B. If City of Heroes hadn't had Exploration Badges, hardly anyone would have bothered to explore Paragon City at all.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
What was there to explore?
If people won't pay enough to finance its creation, it is not worth creating.
/Segev
This has taken an interesting turn, insofar as I don't get the concern about teleporters. I'm in a game now where I have to run everywhere, and when I see I am going to need to run across the map again to get to an exit that will lead to some other zone I'll need to run across to get to something, I don't sigh gratefully as I contemplate how large the world is... I sigh tiredly because I am about to embark on another timesinky trek over territory I have already traversed a number of times (if I am lucky, maybe I will accidentally aggro stuff along the way that I have already fought, which I'll have to stop and fight yet again. yay!). Maybe I just already had a sense for the CoH maps since I usually grabbed exploration badges on characters, so the convenience of travel didn't give me the feeling of "smallness" it gave others.
If they want folks to feel the size of the maps, they could give us reasons to go various parts of the map. A lot of games end up working you around their maps as you progress through story arcs, so you pick up new contacts in other parts of the map that will give missions in that neighborhood that deal with issues in that area. They may want to leverage that a bit when they do genre arcs, since different genre stories might involve focusing on different parts of a zone... that could be cool since it would add another way that taking your new alt through the zone would feel different than your previous visit with a different character.
Global: @Second Chances
SG: Fusion Force
"And it's not what I wanted
Oh no, it's not what I planned
See it's not where I thought I'd be
It's just where I am"
If I am wanting to do missions, then I don't want to spend half my time playing online just getting [u]to[/u] the mission. If I want to "explore" the world (there were many times I did just that), then I will take my time and explore the world. Otherwise, I just want to get from point A to point B and could care less about what's in-between.
If Teleport Pads to PvE zones are done away with, then I would suggest that all the travel powers need to be exactly equal speed-wise.
I hate when a game is padded by manipulating the map. Skyrim did it by making EVERYTHING on the other side of a mountain. Other games do it by making quests drag you to the other side of the world. If there is a legitimate reason to send me someplace then fine.
Maybe part of the problem is the reason for traveling. If I'm going on a mission then I'm okay with that. But if it's some 'fetch' mission then forget it.
I see no problem with some way to get from zone to zone. Transport is a staple of comics and it allows those that have no 'real' travel powers (the golden age types) to get around.
However in the end CoH went too far. SG teleporters, Oroborus, eventually they had so many ways to get to a mission travel was just another load screen.
There has to be a happy medium. Perhaps the 'one world' format with no war walls will make travel fun again. Maybe if they incorporate missions to be 'discovered' as we travel? Some reason to do things the slower way? Drop some one-off missions and clues for story arcs that can't be found any other way maybe?
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
World of Warcraft did this, where if you just *flew* through to the mission areas (if you were high enough to fly in the zones), you could actually miss out on a few "one shot" short missions, where the mission starting item was a drop from a mob.
A game that I have been testing recently, actually pushes this a bit further, because not only are you able to *return* quite a few mission remotely (I would say that so far, it seems to be about 50/50 on "return to mission giver/hand in continue remotely"), and carry on the chain without returning to the giver, you will also find missions scattered around in the zone randomly... either via mobs, or interactable items, or even just *entering* a newly uncovered section of the map.
You know what annoys me the most out of everything in the world right now?
Walking in Neverwinter.
Riding isn't all that great, the little dashes you can do are not for travel.. everything else is walking.
The second you enter a dungeon, an instance, change maps.. you walk. It's STUPID.
It's even more stupid if you are a superhero, nobodys superhero power is "walk long distances at normal speed". It's NOT super.
Superspeed had a downside. Superjump was awesome. Ninja run ruled.
I think you could build a game without teleporters, I do not think CoX would have been as fun without them.
Plus there were SG teleporters that took you to missions, they made sense.
You could certainly use them for everything else except for in-map transports but I think people would wonder where they were and why you couldn't TP to far away locations.
If people won't pay enough to finance its creation, it is not worth creating.
/Segev
Heh, not quite certain how SG tp pads became a topic, but I have to admit folks seem to want to discuss it! I liked the tp pads in CoH, and I can see several reasons to keep them. But first I would mention that even for the devs in CoH zone design was ever evolving. They never repeated anything like Independence Port and Faultline was just outright revamped. By the time CoV came around transport between the zones was streamlined and the zones were smaller. The point I'm to slowly getting to is we don't know how the zones will be set up and therefore cannot assess the need for teleports in either direction without better info.
Having said that, I enjoyed and used every teleport and shortcut in CoH that I had access to. I encouraged others to do so often. Even told new players to log out at the market whenever possible for that dayjob tp. Speaking of new players, the ones I shepherded LOVED being shown and told about the teleports. They add a distinct "cool" factor to the potential repeat customer that the devs want to impress. It's all well and good for veteran players to be "meh" about a feature, but it's safe to assume that bringing in new customers is a business priority.
Speaking of players, earlier I said that folks tend to assume their own experience is normal even though this is easily disproved. For me, well I'm a parent now and I don't see any real advantage to extending travel times. I'm already at risk for being suddenly called away (Just made a bottle in fact). More of CoH's fans are making the transition to parent every day. I can guess which way they will lean on this issue.
I will readily admit that I basically haven't played WOW (2 hours total), but this is the first time I have heard of travel in that game being shown is a favorable light in relation to CoH. I am willing to believe that the egg walk COULD be enjoyed, but it sounds like a very easy "pass" for me.
And it's always relevant to mention that each and every shortcut was OPTIONAL. You always had the choice to ignore them for whatever reason floated your boat that day. Not to lessen or ignore the social pressures of completing a TF in a timely manner, but you could always tell folks "Not teaming today. I just want to explore for a bit". This was every bit as valid as marketing or base building, but less common.
In short I enjoyed being able to log into a toon and use the SG dayjob tp to get to my SG base and use a pad to go pay rent from First Ward if I was so inclined, and then get back to my start point and log out within 10 min, often autocompleting a paper mish along the way to lessen the bite of the rent.
I have to agree with those that don't want to do away with transporter pad type functionality. I had plenty of times that I just flew/ran/jumped around to explore things, but that's because I was in a mood to explore. When I'm running missions with a team, I do NOT want to have to run/fly/jump around half a world just to get there. For regular missions, it should be pretty easy to get where you're going. And remember, even with the zone transporter, you still had to move normally from the entrance point to the zone from your base to wherever the mission entrance was.
Now, for certain special missions like the Easter Egg tidbit above, disallowing zone-skipping type powers is completely understandable, the whole point of the mission is to have you move across things yourself.
I don't think I agree with the idea of strictly forbidding TPers to PvE zones entirely. I think you could definitely make it a little harder to get around in general though, then let people buy stuff at the cash shop for more convenient travel if they're willing to shell out the money for it. One compromise would be that the SG members have to build/establish a remote teleporter pad at each destination in order to make it work. Something like a TPer where you get in the one booth in your SG base, then reappear in the corresponding booth at the remote site. This makes more sense to me than just randomly appearing in Atlas Park, in a precarious position at the top of a random wall no less. You could make it a whole TF or story arc that you have to go through in order to build the remote end TPer pad (at the end, you've gained the trust of the bar owner or whomever and they let you put the TPer in their basement, or whatever). Also, I think the SG should just have ONE TPer pad that can take you to any remote pad. I never saw a reason why they needed to make us use like 12 different TPer modules in the base to be able to cover all the various target locations. THAT part was unnecessarily annoying. I can see not being able to TP to "hazard" zones, because the safety of the remote side TPer pad wouldn't be guaranteed. I can see limiting the number of possible remote TPer pad locations available, but in a game where you don't get to have a Batmobile or the equivalent, I always thought the monorail was silly (there was a Penny Arcade cartoon about that back in the day, I believe, that and one about how Hover was a crappy travel power). Assuming the closest thing we get to Super Vehicles is something akin to the Arachnos Flyer or the Longbow Whatchamacallit, which is to say, a team TP power with a graphic that looks like getting into a vehicle followed by a camera jumpcut to the scene of the crime, I think the SG base TPers are something I want, albeit maybe in more limited fashion than what CoH ultimately had, at least at first. Exploring the map and getting all those navigation skills is fun at first, but get's tedious after 8+ years. I'm all for missions/TFs/trials, etc that have the pubcrawl/scavenger hunt vibe and a "no travel shortcuts" rule, just to run you through the paces, but not all the time, and not for us lazy premium VIP players who want to arrive in style and on time.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Another thing I thought of that I'd like my SG base to have: some kind of monitor screen that does something cool. On The Superfriends cartoons, they always had a monitor screen that would show the "trouble" happening when there was a "Trouble Alert". It would make you wonder how they got a camera there, but it was cool. I think SGs could have some sort of spy satellite that gives you a God's eye view of the city, like a radar map, and can show various zone events etc in real time, in addition to to having the "hacked" version of the map, telling you the various area's different inhabitants and level, etc. I think it would be cool to have a SG "Trouble Alert" that sends out an SG-wide text message (which you could opt out of if you don't want them spamming you) letting us know that, say, Jack-In-irons is out in Croatoa or what have you. It would be cool to have the ability to zoom in on certain areas, for instance to see of there are any TFs forming in places where that has a tendency to happen. It would also be nice if each member could write a bio on themselves for others to read in the SG's internal database. You could look up your SG mates current badges, powers, enhancer slotting builds, costumes, read their (hopefully longer) full origin story, etc.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Um Radiac...wall of text fail dude. Try editing with some breaks...I lost you midway through sorry
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
Some people have lives to lead outside of the game and don't have hours to spend walking about admiring the scenery in order to get to a task. I think not having the option to fast travel to a zone via teleporters is a very bad idea, and one that doesn't take into consideration other people's time schedules.We should not force a specific travel option on everyone, if you like walking to zones there's nothing stopping you doing it. However, it's very unlikely that players who like/need to speed gameplay up are going to agree with the walking everywhere idea.
day one vet
So why not just give everyone a "TP to mission area" ability?
That would certainly be useful, I wouldn't have a problem with a fast travel to mission/team/base function implemented.
It wouldn't necessarily have to be in the mode of a teleportation device or power either, it could be something as simple as a flying transportation that the team automatically gets when it joins up to do a task force or missions. Or perhaps something a supergroup earns which can be called on to transport it's team members about when grouped up. ?
day one vet
And 90% of the content gets skipped because nobody needs to travel anywhere. Why even take a travel power at that point? Scheduling issues aside, you shouldn't be able to skip most of the game. Fast travel everywhere will blow all attempts at regulating leveling speed out of the water. If you don't have one minute out of twenty to travel to a mission then I'm sorry for your hectic schedule.
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
I'm not exactly sure how travelling to a mission quickly or a TF means people won't choose travel powers. Maps, indoor and outdoor require you to have a travel to get around and keep up with the team, so the only person who would not choose a travel would be someone who was comfortable doing missions and travelling the maps with basic run. That has to be about the smallest population of players I can imagine.
I would clearly take fly as a travel power at some point even if I had an instance of fast travel whenever I joined up for a mission. Fly means I can zoom around the map looking for things from above, the fast travel just means I don't have to fly through 9 zones to get there.
" If you don't have one minute out of twenty to travel to a mission then I'm sorry for your hectic schedule."
Some people have families, jobs, have to travel constantly, it's not uncommon in real life. I used to team with actors and musicians in CoX and you wouldn't believe their schedules, when they got the chance to play the last thing they wanted to do was waste precious time they could be fighting and leveling. Some people have different lifestyles, not taking that into consideration is quite honestly unreasonable.
day one vet
If we are going to go on to discussing fast travel to missions, can I take it we are now okay with the original thing (fast travel to zones)? If not, we may as well not escalate the discussion.
Global: @Second Chances
SG: Fusion Force
"And it's not what I wanted
Oh no, it's not what I planned
See it's not where I thought I'd be
It's just where I am"
OMG did you play City of Heroes in years 1-4? I think EVERYONE has stories about people on respec trials not having a vertical travel power, trying for hours to get up the side of the reactor building while everyone else who didn't take Recall Friend just went AFK, quit the TF, or complained the whole time. Even among the people who DID take a vertical travel power, there were those who turned their noses up at Fly and TP because Superjump was the most combat effective pool overall. The minmaxxers will try anything to get a combat advantage. I think if they made a power that required someone else to teleport you around like a sack of potatoes, but gave you good combat buffs, people would immediately take it and spam "NEED TP" over chat all day.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Yeah I remember it all, I even used to park my kinetics buffer in AP spamming buffs to low level toons who were usually all alts of fellow level 50's sick of having no travel powers at low levels. This only became futile when subsequent updates gave us travel powers earlier in game.
day one vet
I remember the TaxiBots in the Hollows. For when you Fell In and Can't Get Back Out.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
Although I never needed their services, I thought the TaxiBots were awesome.
Yup taxibots were a very cool bunch of people.
day one vet