Slightly Confuses in First Ward...Potential Spoilers...Tread With Care

[Sakai]

A week back I started a new character that I plan to level exclusively in Praetorian related content.  (If I get stuck levelwise somewhere I figure I can give some assistance to Vanguard as Dark Watcher and I already have a relationship)  

 

Currently in First Ward and I have a question.  

 

I have made it up to Noble Savage and it occurs to me that I don't really know whose side the Survivors are on. 

 

To my understanding these are the outcasts from mainstream Praetoria and as such should be Resistance. 

 

Did I miss some clue along the way to tell me which side they stand on?  Or have they basically tossed that notion aside and are simply trying to survive as the name suggests? (That would explain why the Resistance seems to dislike me even though I was on their side prior to level 20).

 

Never made it through First/NightWard on Legacy so it's like having countless hours of new content to explore 🙂  

 

At any rate having a great deal of fun and looking forward to a bit of clarification on this matter. 

 

[GastlyGibus]

I could be wrong on this, so any other users, feel free to correct me on this. From the way I understand it, the First Ward is a dead zone. Tyrant and Anti-Matter virtually nuked the whole place to contain the Devouring Earth, and killed most everything inside of it. As such, it's basically used as a form of exile for particularly troublesome individuals, or an escape for people trying to get away from Praetoria proper, not including the few people who managed to survive the initial destruction.

The way I see it, it's basically like the Fallout world, if you've ever played the Fallout games. Everything is destroyed, and the only people left have formed their own little pockets of civilization, all just trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. There doesn't seem to be any way for them to go back to Praetoria even if they wanted to, and thus there's no real interest or concern from Tyrant to control the region like he does with his own city, so he's basically abandoned it and left it for dead. As such, the conflict of "Resistance versus Loyalists" doesn't really exist, because the Praetorian "government" doesn't really care about it. The D.U.S.T troopers use it for target practice, and the Mother of Mercy hospital is there to keep all the seers away from prying eyes.

For the denizens there, it's a battle of survival. The Talons, the Carnival, the Compound, the Midnight Squad, and everyone else there are pretty much engaged in a never-ending turf war, fighting each other for food and resources. I imagine nobody there has a particular love for Emperor Cole, but given that First Ward is completely shut-out from the rest of Praetoria proper, it's not much of an issue to them. Like I said, imagine it like the Fallout series, like New Vegas in particular, where you've got the New California Republic, the Legion, Mr. House, etc, all just trying to survive in a wasteland.

Edited April 17, 2020 by GastlyGibus
typos and clarification

[Sakai]

That makes sense. 

 

I found a progression list a couple of pages back that has an order that makes sense chronologically but not level wise. 

 

Headed to NightWard next so maybe by the time I get to the Trials I will be able to piece it all together. 

 

If not I will just run it again 🙂  

 

Thanks for the help. 

[AShyStarspawn]

Most of the survivors you are working with in First Ward are Resistance Wardens, Crusaders, and Resistance Sympathizers. The Carnival of Light and the Forlorn is aligned with the Resistance mostly (The Forlorn, which Noble Savage is technically a part of, doesn't get along with the Crusaders). Eltentown and the Church (forgot its name) are all Resistance or Resistance aligned barring one loyalist mission giver whom doesn't really have much stuff about her storywise.

 

Everyone else is aligned with themselves pretty much. The Midnight Squad during First Ward is controlled by Prae Percy so they are technically antagonists. The other Carnivals attack everyone, the Talons hate everyone, the Ghouls want to eat everyone, the Awakened want to kill everything and take over any seers they see, the Apparations possess everything, D.U.S.T are loyalists sent in to kill the survivors, the Dregs are slavedrivers, and the Shephards are doomsday cultists.

[GlaziusF]

On 4/17/2020 at 4:19 PM, Sakai said:

I have made it up to Noble Savage and it occurs to me that I don't really know whose side the Survivors are on. 

 

To my understanding these are the outcasts from mainstream Praetoria and as such should be Resistance. 

The Carnival of Light is with the Resistance - if you're a Loyalist you'll get missions to spy on them. There are also Resistance members, separate from the Survivors. The Survivors are on their own side after having been abandoned - they haven't really allied with anybody yet.

 

Regardless of what you've done to anyone's benefit, the reason you're in First Ward isn't obvious yet.

[McJigg]

First Ward is it's own isolated area. Power Loyalists and Crusader Resistance care nothing for the survivors, sometimes even attacking them. This makes the survivors feel like they can't reach out to either group. Why try to go back to Preatoria when it's armies fire at you? Why try to go and liberate Praetoria when the Resistance fires at you and competes with your for resources? Sure, Responsibility Loyalists and Warden Resistance members would probably work with the survivors, but those factions also have less reason to ever leave Praetoria. Responsibility Loyalists are trying to do their job in the city, Warden Resistance are largely civilians without clearance to leave.

 

And so the survivors stand alone. Some lived in First Ward, their knowledge of what really happened is a danger to the regime, so there is no saving them. Some escaped Preatoria, some were exiled, it's meant to be a death sentence.

 

They don't belong to either side, they are merely survivors.

[Sakai]

So I have made it to Night Ward at last. Glad I don't need to use Ouro anymore which is how the last arc played out. 

 

Amazing story and look forward to seeing how it goes into Night Ward which has been creepy thus far. 

 

Still a little confused at how it all transitioned to where it ended up but I suspect maybe I drank to much one day which would explain it. 

 

I'm sure I will run it again and perhaps then my issue will be clarified. 

 

Thanks to everyone for the thoughts. 

[merrypessimist]

Pay close attention to Katie Douglas' arc, as I recall.  IIRC that's the transition point from First to Night.

[SurfD]

I commented on this in my thread about streamlining the story experience on the suggestions area, but the Praetorian "story" flow is really pretty badly messed up.

 

The above quoted post has a fairly concise listing of the order everything more or less went down in, but you will notice, for example, that even though the Game can basically pass you directly from First Ward to Night Ward as what appears to be a seamless story arc, there is, infact, around 4 Incarnate Trials and like 2 full zones worth of story arc content (the entire Dark Astoria Incarnate arc + The entire "who will die" set, that takes place between the First Ward and Night Ward stuff.

[Aberrant]

12 hours ago, SurfD said:

I commented on this in my thread about streamlining the story experience on the suggestions area, but the Praetorian "story" flow is really pretty badly messed up.

 

The above quoted post has a fairly concise listing of the order everything more or less went down in, but you will notice, for example, that even though the Game can basically pass you directly from First Ward to Night Ward as what appears to be a seamless story arc, there is, infact, around 4 Incarnate Trials and like 2 full zones worth of story arc content (the entire Dark Astoria Incarnate arc + The entire "who will die" set, that takes place between the First Ward and Night Ward stuff.

Glad my timeline came in handy! I feel it's all a symptom of the Issue release system and is best rationalised by imagining all the content in these updates as literal comic book issues, read when they came out cover-to-cover. When stories were added in Issues they were present for several months before the next piece was added, with the hardcore audience expected to have rinsed them within a week or two and still leaving lots of time for a more casual audience to level their way through the stories. In reality there were 8 whole months between the release of First Ward (Issue 21) and Night Ward (Issue 23), with one half Issue of two Incarnate Trials (21.5), the Who Will Die arcs and the Dark Astoria Revamp (Issue 22) in between. The ravenous desire for Incarnate content to populate the end game explains the level splits, made worse by any new content added always revolving around Praetoria. If it weren't for Going Rogue's goldside being received so lukewarmly I imagine the Underground Trial could have been a post First Ward Level 30+ goldside trial instead.

 

I would love a system that allowed content/contacts/zones to be locked off until a character has completed the preceding ones, but it would have to be an opt in system due to how massively restrictive it would be especially with the Incarnate Trials. I would have massively preferred it if First Ward and Night Ward had been constructed as goldside only, with Primal characters only seeing the after effects in the Trials and Dark Astoria. I think the Find a Contact system could be tweaked to give some stuff a better flow, but the level jumping is something that would need complete content overhauls to rectify, completely out of scope for this project and best not to even think about! Still, strange to think that Positron Part 2 is locked out for you to start without completing Part 1, and the Cavern of Transcendence Trial and Katie Hannon Task Force still need you to complete the associated story arcs first (unless someone else invites you of course).