Contact Review: Juan Jimenez 'B' and Hugo Redding 'F'

[DougGraves]

Juan Jimenez in Atlas Park

Levels 5-9, Rating B

He has a story in his missions. You are investigating and stopping the Skulls and 'dyne. None of the missions ar great but they have some different mechanics and feel like a story.

 

Break up Gang Fight – Skulls and Hellions

Defeat all. At the end is an artifact to protect against waves of skulls. Nice challenge at the end.

 

Arrest 10 skulls

But get temporary power – 6 flashbang grenades. And a skull ambush

Leads to door mission – defeat boss and find 4 items. Clues are telling a story

 

Can call contact when done with the mission

 

Destroy Drug Lab

Destroy 3 drug items. Standard mission but with story.

 

Arrest 20 skulls in PP

leads to PP door mission to destroy the skull's drug supply

destroy 5 drug caches. Okay mission.

 

Completed arc – no exciting finish from Juan.

 

Talk to Steel Canyon security chief

Becomes defeat 10 outcasts

somehow level 14 5^th Column came out and attacked me and defeated me

 

Out of missions

 

Went from level 9 to one bubble from level 11.

 

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Hugo Redding – Steel Canyon

Levels 9-14, Rating F

 

Almost every mission is street sweeping. Half in Perez Park and half not. He does give the Fortune Teller mission needed for a badge.

 

Get the Hellions out of Club in KR

Defeat 2 bosses. Lots of fighting groups – bigger spawns than normal. A bit challenging

 

Rescue Lady Oracle from CoT

Fortune Teller mission in PP

can call contact after getting mission

Rescue the NPC – and she fights to help you

Defeat 10 Hellions

Doing this in PP since I am there. Easy as they are below my level.

 

Defeat 20 Hellions in PP

I'm already here. Easy as they are below my level.

 

Defeat 10 CoT in PP

I'm still here. Easy as they are below my level.

Defeat 10 CoT

I'm still here. Easy as they are below my level.

 

Out of jobs until I get to level 14. Gained half a level in all.

[gameboy1234]

16 minutes ago, DougGraves said:

Juan Jimenez in Atlas Park

Levels 5-9, Rating B

He has a story in his missions. You are investigating and stopping the Skulls and 'dyne. None of the missions ar great but they have some different mechanics and feel like a story.

Paragon Wiki says Juan Jimenez is in King's Row (in the Gish neighborhood).

 

One thing I think would help is to get rid if the concept of mutant contacts vs science contacts vs natural etc.  If these contacts are ever overhauled, we could just have two lines of contacts (two for replayability) with more effort put into those contacts and missions, rather than five kinda sucky contacts in the same level range.  More isn't better here.

 

19 minutes ago, DougGraves said:

Hugo Redding – Steel Canyon

Levels 9-14, Rating F

 

Almost every mission is street sweeping. Half in Perez Park and half not. He does give the Fortune Teller mission needed for a badge.

This is the kind of crap I'm talking about.  Why street sweep missions, why Cryptic why?  Or maybe Hugo was an early kind of infinite mish giver and he's just keeping you busy on the assumption that there's no one else for you to talk to in this level range.  He could just pass you off to another contact once the actual missions are done.  Maybe even do the auto-find-a-contact thing for the player, just let them pick whoever sounds interesting.  In Steel Canyon, I think he's in the right level range to introduce Montague, who I don't think has a lot of people to introduce him.  (I don't think I've ever been introduced to Montague, it must be really finicky if there is a contact that introduces him.)

 

[Frostbiter]

I think you're just expected to walk up to Montague in the SC University sometime after you hit level 10. Probably expected that people would run the Invention Tutorial and stumble across him.

 

PS: Hugo does suck. Thankfully the mission you need from him is in Ouroboros.

Edited January 15, 2020 by Frostbiter

[gameboy1234]

1 minute ago, Frostbiter said:

I think you're just expected to walk up to Montague in the SC University sometime after you hit level 10. Probably expected that people would run the Invention Tutorial and stumble across him.

That might be the intention, but I think it's poor design.  Montague is tucked away in a corner where he's hard to spot, and there's no big "!" or whatever over questgivers' heads in this game, so there's no reason to go up to him and talk.  If he was standing right in front of the staircase or something, that would be different.  Too much of the original (and later) design of this game relies on a kind of accidental discovery which isn't fun, because it isn't actively telegraphed or there's no kind of play mechanic based around those discoveries.

 

(Contrast that with say Breath of the Wild, where there's a mechanic in the game that practically requires you to pick up every rock and climb every mountain top.  There's other cool stuff to find when you do explore, but they all but force you to explore to get Korok seeds to expand your inventory.  The Korok puzzles themselves are fun too, so you're basically rewarded twice for exploring and doing in other games what would be random shit.)

 

[Frostbiter]

Oh, it's definitely not the best design. He's not the only hidden contact in the game either.

[RikOz]

Steel Canyon detectives will introduce you to Montague Castanella after completing a safeguard, if you haven't already met him.

[DougGraves]

1 hour ago, gameboy1234 said:

One thing I think would help is to get rid if the concept of mutant contacts vs science contacts vs natural etc.  If these contacts are ever overhauled, we could just have two lines of contacts (two for replayability) with more effort put into those contacts and missions, rather than five kinda sucky contacts in the same level range.  More isn't better here.

 

I agree.  I think there are many good missions in these contacts, but a lot of bad filler as well.  If they could copy/paste the missions from one contact to another they could make several good contacts and ignore the others.

 

Or - Have a contact in each zone give endless street sweeping missions.  That would be nice for people who want to street sweep and get a mission completion bonus.

[Heraclea]

I always got the Fortune Teller mission from Trevor Seaborn in Steel.  You may be only able to get him if you level 1-6 through Azuria.  That gives the 'Spelunker' badge needed for Atlas Medallion.  Used to be that getting the mission was a celebrated event and people would even pay you to go on it.  Now you just do through Pillar/Ouro, and if you get a large round room on the map you quit and retake it.