Small QoL suggestion

[srmalloy]

One of the 'facts of life' here on Homecoming is that characters outlevel contacts pretty quickly -- in some cases, before they get any work from them. But when you do, they'll still forward you to a new contact that's in your current level range. However, because you never talked to them before that, you've got to make the slog to where they are in order to get handed off to a new contact.

 

Would it be possible, in the specific case where a contact has been outleveled and you've never done any missions for that contact, to have the 'handed out cell number' flag get turned on, so that you can call them to get forwarded to a new contact, instead of traipsing over several zones to reach them?

[Lost Ninja]

Unless you actually want to follow the crumb trail through contacts I believe you can just go to the end point of that trail and talk directly without needing the trail of introductions. I could be misunderstanding what you're asking though. 😕

[srmalloy]

1 hour ago, Lost Ninja said:

Unless you actually want to follow the crumb trail through contacts I believe you can just go to the end point of that trail and talk directly without needing the trail of introductions. I could be misunderstanding what you're asking though. 😕

Some contact strings will let you just walk up and talk to them to start their missions, but a lot of the blueside contacts won't talk to you unless you've been fed to them by another contact. You don't follow the 'crumb trail' of contacts if you badly outlevel one, though. For example, my Sentinel badly outleveled Guy Denson (Steel, 15-19), and when I went over to him, he introduced me to Collin Larson (IP, 25—29) — skipping the 20—24 range, which I'd outleveled, too.

 

Basically, it would let a character who's never talked to a contact, and who has leveled past that contact's missions, call the contact to get handed off to a level-appropriate contact rather than having to cross one or more zones to talk to them in person for the same thing.

[Lost Ninja]

It would make sense to make all contacts accept walk ups, which I think is supposed to be the case. There was a CM/Dev comment to that effect at some point. Making out-levelled new contacts callable though sounds like it might be new programming (I don't think it's available now). And would this be for new contacts you have out-levelled only or just new contacts in general?

 

It might be an easy fix, but the effort it seems to be to make some contacts have phones after one mission rather than after 3-4 (like the really old days) it might not be as simple as just adding a flag to the database. (Which I would have thought would be the case.)

[EmmySky]

A blue name (dont remember which one) posted recently on another thread that in HC you can just go talk to contacts to 'get them' and introductions are unnecessary.  My problem is that I dont remember where or who they are and my alt-tab while in-game causes crashes.  

 

The other day on a troller, Jim whatshisname in Faultline gave me a new contact in Talos and when I went to the contact tab to find out where to go find him, it had a phone already although I had never laid eyes on him!  That was very helpful and I think that should work for all contacts.  

 

I have also had great luck with the 'find contact' button for when I just don't have a clue where to go.  It will (sometimes) also teleport you to the contact so its very helpful if they are 3 zones away, less zoning yay!

 

I am totally on board with giving all contacts/detectives/brokers, everyone basically, phones so you can just call them up and see if they need your help.

Edited November 25, 2019 by EmmySky

[quixoteprog]

There already is an even BETTER solution, than that I think. If you are in search of a contact in your level range I believe you can click on the little blue button under the contacts tab labelled "Find Contact". It will present you a list of contacts in your level range. When you find the one you want, if you do not already know them, it will offer you the option to "Teleport to Contact". Click that button and it will teleport you directly to the contact so you can talk to them.

 

Not ONLY is this a convenient way to find a new contact you can also use it as a makeshift travel power in a pinch. The teleport will only work with contacts you don't already know, however, so it is a one shot.

[aethereal]

The contacts who show up in the "Find Contact" interface are a small subset of all the contacts available to your level range.

[Lost Ninja]

Add all contacts (within your level range) to the find contacts button would be a better solution IMO.

 

Given how often old content blue contacts give missions outside their own zones I wonder if by having a method to simply call them and not visit (as OP suggested) some zones would have even fewer players. On top of which most of the Blue zones are quite small how difficult is it really to visit intermediate contacts to pick up the next one?

 

What would be nice I think would be to add Ourubous Style missions to every contact, so you can visit at any level and do the missions as they were intended, perhaps add a -2 to the difficulty slider to quickly move through unwanted content (or content too hard for your particular character). You'd no longer out level content at all. But I'd imagine that that would be a more difficult task than just adding contacts to the Find Contacts button, or handing out their contact details... 😄

[Doc_Scorpion]

7 hours ago, quixoteprog said:

There already is an even BETTER solution, than that I think. If you are in search of a contact in your level range I believe you can click on the little blue button under the contacts tab labelled "Find Contact". It will present you a list of contacts in your level range.

The contacts on that list are mostly newer ones, and the origin arc contacts are notably absent.  Other than that, it is indeed a Very Cool feature.

[Cutter]

2 minutes ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

The contacts on that list are mostly newer ones, and the origin arc contacts are notably absent.  Other than that, it is indeed a Very Cool feature.

I tend to be on the hunt for contacts in the mid to late 20's. At that point, "Find Contact" gives Montague Castanella, the two agent guys in Talos, and eleventy billion First Ward/Night Ward peeps. I'll agree with other posters here - adding the level-appropriate origin contacts to Find Contact would be a great start, and adding all level-appropriate contacts (including the Signature arcs and such) would be even better.