The perils of 'official' content

Faultline starts at 15.

Okay, looks like I'll hit the Hollows for a few levels before taking a jaunt to the 'new' Faultline.

More later.

Bit of a threadjack but on the subject of old and new; the 'Cape' mission.

Heroside; I hit twenty with several heroes. The only thing which strikes me is a single line the trainer says, something about visiting the City Rep in Atlas. Despite getting the stupid AE contact popping up immediately at lv5 I get nothing. Only foreknowledge that 20 = cape+costume slot. A visit to the City Rep, some blather about honouring the sacrifice of Omega Team and Hero One, go talk to a guy in Galaxy: Paco Sanchez.

And so it begins. I get to Paco; he tells me all about how Hero One influenced his life and tells me to go to Skyway, talk to Sgt. Suzanne Bernhard. Okay, nice and easy. One tram-ride later in Skyway and Suzanne is nearer the south end of Skyway. Lucky I always take a travel power or this would be really arduous. Get to Suzanne, she tells me how Hero One affected her life too and tells me to go to Justin Greene.. in Independence Port. Now if the green line wasn't here that would've meant a hell of a long trudge back to the yellow line, switch to Steel, trudge all the way up to the green line and then to I.P. or enter by the connecting gateway. We get to Independence Port and Justin has decided to set his home up in the north-west corner which means a half-mile journey through mobs up to four levels above me. Thank Fly I can just pass over them all. I get to Justin and this is where the fun begins. After he tells me how Hero One helped him I get sent to Perez/Atlas/Talos/Steel/Skyway *delete as appropriate. So after trudging three or four in-game miles I get sent to another zone that means a good long journey back and possibly a few more zonings. Lucky I have a few self-port powers available including mission teleporter which is a few seconds animation and instant zoning to the entrance. Inside is five Lost mob spawns, one of which is the defendable Time Capsule (which looks uncannily like several magic artifact storages I've been finding in various other missions and not a giant pod with a Union Jack on it). Depending on which AT and how many inspirations I have; the rather uninteresting mission is over with th last line being "The temptation to look inside is too great" so apparently in a bit of forced-narrative I don't look inside.


Now let's compare with the villainside version: again, the same message at the trainer but thankfully my starting contact told me to come back when I was 20. Oh look, I have his cell number because I did all that work for him early on (I choose Burke most times). Click the call button; "Hello Burke... oh. You want me to talk to someone? Alright" Talk to Lorenz Ansaldo in Sharkhead. Oh sweet, that's just a ferry-ride away since I'm in Cap Au Diable. I get to Lorenz and he tells me he has a little problem and needs a warehouse cleared. A defeat-all with some destructable objects and it's Longbow. Sweet. Generic attacks with the occasional elemental thrown in for variety. AND I get to blow up a few crates as well. AWESOME!

Once that's done I exit and immediately get told my ride to Paragon City is ready and the pointer is directing me to a boat in the same zone. One hop, skip and superjump/fly/run away (and doorclick) and I'm in the top end of Steel facing more Longbow (side-note:great for the villain badge). Now to get the attention of some stupid hero by smahsing more stuff, this time taking the form of two statues. After destroying both statues with at least one of its guards completely oblivious I start to get ambushed. Two small fries followed by the big mac hero that I'm really after. After several brief rests between ambushes I tend to use up my inspirations taking out the hero and apparently steal their cape (once bugged it as the hero wasn't wearing one).

Now the difference between the two is startling. One is a simple talky-talky mish that takes you all over the city, the other has two instanced missions and a talky mish in one zone EVERYTIME as well as the contact's phone number in your pocket. Heroside it breaks the flow because of all the travelling while villainside keeps the flow going with as little travelling as possible. The comparison shows that while the planning behind missions had improved vastly, the lack of revamping old content is a bane on the new content that comes after.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

It is no coincidence that all my villains have capes, even the ones who don't need them, while the only heroes who do are the ones who desperately need them to complete their 'look'.

Yah, they're destructible.

As a blaster, I didn't get close enough to find out if they meant me harm. =P


In the Hollows tonight, and while the farming around the Skyway gate is excellent (nice big spawns, arcane enemies, handy healing crystals everywhere) I'm less impressed with Wincott (Hey, depopulate the streets before I'll give you a mission) and Mason, who insists on giving me Vaz missions literally a mile away.

Anything else I should check out here before I head back to Skyway for some radios?

Adventures with Lorenzo DiCosta

Overall, this guy just gave me more of the same thing I've been doing since leaving Atlas- drugs, skulls, gangs, blah blah blah. A mix of fedex, street hunts and door missions that are barely distinguishable from scanner missions.

There was one notably annoying mission, 'Take Ledger to Carla Brunelli'.

She's in Skyway and your last mission was in Steel- a bit annoying to call your contact and then have to hoof it back to Skyway anyway, for no real reason (a scant paragraph of dialog), only to be sent on a GIANT hunt mission in Perez.

20 skulls and 20 Hellions. Of course by this point they're all gray to me, which makes it simpler while adding to the general feeling of pointlessness. And if I didn't have my temp travel powers it would be an annoying lot of travel. Happily with the jetpack I pop into Perez, zap a bunch of Hellions, scoot over the forest, zap a bunch of Skulls, then fly back for the door mission that ends the arc.

Happily the final mission exp was enough to get me to 15. I flipped Lorenzo the bird when he wanted me to do a timed rescue mission vs the Council, popped my Pocket D teleporter and headed for the manhole to Faultline.

Lorenzo's stories get a D.
There was nothing notable about any of his missions, the story was generic and boring and the travel was irritatingly redundant. I completed three Skyway City contacts and I think I did one mission in Skyway- all three of them sent me to Atlas, Kings, Steel, Perez & the Hollows.
What is there to recommend Lorenzo over running radios or hitting MA?
Nothing at all. Once again, the "real game" that so many people are "missing out" on by checking into MA out of the tutorial falls flat on its face.

I haven't done much with Faultline since they revamped it- popped in and looked around, that's about it. I'm looking forward to contrasting the newer 'real world' missions against the older stuff.

But so far, the devs intentions in sticking an MA in Atlas are crystal clear- they aren't any happier with the 'introductory' content than I am.

update:
faultline is fun, more on that later.

Right now I just want to whine about Madeline Casey.
The ar/dev I'm leveling had a pile of patrol XP to burn up, so I picked a random contact to run.

Her first two missions were identical- 3 people to rescue, defeat carnival mistress. Oh wait, they were on different maps- one was more annoying than the other. King's Row is full of irritating nooks and crannies to hid hostages.

After that comes a long run of 'rescue so and so' mixed with kill-alls on huge maps and the occasional glowie. Oh, and one retarded fedex that takes you from kings row to the tail end of Bricks for two lines of dialoge that send you to Perez Park.


So far none of it has risen above the most generic, pedestrian offereings in AE. But it has deliverd a ton of annoyances I wouldn't have had to bother with in AE, mainly excessive, pointless runs to far off mission doors.

As unimpressed as I am with her offerings, I must laud the devs for structural changes to the game that made it playable, even engaging at times.

Back in the day, fighting anybody with a lot of mez was just pointlessly tedious for most blasters. After the diffficulty slider, heroic was do-able but boring while higher settings were guaranteed frustration once you ran out of break frees.

Now, I'm able to generate enough enemies to be interesting (spawned for 3) while keeping their level manangeble (+0). And I can combine inspirations so I've always got a breakfree for emergencies. Plus even if I get held I can still plink away with burst & slug, which in most cases is enough to deal with the illusionist.

And between the Oro portal and the Market teleporter the travel wasn't horribly frustrating. The few times I couldn't get directly to the zone I wanted I was able to land next door and take a short jog to a zone door or train station. Plus getting her # after a handful of missions (and being able to take a train to Founders) was very nice.

So, the content may be bland and generic but the experience of playing it didn't irritate and annoy me, which is certainly would have in the 'old' days.

I don't really enjoy having to travel 3 zones away to deliver a message,but travel has gotten faster.However, I would rather do those types of arcs because there is nothing really heroic feeling about popping in and out of the same portal in the same building mish after mish. Comics would really suck if the JLA just hopped into a portal in the Hall of Justice issue after issue...

I'm developing a strong antipathy for dear Madeline.


So I've apparently worked my way through the 'crap' missions because the little 'story arc' icon has appeared in my contact window.

Oh boy, I think, here comes that great content, at long last!

Or, maybe not.

First mission- a stealth Kill All that is masquerading as a 'stop leaders and crews'. Annoying enough, but 3/4ths of the spawns are drones and monkeys. Spawned for three.

Grr.

The drones weren't too much trouble (thanks, Targeting Drone!), but the monkeys were actually rough- massed psychic darts from 20+ monkeys were a bigger PITA than a big spawn of regular rikti.


Having burned my drop earlier in the day on a gigantic 'kill all' office map, I gritted my teeth and backtracked to clean house.

Finished it, hopped out, called in.

Find Location of Rikti Base
aka
Defeat 45 Rikti.


Grrr.

on the up side, I'm in Bricks already so I can just pop into Creys for some grey hunting. On the down side, the idea is so depressing that I'm going to log out and read a book. Maybe it'll look better in the morning....

I was doing Ouroboros arcs a while back for the badges on my namesake; one of the preferred arcs was the "Revenant Hero Project" by Gordon Stacy.

In the middle of the arc, he has you see Jake Montoya and deliver a CD to someone else in the middle of the zone, then GO BACK to the other person.

While this wouldn't be so bad, it's annoying with the "No Travel Powers" enabled, fair enough.
In general, there are too many deliveries throughout the game:

Ding 15 or so?
Go see the BLoody Bay liaison
Go see Jimmy in Faultline

Let's not forget the intro to the Hero Corps person (fair enough, important feature.)

What they should do with the PvP contacts is simply add a little window blurb:

"You're now powerful enough to gain access to Bloody Bay. This is a PvP zone so you WILL be attacked by other players. There are items of interest there such as Shivan Shards, stealth temporary powers, etc!"

Because it's awesome getting a Brickstown contact and getting sent to Kings Row for a Warburg delivery then back to Brickstown for another delivery for...

Logged in this AM motivated to kill a bunch of grey Rikti- WHOO HOOO, CREY'S FOLLY IN THE HOUSE!

I'm very happy ar/dev has tons of AoEs.
The 45th grey Rikti I mow down spills the secret location of their base- IP.
Waaaaaay out in the tail end, of course. Which isn't so bad because this character has SS slotted for runspeed.

Ok, get there and it's my second 'kill all' Rikti mission.
The spawns inside are mostly monkeys.

Is this some kind of new annoyance, or has it been going on for a while?

Kill Alls are irritating enough as is, they don't need to pump up the jam by making most of the stuff you're supposed to kill TOTALLY WORTHLESS.

After cleaning house I hop out and call in.
My choices are a street sweep for more Rikti (no thanks) and a timed multi-bomb mission I'm supposed to bring friends to. I don't feel like teaming this am, so I accept the mission and log out to let it auto-fail.

I guess I should be thankful it was on a timer...