Loyalist <-> Resistance ... switching alignments EVERY TIME for Praetorians

[Redlynne]

6 minutes ago, ILIWAPCT said:

If I change alignment during the tutorial and kill the cops then I get to choose both Loyal and Resistance Missions?

At the end of the Tutorial you either defeat the PPD and get aligned with the Resistance and meet Calvin Scott (who you secretly report to) or you defeat the Resistance prisoner and get aligned with the Loyalists and meet Provost Marchand (who you secretly report to).  Once that choice is made, you can only alter it by rerolling the character ... so choose wisely which "sides" of the story you want to see (and how much backstabbery you want to get up to) by being a double agent playing off both sides against each other.  Remember, this guide is about "threading the needle" between both sides ... not about how to pick one side and stick with it exclusively.

[ILIWAPCT]

27 minutes ago, Redlynne said:

At the end of the Tutorial you either defeat the PPD and get aligned with the Resistance and meet Calvin Scott (who you secretly report to) or you defeat the Resistance prisoner and get aligned with the Loyalists and meet Provost Marchand (who you secretly report to).  Once that choice is made, you can only alter it by rerolling the character ... so choose wisely which "sides" of the story you want to see (and how much backstabbery you want to get up to) by being a double agent playing off both sides against each other.  Remember, this guide is about "threading the needle" between both sides ... not about how to pick one side and stick with it exclusively.

Sorry for crashing the thread but there aren't many Praetorian resources.

 

Originally I was able to get a level 20 regular alt into Nadia's arc but a level 8 alt couldn't get Mr G to talk to him so I made a new alt and here we are...

[Major_Decoy]

On 10/2/2019 at 7:20 AM, Mister Mass said:

I prefer to confirm on the "good guy" alignments (Warden & Responsibility) while betraying on the "bad guy" alignments (Crusader & Power)

What's the path you take on this?

[Haijinx]

Thanks for the Guide!

 

I just got done running the first one listed - Betray everyone

 

405 Merits after completing all 4 storylines and choosing a side. 

 

 

 

[Shred Monkey]

Quick thanks for posting this.  I like yellow side content, but I never really figured out how to navigate the whole alignment thing on live.  This project is going to the top of my ToDo list.

[Erydanus]

On ‎10‎/‎1‎/‎2019 at 1:45 AM, Scientist said:

Well, my friend and I discovered that if you level to 9.9, you go directly from Jack Hammer to Mr. G and miss several arcs and switches.  Apparently we should have turned off XPs at 7.9, to avoid leveling to 8.  

 

First thanks to Redlynne for doing this guide and giving me the nudge to start doing this content again as I had been meaning to.

 

Now as to this comment from Scientist, I was using the guide as a springboard and actually doing a slightly different path, but trying to keep his comment about contacts skipping forward in mind. I stayed resistance to 8 when I got a call from Marchand for the first time, he sent me right on to Mr. G. I thought I had missed out on contacts but it just took me a little bit to realize that you actually can self-introduce to the contacts, so even though I had been given the breadcrumbs to go to Imperial City at 8, I was still able to do Deputy Assistant of Information and Chief Interrogator Washington.

 

Let me stress that, you can self-introduce to contacts. It's not just that some of them are gated behind alignment doors, you may have to just walk up to them (or the ones in the open) anyway. 

 

Finally, unfortunately, I have found these missions somewhat clunky/buggy. I had 3 missions on my first day playing my Praetorian alt jamm up. One I used a complete on, another I reset 3x until the boss who wasn't spawning to let me finish the mission showed up, and the third one (Syfotine Industries) is still broke after 5 resets; I will soon have another skip up to use on it. So be prepared to reset, call a GM, or use your mission skip with these. 

[Redlynne]

1 hour ago, Erydanus said:

Finally, unfortunately, I have found these missions somewhat clunky/buggy. I had 3 missions on my first day playing my Praetorian alt jamm up. One I used a complete on, another I reset 3x until the boss who wasn't spawning to let me finish the mission showed up, and the third one (Syfotine Industries) is still broke after 5 resets; I will soon have another skip up to use on it. So be prepared to reset, call a GM, or use your mission skip with these. 

Wow ... I never had any problems with those missions, and I'm running 4 alts through Praetoria (two Resistance, two Loyalist).

[Erydanus]

Wow you were lucky. I was moaning on /help on Excelsior and someone said one of their Praetorian missions bugged so hard she had to reset it 9x before it worked and after describing it I realized it was the Syfotine industries one which I was on. But yeah 3x the map's cleared, all glowies clicked, all boxes of weapons broke and the mission just … stops.

[Wintercat]

Thank you, Redlynne.
I'm a big fan of the Praetorian storylines, except I can't make myself play Power or Crusader. They clash too much with my own sense of morality, unfortunately.
I'm one of the ones wishing Praetoria had gone all the way to level 50.

[Redlynne]

2 hours ago, Wintercat said:

I'm a big fan of the Praetorian storylines, except I can't make myself play Power or Crusader. They clash too much with my own sense of morality, unfortunately.

The thing you have to recognize, which I saw far too many people NOT doing when Praetoria came out, is that all of the Hero vs Villain stuff is running on the Good vs Evil alignment axis ... and then people started trying to do exactly the same thing to the Praetorian content and is just wouldn't work because both the Loyalists and the Resistance were doing things that could be classified as Good AND Evil ...

 

The problem with that approach is that the Good vs Evil alignment tension is the WRONG way to view Praetorian content.

 

You need to view the Loyalist and Resistance alignments not through a lens of Good vs Evil (or right versus wrong even) ... but rather from from a perspective of Order vs Chaos.

 

 

 

The way I see it, the Loyalists are oriented around ORDER ... regardless of whether that Public Order can be thought of as "good" (in the liberating sense) or "evil" (in the oppressive tyranny sense).  Almost everything the Loyalists do is aligned with maintaining ORDER, whether that be beneficial in the altruistic sense or in the very selfish sense.  Even the entire "Drink Enriche!" campaign you see everywhere in Praetoria is part of this attempt to maintain ORDER and hold back the forces of chaos (and independent thinking).  It's why there is a psychic network and Seers everywhere guarding against "wrong thinking" ... because it's all in service of maintaining public order.

 

By contrast, the Resistance is all about CHAOS ... and disrupting the "order" that is being imposed (from the top down by Cole and his Praetors).  This is especially true for the Crusader arcs, which are all about disrupting the power structure and getting the sheeple to "wake up!" so as to throw off the yoke of the Tyrant ... Marcus Cole.  The Resistance has a LOT of anarchists in it, especially in the Crusader arcs, who simply want to "burn the world down" and then rise from the ashes (good luck with that one, Hamidon is right outside the sonic fences you idiots).  Some members of the Resistance take their "crusade" to overthrow Cole to the extremes simply because nothing else they do is working for them ... and so they evolve themselves into extremists who only want to WIN, regardless of the consequences.

 

 

 

Once you start looking at Praetorian content through an Order vs Chaos perspective, rather than a Good vs Evil one, a LOT of things click into place and make a lot more sense (and become a lot more internally consistent).  The problem was that Cryptic Studios didn't make this shift in perspective an explicit thing ... and since everyone had been conditioned to think of everything in a Hero vs Villain way involving Good vs Evil, everyone tried to shoehorn Praetoria into that framework (and watched the framework fail spectacularly because it was the Wrong Tool™ for the job).

 

Trust me ... once you start looking at Pratoria as a battle of Order vs Chaos things get a LOT easier to comprehend ... especially since that then makes it possible to see a "tyranny of good" as well as the "spitefulness of evil" for what they REALLY are when what truly matters is ... Order versus Chaos.

[Haijinx]

Yeah I kind of got the vibe that Gold side was a bit a shade of Vigilantes and Rogues. 

 

The Power and Crusader Arcs definitely are the more villainous choices.  Playing the Oppressor or the Terrorist. 

 

But  one persons Terrorist might be anothers Freedom Fighter.  

 

The Oppressors might be Oppressing because there was a Hami Appocolypse  and feel its for the greater good.  

 

The nuance Goldside is definitely more interesting than the black and white morality of prime earth.  (Or red and blue)

[Redlynne]

There's also the "infiltrator" angle, in which you do the Power and Crusader arcs and then BETRAY that side at the end of the arc (by switching to the opposing loyalty).  You can justify that to yourself as "defeating them from the inside" if you like.

[Apogee]

One thing to note Redlynne, you can turn xp off at 10, 15, and 20 and still do all arcs just fine. If Marchand or Scott send you to the next zone you just have to talk to the contact directly. They will still give you missions. Having the extra power at 10 can really help with the early missions.

[Acroyear]

Stopped my XP gain at 9.9 as suggested, but after changing from Resistance to Loyalist, I was sent to Mr. G. in Imperial City. It does not matter if you turn off your XP, as now I have out-leveled all the content in Nova. Figured I'd just turn my XP back on and go through the arcs as normal. Oh well.

 

[Mister Mass]

8 hours ago, Acroyear said:

Stopped my XP gain at 9.9 as suggested, but after changing from Resistance to Loyalist, I was sent to Mr. G. in Imperial City. It does not matter if you turn off your XP, as now I have out-leveled all the content in Nova. Figured I'd just turn my XP back on and go through the arcs as normal. Oh well.

 

Receiving Mr. G as a contact does not stop you from continuing to do the Nova arcs.  Yes, you will be given the "breadcrumb" or vector mission to higher level contacts, but you can still continue to work on the lower level arcs, as long as you don't outlevel them.  In fact, as Apogee has noted above, you can continue to do all the Nova arcs while locked at level 10.9, instead of 9.9.  I did that on my most recent Praetorian, General Zima, with no problems.  Feel free to accept the breadcrumb missions, head to the next zone & talk to the contacts to complete the breadcrumb missions, but don't start running missions for those new contacts.  Instead, head back to the lower zone, & continue running the story arcs & contact chains in that zone until you are done.

[Crater Kate]

So here's a sudden thought I just had - 

 

If you intend to be completionist, do you actually have to turn off XP? Or can you still collect XP and just refuse to level?

 

To the best of my knowledge, the game doesn't parse your level as however many levels you can be. It parses it as how many levels you've actually leveled up.

 

Twinshot only introduces herself when you click up to 5. Blueside Provost Marchand only introduces himself when you click up to 30. Incarnate content only starts when you button up to 50.

 

So working with that knowledge, can I be sitting at "Level 9", but in reality be Level 9 with 8 levels of XP sitting behind it, and still do Nova Praetoria content? Or does outleveling content work differently for some reason? Because it would seem to me that so long as you don't cache your levels in with Praetor Duncan (or whomever), you can just keep earning XP and not have to worry about dancing around the upper level cap.

Edited February 28, 2020 by Crater Kate

[Redlynne]

I've had far too many experiences where I've "dinged" a Level and now the Contact is pushing me onwards to the next Contact and won't let me finish the arc.

The Contacts will only talk to you if your Level (determined by XP) is within their range.  It doesn't matter if you've failed to go to a Trainer to pick new powers/slots or not.

 

So yes, if you want to be a completionist while still in Praetoria, you will need to disable XP gains.  The need to do so on a Stalker might be lower than for all other archetypes (who have to fight to clear maps to reach objectives while Stalkers can just "ninja" past everything to the end room/boss, but even then it's wise to be prepared to disable XP gains at level breakpoints until you're ready to advance to the next zone.

[Haijinx]

If you disable at the stated levels you can definitely do all 4 arcs.   I did it. 

 

You will also finish up around level 20.

[Haijinx]

I did

9.8 disable

14.8 disable

19.8 disable 

 

If I remember right.

 

 

[Mister Mass]

Right, the "refusing to level up in order to convince the contact you haven't outleveled the arc" ploy doesn't work.  If you have the "flashing up arrow", which would put you beyond the contact's level range if you leveled up, the contact won't offer you any new missions - although, if you have already started a story arc with that contact & have the "open book" icon, then the contact will continue to offer you the next mission in the story arc until you are done.  But in that case, you won't be able to start any new arcs with the other contacts of that level band.  Praetorian contacts who have the Morality Mission as their 2nd arc will not offer that arc to you if you overleveled on their 1st arc.

 

Most contacts in the game follow the rule of 4 or 9 - that is that their natural level ranges top out at a level ending in 4 or 9.  But the Praetorian contacts are exceptions to this & their level ranges top out at 10, 15, & 20.  I discovered this by accident on an early Praetorian.  I intended to lock xp at 9.9, but wasn't aware how big the xp bonus for completing an arc was, & ended up staring at the "flashing up arrow" after completing Doctor Arvin's arc.  I cursed myself for being an idiot, but was surprised to discover that I could in fact continue to start & complete the rest of the Nova Praetoria contacts after leveling to 10.  I locked at 10.9 & cruised through the rest of the arcs in the zone.  Having access to that Level 10 power can be handy for some characters, so I now follow this is a conscious strategy on my new Praetorians.

[Crater Kate]

Bah, my Evil Plan^TM is foiled! And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those meddling game developers!

 

Thanks for setting me straight everyone!

[Errants]

So, cool thing I found out, running through Oros to start these... If you're on a Gold arc as a Primal, you count as both Loyal/Resist for the coded doors. Additionally, since it is through Oros, none of the changes stick past you zoning. (Finished Cleopatra's, chose Resistance, lost the other as a contact, TP'd to Base, TP'd back in, alive again!)

 

So, this guide is wicked useful, but only required for those masochists playing through Gold-side natively. Still love the effort into it!

[SurfD]

On 5/19/2019 at 2:21 AM, Redlynne said:

In order to get the Moral High Ground badge, you will need to switch alignments between Loyalist and Resistance at least 5 times ... which can be accomplished by switching twice per zone (once midway and once at the end), but that would be different from switching EVERY time like I'm presenting here.  How to manage navigating the alignments while only switching twice per zone is left as an exercise for the disinterested reader. 😉

Actually, this is incorrect.  You don't have to switch alignments at all to get the badge, you only have to make a "choice" at the end of any of the "Choose your Side" Storyarcs Available to each side.  If you want, you can play pure loyalist and chose to side with the loyalists at the end of all 6 loyalist Arcs and you still get the badge. 

 

Since there is one arc in each zone for each of the 4 "factions" (Power/Responsibility/Warden/Crusader), this gives you a possible 12 chances to make a Morality choice, but you only have to do 5 of them.

[Redlynne]

Updated OP.

[JStacy337]

Just finished running a Water/MC Blaster through Praetoria using this guide (Tutorial>Loyalist>Swap Every Morality>Primal/Hero).  As a note, and this is probably bugged somehow, when you get to Neutropolis as a Resistance member, you can talk to and acquire Calvin Scott's missions *before* starting Crow>Helix.