Add "Skip Story Arc" option to contacts
By
AkuTenshiiZero,
Posted on: 2009-05-12 15:41 in Suggestions and Ideas
I'd prefer they just implement the 'choose this mission OR this mission' system a few contacts already have with this. In fact, it would be very nice to always have a choice between starting a story arc and playing a stand-alone mission.
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
Characters
[ QUOTE ]
I'd prefer they just implement the 'choose this mission OR this mission' system a few contacts already have with this. In fact, it would be very nice to always have a choice between starting a story arc and playing a stand-alone mission.
[/ QUOTE ]
That sounds good to me. The way I would like to see it done is you are offered 2 missions whenever you talk to the contact. 1 is the first or next in the story arc. The other is stand-alone (or both stand-alones if you have finished the arc). However, if you don't select either, then the next time you zone and then contact the contact, the stand-alone mission offered is different, brought up at random like radio/paper missions.
This would prevent situations where you find yourself being forced to take one of those annoying click multiple glowies simultaneously missions before being able to take any other mission from the contact. I had this happen recently myself. Only mission offered was one of these concurrent glowie missions (even though the contact had plenty of other missions that had not yet been offered.) This one was timed as well, and since the mission came up at an odd hour for me, it was a choice of either waiting 3 days for another drop, or just going ahead and failing.
Always giving 2 choices with one of those choices being random each time, would prevent an unacceptable forced teaming or forced failure situation like this.
As long as you skip the merits that would have been rewarded for the arc as well, why not?
On the other hand, what if the arc is all that contact has left to offer you? Then you just skip right to the end of the contact and they say, "I have nothing more to offer you."
As for always having a second mission to offer, that would require writing a whole lot of filler missions to allow the contact to continue giving the same number of missions they would have had you done the arc, and even then they will still offer the arc when those missions run out (if you're still in their level range).
Filler missions will run out at some point. They can't have an endless supply.
Edit: And if you want an endless supply of Paper/Radio style missions then do Radio/Paper missions.
Hmmm, so you like "kill all" missions that much? Thats typical of most of the missions that contacts have outside their arc.
Sounds like you need to stick to radio missions.
131430 Starfare: First Contact
178774 Tales of Croatoa: A Rose By Any Other Name ( 2009 MA Best In-Canon Arc ) ( 2009 Player Awards - Best Serious Arc )
Snippet:
[ QUOTE ]
But, I've only got two options: Do the Bonefire arc, or
abandon that contact altogether.
[/ QUOTE ]
There is another option: continuously skip those missions until you are through the arc... you do have alts, right?
Admittedly, that is a crappy option if you want to touch your character more often than once every 3 days... but it is an option, nonetheless.
Sound like a good idea. Especially for those contacts that send you to "talk" to another contact which locks you into an arc. Yes, I am looking at you Marshall Brass and Seer Marino. With what we have now, if you run the talk to mission, you get locked in to her arc. If you drop the Talk to mission, you are locked into her arc. Very annoying if you do not want to run her arc.
"Sorry bucko, but CoH and CoV are the same game." -BackAlleyBrawler
"Silly villain, CoX is for Heroes!" -Saicho
[ QUOTE ]
On the other hand, what if the arc is all that contact has left to offer you? Then you just skip right to the end of the contact and they say, "I have nothing more to offer you."
[/ QUOTE ]
Not a problem. From there I could go on to Radio/Paper missions.
[ QUOTE ]
Filler missions will run out at some point. They can't have an endless supply.
[/ QUOTE ]
They can if they take another of my suggestions and start "paying" users for good filler missions (and arcs) written in MA.
[ QUOTE ]
Hmmm, so you like "kill all" missions that much?...Sounds like you need to stick to radio missions.
[/ QUOTE ]
Wow, way to miss the point. No, I don't just want to play "kill all" missions. The problem is that some missions and/or story arcs are hiding [u]other story arcs[u]. For example, I have just gone through five alts and have yet to get the Dr. Vazhilok arc. I have tried to take every Vazhilok mission I can find (including the Pollution Plot arc), but this arc just eludes me for some reason. Either I'm not taking the right contact to get it, or this arc is being blocked by one of the other arcs I'm not playing (because I've already played it more than enough times for my liking).
[ QUOTE ]
There is another option: continuously skip those missions until you are through the arc... you do have alts, right?...Admittedly, that is a crappy option....
[/ QUOTE ]
So crappy, in fact, that I can't believe you suggested it.
[ QUOTE ]
Sound like a good idea. Especially for those contacts that send you to "talk" to another contact which locks you into an arc. Yes, I am looking at you Marshall Brass and Seer Marino. With what we have now, if you run the talk to mission, you get locked in to her arc. If you drop the Talk to mission, you are locked into her arc. Very annoying if you do not want to run her arc.
[/ QUOTE ]
Actually, I think that's incorrect (unless there was a bug introduced that I don't know about). I've gotten the "Talk to Seer Marino" mission plenty of times, but once I talk to her, I'm free to do whatever from that point on -- I can choose to enter her arc, or I can go about my other business. The same used to apply to Marshall Brass, too.
"Talk to" missions are irritating in their own right, though. I prefer the little dialogue bubbles that pop up after you've leveled and say, "So-and-so needs your help and has been added to your contact list." Would be nice if they could do this for David Wincott, Steph Peebles, and Jim Tremblor(sp?), as well as Seer Marino villain-side.
Check your Icons. It's been that way for 4 years. It's an arc that is opened. You can bypass it, but the arc is active. It's not a problem until you hit the arc limit and your Patron will not talk to you.
"Sorry bucko, but CoH and CoV are the same game." -BackAlleyBrawler
"Silly villain, CoX is for Heroes!" -Saicho
[ QUOTE ]
Check your Icons. It's been that way for 4 years. It's an arc that is opened. You can bypass it, but the arc is active. It's not a problem until you hit the arc limit and your Patron will not talk to you.
[/ QUOTE ]It's a Minor/Zone arc. You aren't gonna hit the limit on those.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Back Alley Brawler
Did you just use "casual gamer" and "purpled-out warshade" in the same sentence?
|
I'd at least like the option to drop them once out of range. I tend to avoid even looking at contacts on characters I team until level 20 or so, because I know I'll most likely outlevel their arc. Getting stuck fighting 5 missions full of -6s just to clear up an arc slot isn't fun in any way.
Having Vengeance and Fallout slotted for recharge means never having to say you're sorry.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Check your Icons. It's been that way for 4 years. It's an arc that is opened. You can bypass it, but the arc is active. It's not a problem until you hit the arc limit and your Patron will not talk to you.
[/ QUOTE ]It's a Minor/Zone arc. You aren't gonna hit the limit on those.
[/ QUOTE ]
If you say so. I have had it happen more than once. There was an issue a little while ago where you could only have 11 total arcs open. I have never seen any notice of this being changed.
Support ticket response
[ QUOTE ]
Thank you for your concern.
All miniarcs and longarcs fill the storyarc of a character. If a character is having 9 or more miniarc or miniarrc/longarc, that character cannot open more arcs.
Please do let us know if you have further issues.
Regards,
GM Anthony
[/ QUOTE ]
Thread
another thread
"Sorry bucko, but CoH and CoV are the same game." -BackAlleyBrawler
"Silly villain, CoX is for Heroes!" -Saicho
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
On the other hand, what if the arc is all that contact has left to offer you? Then you just skip right to the end of the contact and they say, "I have nothing more to offer you."
[/ QUOTE ]
Not a problem. From there I could go on to Radio/Paper missions.
[/ QUOTE ]
Then why don't you just do that now? If you know it's an arc and you don't want to do it, just start doing Radio/Paper missions. As long as you have the contact's call button they will still introduce you to a new contact when you reach the appropriate level.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Check your Icons. It's been that way for 4 years. It's an arc that is opened. You can bypass it, but the arc is active. It's not a problem until you hit the arc limit and your Patron will not talk to you.
[/ QUOTE ]It's a Minor/Zone arc. You aren't gonna hit the limit on those.
[/ QUOTE ]
If you say so. I have had it happen more than once. There was an issue a little while ago where you could only have 11 total arcs open. I have never seen any notice of this being changed.
Support ticket response
[ QUOTE ]
Thank you for your concern.
All miniarcs and longarcs fill the storyarc of a character. If a character is having 9 or more miniarc or miniarrc/longarc, that character cannot open more arcs.
Please do let us know if you have further issues.
Regards,
GM Anthony
[/ QUOTE ]
Thread
another thread
[/ QUOTE ]
Just so you know, I've tested this personally and I have had up to 47 mini-arcs (green bookmarks) open at the same time (villainside of course). The only time I ever had a problem was when I had open arcs from RWZ, and that was a special circumstance. There are no actual limits to the number of mini-arcs you can have open. The few arcs that have caused a perceived limit (RWZ arcs, Mercedes Sheldon) were bugged and have since been fixed, I believe. I know Mercedes Sheldon was fixed because I've had her arc open on a few characters now and been able to continue opening new arcs. The RWZ arcs I am not entirely sure about as it's been some time since I left one of those open long enough to get new arcs at the same time. I just got used to finishing those arcs before trying to move on.
That's wonderful, I've been skipping the Brass/Marino thing for a while now because of it(when I could not get my patron to talk to me, I finished the stupid arc and poof, Scirocco was my pal). I guess that was fixed when they changed the book Icons.
I still think that having the ability to drop an entire arc would be great. I still think that talk to mission should not assign you an arc unless you take a mission.
still /signed to the idea
"Sorry bucko, but CoH and CoV are the same game." -BackAlleyBrawler
"Silly villain, CoX is for Heroes!" -Saicho
To amend this: Add some sort of tag to story arc missions before you take them, so you know what you're getting into. If a tag is too awkward, maybe some additional (Possibly color-coded) text from the NPC...
"Once you're in, there's no backing down."
"I get the feeling we'll be working this case for awhile..."
Just off the top of my head.
The off-beat space pirate...Capt. Stormrider (50+3 Elec/Storm Science Corruptor)
The mysterious Djinn...Emerald Dervish (50+1 DB/DA Magic Stalker)
The psychotic inventor...Dollmaster (50 Bot/FF Tech Mastermind)
Virtue Forever.
[ QUOTE ]
To amend this: Add some sort of tag to story arc missions before you take them, so you know what you're getting into. If a tag is too awkward, maybe some additional (Possibly color-coded) text from the NPC...
"Once you're in, there's no backing down."
"I get the feeling we'll be working this case for awhile..."
Just off the top of my head.
[/ QUOTE ]
There already are tags, or rather titles. Story Arc and Mini-Arc missions will always say, "Story Arc Name: Part #". So, if you come across a mission that says Part 1 you will know that it is part of an arc.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
To amend this: Add some sort of tag to story arc missions before you take them, so you know what you're getting into. If a tag is too awkward, maybe some additional (Possibly color-coded) text from the NPC...
"Once you're in, there's no backing down."
"I get the feeling we'll be working this case for awhile..."
Just off the top of my head.
[/ QUOTE ]
There already are tags, or rather titles. Story Arc and Mini-Arc missions will always say, "Story Arc Name: Part #". So, if you come across a mission that says Part 1 you will know that it is part of an arc.
[/ QUOTE ]
Some do. I've found several examples in which they do not inform you. For example, I recently did a story arc for Technician Naylor (I already knew what it was, and was specifically trying to do it) which did not have any title or subtitle.
I admit, I had a bit of a brain lapse and forgot about the already existing titled arcs. I'm sorta drowzy 
But in any case, they should all be labeled as such, to remove such discrepancies (sp?).
The off-beat space pirate...Capt. Stormrider (50+3 Elec/Storm Science Corruptor)
The mysterious Djinn...Emerald Dervish (50+1 DB/DA Magic Stalker)
The psychotic inventor...Dollmaster (50 Bot/FF Tech Mastermind)
Virtue Forever.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
To amend this: Add some sort of tag to story arc missions before you take them, so you know what you're getting into. If a tag is too awkward, maybe some additional (Possibly color-coded) text from the NPC...
"Once you're in, there's no backing down."
"I get the feeling we'll be working this case for awhile..."
Just off the top of my head.
[/ QUOTE ]
There already are tags, or rather titles. Story Arc and Mini-Arc missions will always say, "Story Arc Name: Part #". So, if you come across a mission that says Part 1 you will know that it is part of an arc.
[/ QUOTE ]
Some do. I've found several examples in which they do not inform you. For example, I recently did a story arc for Technician Naylor (I already knew what it was, and was specifically trying to do it) which did not have any title or subtitle.
I admit, I had a bit of a brain lapse and forgot about the already existing titled arcs. I'm sorta drowzy But in any case, they should all be labeled as such, to remove such discrepancies (sp?).
[/ QUOTE ]
That's the correct spelling.
If you come across any arcs that don't have said titles, please /bug it. They should all have titles at this point.
I find myself in this situation constantly: My contact wants to give me the Bonefire arc. I don't want to do the Bonefire arc. However, I also don't want to be completely cut off from any further content that contact might have. But, I've only got two options: Do the Bonefire arc, or abandon that contact altogether.
Isn't there a way that we can be given the option of skipping over a whole story-arc and freeing up a contact's other content? It's not like I haven't done the Bonefire arc a bazillion times already. Plus, I can't run out of content altogether thanks to the Police Band system. I just want to get out of these frequent (I'm finding) situations in which one contact has "Bonefire" up, another has "Clockwork Captive" up, but all I want to do are Vazhilok arcs because that's where my character is backstory-driven to focus his efforts.