Unlockable contacts - always miss, newly miss, etc.
By
Aggelakis,
Posted on: 2011-08-30 12:09 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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That is one of the problems with the Contact Finder. It doesn't include Detectives or the regular contacts in KR. Once you finish Twinshot's arc at level 8, you are basically funneled into the Hollows if you don't know how to find other contacts. And if you do an AP bank run to open one of the old contacts in KR, the first thing he does is send you to talk to Wincott. |
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Well, on Beta, those should show up in the new "Find Contact" interface one way or the other. This one contains all contacts who will speak with you, whether or not they're actually in your contacts list. The last time I tried it, it was showing me David Wincott when I had never so much as set foot in the Hollows, never gotten a pop-up announcing him and no contact ever mentioned his name or his turf.
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Justice Blues, Tech/Tank, Inv/SS
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Fighting The Future Trilogy
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Side-switching allowed me to actually unlock and do Viridian for the first time. Hunting Paragon Protectors, Freak Tanks, and Tsoo Sorcerers is just too time-consuming redside, but changing to rogue allowed me to get the necessary badges with some quick visits to Talos, Terra Volta, and Eden. A little annoying that the character I did it with is a dyed-in-the-wool villain so I had to change alignment twice, but... that's redside for you.
Other than that, I think I've done 204 and the Slot Machine once each, and the others at least a couple times.
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I actually took the time to run 204's arc.
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Well, I hate to say it, but if nothing changes in the contact finder then blueside is going to be one massive case of "unlocks".
The reason is that the new intro experience throws out the roots of the contact tree. The contact finder does not "find an available contact" in its current implementation. It finds the next contact associated with a zone content arc. By that I mean people like David Wincott, Montague, Jim Temblor, etc... It does not pull up any of the ordinary contacts or even any of the story arc contacts.
So far, the only "ordinary" contact my newbie brute has been introduced to was a single introduction from Montague. Otherwise, the only way to get a new contact that isn't part of the zone story chain is to "unlock" it by doing scanner missions until you get a safeguard, and then (or so I hear) the detective will offer you another of the regular contacts.
A blueside player who follows the path of least resistance is going to be facing an even worse case of railroading than redside if the current implementation goes live. At least, that's how things look to my level 18 Freem brute at the moment. Maybe something will change at level 20 that I haven't reached, yet.
I like the unlockable contacts too. I also really like that you can Oroborous them if you unlock them after you've passed the level deadline. I'm rather fond of Crimson Revenant if just because you can fight Mynx and Back Alley Brawler relatively early in your carreer. I unlocked him unwittingly on my first character and managed to run across him (this was before they had the "someone wants to see you" notification when you unlock them now). Only one in my SG to have it unlocked and everyone thought it was the neatest thing.
Because back then you had to know what to look for, it made them a nice surprise when you did find them or when they showed up on the Oroborous list.
But I digress. I wouldn't mind seeing your newspaper (and detective if they add them heroside) contacts, as another option, to give you a clue about an unlockable contact if you don't want to just grab a regular contact after your safeguard (only available if you have them in your level range).
I could look something like this:
Be introduced to a new contact.
or
Hey, I heard something that might be of interest to you...
And the 'something' would be a clue to unlocking an unlockable contact in your range.
Thoughts?
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I couldn't agree more.
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Yeah I wish they'd get rid of the 'required' contacts/runs, like Wincott, the PvP contacts, Jim Temblor, etc. I could see if you're new to the game, but after being around a few years... I get tired of getting forced to go run to them before my contacts will give me anything else. It's almost like they don't want my help!
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Originally Posted by Justice Blues
That is one of the problems with the Contact Finder. It doesn't include Detectives or the regular contacts in KR. Once you finish Twinshot's arc at level 8, you are basically funneled into the Hollows if you don't know how to find other contacts. And if you do an AP bank run to open one of the old contacts in KR, the first thing he does is send you to talk to Wincott.
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"I play characters. I have to have a very strong visual appearance, backstory, name, etc. to get involved with a character, otherwise I simply won't play it very long. I'm not an RPer by any stretch of the imagination, but character concept is very important for me."- Back Alley Brawler
I couldn't agree more.
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The way the Contact Finder works, as I understand it, is it only lists contacts who will speak with you, but does not list those who you need to be introduced to by other contacts, and that's at least half of hero-side and most of villain-side. Either the old contact introductions have to be scrapped altogether, or the new contacts need to start offering introductions to old contacts at some point in their arcs prior to the end.
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Originally Posted by Justice Blues
That is one of the problems with the Contact Finder. It doesn't include Detectives or the regular contacts in KR. Once you finish Twinshot's arc at level 8, you are basically funneled into the Hollows if you don't know how to find other contacts. And if you do an AP bank run to open one of the old contacts in KR, the first thing he does is send you to talk to Wincott.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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I have no idea if the contacts can be, or are needed to be unlocked via Oro. I honestly don't go out of my way for a contact unless it unlocks something that's desirable, ie Hess TF and Katie TF.
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All of this crap needs to go, time frame five minutes ago.| Yeah I wish they'd get rid of the 'required' contacts/runs, like Wincott, the PvP contacts, Jim Temblor, etc. I could see if you're new to the game, but after being around a few years... I get tired of getting forced to go run to them before my contacts will give me anything else. It's almost like they don't want my help! |
We have pop-up help (remember that? no? neither did the designers, instead we got a pair of superfluous "tutorial" arcs coming that do a good job of showing off mediocre characters someone thought were clever and a horrible job of actually teaching anything). We have an email system; the game could generate emails from Detectives or Contacts telling the player about new opportunities. We don't need these endless run-all-over-hell's-half-acre tasks to tell people about things they already know of after they've leveled one character.
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Always count on Venture to find the grey cloud in the silver lining.|
Originally Posted by Venture
All of this crap needs to go, time frame five minutes ago.
We have pop-up help (remember that? no? neither did the designers, instead we got a pair of superfluous "tutorial" arcs coming that do a good job of showing off mediocre characters someone thought were clever and a horrible job of actually teaching anything). We have an email system; the game could generate emails from Detectives or Contacts telling the player about new opportunities. We don't need these endless run-all-over-hell's-half-acre tasks to tell people about things they already know of after they've leveled one character. |
Just because YOU know what to do doesn't mean the next person will. They do still hope that new people continue to start playing the game. If they didn't, they'd take all that stuff out.
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Yes, and that is why you get the "so and so has contacted you" message when a new contact becomes available, that adds the new contact to your list so you can choose to run to them when you're interested in what they have to offer, and not to run to them if you'd rather continue doing what you're doing.
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Originally Posted by White Hot Flash
Always count on Venture to find the grey cloud in the silver lining.
Just because YOU know what to do doesn't mean the next person will. They do still hope that new people continue to start playing the game. If they didn't, they'd take all that stuff out. |
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I tend to unlock most of the redside unlockables. Many of them are unlocked by badges required for accolades, so I figure if I need to get the badge at some point, I might as well get it early and unlock the contact while I'm in range.|
Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
Does anyone actually remember, or go out of their way to unlock, any of the unlockable contacts? And would you want more, if they were introduced better?
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Having two accounts helps there. Trapping ghosts at an early enough level to still get missions from the contact is often a debt-filled affair. I just use a 50 on my other account to do the trapping until my new toon gets the badge and unlock.
People run teams to get Gangbuster (while unlocks Slot Machine) fairly regularly since it's an accolade requirement. I jump on those with newer alts and have the contact as soon as I'm in range.
Same for Crimson Revenant. It's hard to finish leveling through Sharkhead without taking out Ghost of Scrapyard at least once. Maybe on lower population servers that's not as true.
It used to be very close trying to get Doc Buzzsaw unlocked without outleveling her. I'm not sure what changed there but I don't have that problem anymore, despite leveling rather slowly and as a result often having patrol XP.
The only ones I don't usually get, and in fact have never done, are Arbiter Leery, Number 204, and Viridian. I don't run respecs often at all, and when I do I usually take the merits. I don't know if it's still true but in the past if you didn't take the respec reward you didn't get the unlock. I have never had anywhere near 50 toxic tarantula kills before I hit 50, much less 45. I don't know what possible leveling path would change that. As for Viridian, that's just ridiculous. I don't expect to ever run his arc(s).
As for wanting more unlockable contacts, I would only want more if they were done right. For me "right" means that if I chose a leveling path that had the right enemies or other badge requirements in it, I could unlock that contact through regular play, but it would still have to be a deliberate choice to make that happen. Unfortunately most of our badge requirements are not set up that way. Even choosing missions with a specific enemy type at every opportunity most defeat badges can't be had without a lot of grinding.
I would not want more unlockables if the key to unlock them was more mindless grinding.
While some of the contacts are still easy to out level, Dr Buzzsaw is better, now. Since they changed the infamy badge reqs, you tend to get that badge at around 29ish, meaning you still have time to actually do her arc.
The best unlockable contact I think, is hands down, Viridian in grandville. This is one of the coolest arcs in the game, and contains just about the single BEST mission all round. Sure, the kills needed for the badge are a little rough, but it is great fun.
Also, if you bring a hero toon redside, odds are you will have some of the badges (like sorcerers) already done.
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Originally Posted by Aggelakis
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Should the unlockable contact stores, Mr. Yin, Agent Six, Holsten Armitage, Ghost Falcon, etc , be added to that Paragon Wiki page?
They dont give you story arcs to run, but you do need to run a mission to unlock their stores.
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Still can't unlock The Radio in Port Oakes via Flashbacks ... since I've done them all. |
Originally Posted by Garielle
Just as an aside, for these unlockable contacts that you miss early in the game (especially the one in Port Oakes), you can always unlock them later and run their arcs through Ouroboros once you are level 25 (will actually only need to be 14 once Freedom hits). The fact that you now get XP along with merits for running flashbacks through ouroboros is just icing on the cake, IMHO.
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It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...
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They are not unlockable contacts. You can walk up to them and get their mission(s). You don't have to do anything special before doing that except "get to X level".
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Originally Posted by Technophantom
Should the unlockable contact stores, Mr. Yin, Agent Six, Holsten Armitage, Ghost Falcon, etc
, be added to that Paragon Wiki page?
They dont give you story arcs to run, but you do need to run a mission to unlock their stores. |
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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.
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The Radio has its arc listed in Ouro under "The Hit List" (Solder: level 1-14).|
Originally Posted by Redlynne
Still can't unlock The Radio in Port Oakes via Flashbacks ... since I've done them all.
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The Radio's three extra missions that are not in the arc aren't available in Ouro. (No contacts' Flashback content includes one-off missions unless they're badge missions.)
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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.
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During my initial run of CoV, when it first came out, I found Veluta strictly by accident while touring Port Oaks. Paragon Wiki helped me find the rest. Took me a while to be able to get some of the badges, like Tracer, redside, but it can be done.
No one pays attention to me, cause I listen to the voices in my head.
I've always used This easy to use guide on Redside.
Needs to be updated, but it's still good for planning out which arcs I want to run, which arcs have badges and alerting me to the unlockables early on. Otherwise I simply wouldn't even know about them as the game never points you to most of them.
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I've done them all. Veluta is the biggest pain as noted earlier, and I had to Oro her arcs.|
Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
In any case, all that leads up to some idle curiosity-
Does anyone actually remember, or go out of their way to unlock, any of the unlockable contacts? And would you want more, if they were introduced better? |
(Helped a perma-noob friend unlock Veluta once. Couldn't figure out why he claimed she was impossible to beat.... then I realized he was on a Dark/Dark Cor. Veluta sends you against a LOT of ghosts which tend to resist Neg energy damage.)
By and large I like those contacts and have run most of them on more than one toon. For gangbuster another tip I have used is having my Dominator's pet out and put a civilian on follow and walk away for dinner.
As for introducing them better, I have taken a proactive approach in the past. We used to do "Lecture nights" in a couple of coalitions I was in and I would typically lead it off with an introduction to /loc, how to read it, and the locations and requirements of the contacts. Another idea I had was an AE tutorial, but I scotched that one when I found out AE missions were instance-based and couldn't take you out into the open zones. It could still be done, but I doubt I'll get around to it.
It's not how many times you get knocked down that count. It's how many times you get up.
I haven't read most of the posts here but would like to say that I like the idea of unlocking contacts (or unlockable contacts that is); however, to be honest, I think the only unlockable contact that I have done villain-side is the Dr. Buzzsaw one.
That's a great/fun arc but the rest of them (Velveeta? and The Slot Machine)...don't think I've ever done them...
Why? Because I don't know the requirements to unlock them, it's not a huge thing if I miss them and usually the requirements are really randomly picked it seems.
I've said before, and I'll say it again, that there should be some way IN THE GAME to know what contacts can be unlocked and then how you can do so (specifically stated, not "I don't like cheap ghosts"....and we have to decipher what that means.).
I would like to see more but...again, need an easy way to know what to do to unlock the contacts (in the game; not paragonwiki).
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Some of the content is worth unlocking (Television, Viridian, Buzzsaw) and some is trash (204).
The best thing that could be done with Veluta is to change her two story arcs into a lvl 10 - 15 strike force.
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