Contacts and the Outleveling Issue

[Emperor Cole]

The idea of this thread is pretty simple: If you unlock a contact, you can't outlevel them. Let's say that you're doing two arcs at a time and you abandon one and you finish the other. The only problem is that while you were finishing one, you outleveled the other one and now you can't do the other one anymore. This is extremely irritating to deal with. Some might say that the reason this isn't implemented is because you would have too many contacts. Their are two easy solutions to this problem. You can either finish the arc or there can be a new feature implemented to hide contacts as another option when you right click them. Either way, this would only benefit the player and stop with the annoying issue of losing your contact while you're doing it. 

[Doc_Scorpion]

1 hour ago, Emperor Cole said:

Their are two easy solutions to this problem. You can either finish the arc or there can be a new feature implemented to hide contacts as another option when you right click them. Either way, this would only benefit the player and stop with the annoying issue of losing your contact while you're doing it. 

The XP lock exists for a reason you know...

[Monos King]

24 minutes ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

The XP lock exists for a reason you know...

This is true, but what happens often is you're doing an arc and accidentally level outside of the range, and then plop -- can't do that arc anymore. If you were a noob just doing missions and didn't know that you could over level your contact, it really sucks. It's especially infuriating when it's one you were pretty immersed in the story of, or you were seeking to get a certain badge, temp, what not. Not everyone knows to put the XP lock on, and if they realize it too late that's kind of it. It's also true not everyone is trying to slow down their natural progression rate soley for the sake of finishing the storyline, and I can't think of a good reason why they would have to. It doesn't impact game balance in anyway. But a sudden cut off can be a huge irritation, especially if you were for instance, thematically or otherwise after a non-ouro temporary power, because cut offs mean you just got permanently screwed. Sure, really careful planning might prevent that (if you know about XP lock) but should that really be necessary? If you got the contact, you should keep it. 

 

There are already a good deal of missions that let you finish the arc they give you even if you go outside of the level range, but just won't introduce you to a new contact or give you XP/ enhancements from doing their stuff. I can't see why it shouldn't be that way for every contact; it would be much more convenient. Getting cut off of an arc half-way seems silly, you should at the very least be able to finish it regardless of level, even if it doesn't give XP or merits anymore. I'm in favor of this completely; if you outleveled them you don't get XP or corresponding level enhancements or anything but you oughtta be able to see things through.

Edited April 28, 2020 by Monos King
Typos

[Twintania]

Wait, are there arcs, like, full complete arcs...That do this?

 

Also, Ouroboros is a thing, so...

[Monos King]

14 minutes ago, Twintania said:

Wait, are there arcs, like, full complete arcs...That do this?

 

Also, Ouroboros is a thing, so...

I'm pretty sure some of the older, less interactive contacts are, yeah. And even if there weren't, there should be. There's sadly a bunch of arcs and missions that aren't on Ouroboros. What's added to Ouro is pretty general, including contacts your origin might not even be able to unlock, so the really obscure contacts or hyper specific arcs aren't there. Ouro is kinda there so you can't miss out on key story arc badges, I think. Rather than suggest they add all missions to Ouroboros, I think the OPs idea of just not out leveling a contact once you've obtained it would be simpler. 

Edited April 28, 2020 by Monos King

[ArchVileTerror]

At the very least, going forward, I would like to encourage the Devs to ensure all mission and story arc content is NOT level gated.  Or at the very least, has no Maximum Level.

Yes, that would mean either adjusting some Enemy Factions to include high level versions, or to compose Arcs which specifically use Enemy Factions which scale all the way up normally (Circle of Thorns, Council/Column, Arachnos, Longbow, et cetera).

 

More accessibility is only ever a good thing.  Period.

[Doc_Scorpion]

2 hours ago, Monos King said:

what happens often is you're doing an arc and accidentally level outside of the range

And then you get a hard lesson in paying attention to what you're doing.  Sure, it's frustrating.  But it's also life.
 

2 hours ago, Monos King said:

It's also true not everyone is trying to slow down their natural progression rate soley for the sake of finishing the storyline

If they're not willing to slow down, then...  well, as the old saying goes "speed kills".  If the content is worth it to them, they'll use the XP lock.  If they don't care to use it and slow down, then they get to experience the consequences of their choices.  No sympathy for anyone who outlevels content because they knowingly and willingly choose to outlevel the content.

The tool needed to avoid the situation is already in game and only a couple of mouse clicks away.  Failing that, there's even a backup tool already in the game -  Ouroboros.  Given that, there's no need for the devs to invest any time in protecting the players from the consequences of inattention or their own choices.

[Monos King]

13 minutes ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

And then you get a hard lesson in paying attention to what you're doing.  Sure, it's frustrating.  But it's also life.

Well, not really though. It isn't life, it's a game. If the convenience can apply to a lot of people, and it doesnt negatively impact performance, steal spotlight from a playstyle, or disrupt game balance, then there really isn't any reason not to implement the convenience besides the possibility of it being more trouble that it's worth. I don't know the inner workings of this game myself, so that might actually be a real possibility we'll all have to come to terms with, but XP lock itself was instated as a convenience, and it clearly has its limitations within that intended function. So, the OPs point stands. 

 

18 minutes ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

Failing that, there's even a backup tool already in the game -  Ouroboros.  Given that, there's no need for the devs to invest any time in protecting the players from the consequences of inattention or their own choices.

You probably missed this point, but there are a LOT of arcs that exist and aren't included in ouroboros. As such: 

3 hours ago, Monos King said:

Ouro is kinda there so you can't miss out on key story arc badges, I think. Rather than suggest they add all missions to Ouroboros, I think the OPs idea of just not out leveling a contact once you've obtained it would be simpler. 

It's really just a qol thing. It's not specific to any playstyle, or appeal of a powers, or anything. It's just there to make it easier to follow through in arcs you might not want to miss, without worrying about carefully tracking your progress and slowing your level rate. It opens up stories to people who may have missed them otherwise. It increases, not guarantees, the ability to get cool temporary abilities you might have missed out on. XP and Merits disabled. I can't see any reason not to implement this one Doc, well besides the aforementioned possibility it'll actually be a code catastrophe.

[ArchVileTerror]

"It's not life; it's a game."

 

I like that.  Well put.

[Doc_Scorpion]

2 hours ago, Monos King said:

Well, not really though. It isn't life, it's a game

Yes, really.  Choices have consequences, in real life and in games.  Inattention can cost you, in real life and in games.  That's reality, that's life.

The game already has two functional systems that, in tandem, accomplish the goal of the OP's request.  All it takes to make them work is to pay attention, which I do not find to be an unreasonable burden.  There is no need for a third "easy" button.

[Monos King]

1 minute ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

Yes, really.  Choices have consequences, in real life and in games.  Inattention can cost you, in real life and in games.  That's reality, that's life.

The game already has two functional systems that, in tandem, accomplish the goal of the OP's request.  All it takes to make them work is to pay attention, which I do not find to be an unreasonable burden.  There is no need for a third "easy" button.

 

Well, we don't have to agree on this one. Can't say I'm gonna see your reasoning though. No problem there.

[Doom Dev]

21 minutes ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

Yes, really.  Choices have consequences, in real life and in games.  Inattention can cost you, in real life and in games.  That's reality, that's life.

The game already has two functional systems that, in tandem, accomplish the goal of the OP's request.  All it takes to make them work is to pay attention, which I do not find to be an unreasonable burden.  There is no need for a third "easy" button.

There is no "easy button" involved here. Easy for what? Getting to do a story arc at a later level? Getting to enjoy an arbitrary but iconic aspect of the game which doesn't have any effect on performance or anything? What exactly is being made easy dude? You're just against this because you want things to stay the way they are, there is literally no good reason not to do this besides one that is not at all the crux of your argument. Stop forcing your weird grunt-work philosophy on people that want to enjoy the game. Literally no one would be hurt by this.  "Inattention will cost you?" Man, get over yourself. It isn't a Task Force it's opening up story arcs to more people, with non performance added benefits. Why don't you prove what the actual issue is, and not "oh I want things to be inconvenient for no reason." If the systems in place solved the problem, then this wouldn't be something the OP brought up. YOU CANT REVISIT THOSE OLD CONTACTS. What of you decided later that you wanted to. This would allow you to do that. Why don't you address what people have said about the suggestion not causing any problem to game balance instead of obsessing over how you feel games shouldn't get quality of life updates because of your philosophical preferences.

[Monos King]

31 minutes ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

There is no need for a third "easy" button.

I will note though, that it should be well known to you that I am not in favor of making things superfluously easy. I invite you to step back and look at what exactly is being made easier here, tell me exactly how it's an issue. I'm aware that XP lock exists. It just doesn't do what the OP is asking for. Think of it as a renovation. A qol option to go back, from later levels, and discover things you might not have known you would have had interest in. There are many, many great stories not included in ouroboros that fall short of players eye, unappreciated due to the race to level 50. A change like this would increase the chances of those arcs not being missed, and a step closer cultivating an appreciation of stories many might overlook. And those that do want to do them can do so without worrying about hindering their level growth. Just having the option goes a long way. The OPs not even calling for the removal of level gates altogether. Just that you get to complete the stories of an already unlocked contact. What's the problem with that?

[Doc_Scorpion]

2 minutes ago, Monos King said:

I will note though, that it should be well known to you that I am not in favor of making things superfluously easy. I invite you to step back and look at what exactly is being made easier here, tell me exactly how it's an issue.

Then I will repeat myself a third time.  Choices have consequences.  Inattention has consequences.  That's fundamental to the nature of games.
 

4 minutes ago, Monos King said:

There are many, many great stories not included in ouroboros that fall short of players eye, unappreciated due to the race to level 50.

Then don't make the choice to race to 50.  Seriously, I'm not grasping why this is such a hard concept to understand.  The systems (XP lock and Ouroboros in tandem), as they exist, make it possible to experience practically the entire game on a single character without missing a minute of content.  But this comes at a price -  somewhat slowing the leveling process.  Making tradeoffs between options (in this case fast leveling v. experiencing content) is also fundamental to the nature of games.
 

23 minutes ago, Doom Dev said:

Why don't you address what people have said about the suggestion not causing any problem to game balance instead of obsessing over how you feel games shouldn't get quality of life updates because of your philosophical preferences.

This isn't a quality of life change - it's an alteration to the rules and nature of the game world.  I'm not opposing because of some "weird grunt work philosophy", I'm opposing it because "choices have consequences" is practically the most fundamental axiom of game design there is.  Even Calvinball adheres to that principle.

[Monos King]

1 minute ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

Then I will repeat myself a third time.  Choices have consequences.  Inattention has consequences.  That's fundamental to the nature of games.
 

Then don't make the choice to race to 50.  Seriously, I'm not grasping why this is such a hard concept to understand.  The systems (XP lock and Ouroboros in tandem), as they exist, make it possible to experience practically the entire game on a single character without missing a minute of content.  But this comes at a price -  somewhat slowing the leveling process.  Making tradeoffs between options (in this case fast leveling v. experiencing content) is also fundamental to the nature of games.
 

This isn't a quality of life change - it's an alteration to the rules and nature of the game world.  I'm not opposing because of some "weird grunt work philosophy", I'm opposing it because "choices have consequences" is practically the most fundamental axiom of game design there is.  Even Calvinball adheres to that principle.

Yeah gotta hard no to everything you just said dawg. Think I made my point pretty clear already too. I'll let someone else take the wheel from here. 

[TraumaTrain]

I like options, and I like this suggestion.

 

I'm currently leveling up my dude Red Armor (red side, Indomitable). My goal with him is to do every contact, every story arc, every mission on the way up. To do this, he's had to slow his XP way down... only running solo, running at -1 level, and turning XP off a lot (a lot).

 

What I'm doing with Red is kind of extreme, but an option like what is suggested could have helped him along the way.

 

The suggestion here is okay. I think a better suggestion that would accomplish the same thing is a half XP mode, either clickable from the options menu or acquired from the P2W/T4V.

Edited April 28, 2020 by TraumaTrain

[Emperor Cole]

36 minutes ago, TraumaTrain said:

The suggestion here is okay. I think a better suggestion that would accomplish the same thing is a half XP mode, either clickable from the options menu or acquired from the P2W/T4V.

Well, the goal was just to be able to not lose missions and stories once you've already unlocked them. I'm also ok with removing the level gate on contacts altogether, although that's not what I'm trying to get pushed here. Like, a level 50 that had Azuria but never finished her missions through to the end could go back and do all of those missions. I do feel like there should be an upside to following the natural progression of things though, so if the level-contact progression stays then I don't think the level 50 that goes back should get to be introduced to new contacts. Just not losing the ability to complete an arc once the contact is already unlocked/gained.

[thunderforce]

8 hours ago, Twintania said:

Wait, are there arcs, like, full complete arcs...That do this?

Technically, no. If you start the arc, you get to finish it.

 

The gotcha is that sometimes what one thinks is "an arc" isn't one. Shauna Stockwell and Eagle Eye tell one story, but two contacts, two arcs (and the Hollows do this, Faultline, Striga...) Some contacts, particularly older blueside, have chained series of missions that aren't an arc at all. Some contacts just flat-up have multiple arcs -

Mercedes Sheldon has three in 20-25, all part of the same story, but they're three arcs so you can outlevel part of the story. Some have precursor missions that are conceptually part of their arc, but game mechanically aren't. There's probably some other gotchas, too.

 

I would certainly like to see these cases fixed... but because they're down to looking at contacts' lists of missions and making an assessment of what should constitute an "arc", it's not as easy as a simple game mechanical fix, alas.

 

The argument above that the way the game should be challenging is by causing you mild exasperation when you outlevel things is absurd.

[thunderforce]

57 minutes ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

Then I will repeat myself a third time.  Choices have consequences.  Inattention has consequences.  That's fundamental to the nature of games.

The fallacy here is that you've not demonstrated why this particular choice should have consequences, let alone why it should have these consequences. There are many choices in the game that have no effect on what missions I can do and when; I can spend hours making some of those choices in the costume creator. There are choices that have a huge effect, like starting a Praetorian. Sometimes inattention has consequences, like scrapperlocking into the next county; sometimes it has no consequences, like falling asleep when I'm in my own SG base. Sometimes it's changed over the years, and a choice that used to have huge effects (I changed my alignment to redside, now I'll have to grind tips if I ever want blueside contacts again) has almost none (oh well, talk to Null the Gull).

 

It's incumbent on you not just to point out that some choices in a game should have consequences, which is trite and obvious, but to justify the idea that this choice should have consequences and that they should be the consequences you personally happen to like.

[Grouchybeast]

It seems like it would be far easier and safer from a development point of view to add the missing arcs and missions to Ouro, rather than make fundamental changes to how the game works with regards to levels and contacts.  I think the former has already been done, including taking a set of non-arc missions from a contact and packaging them up as an arc in Ouro.

[Monos King]

6 hours ago, Grouchybeast said:

It seems like it would be far easier and safer from a development point of view to add the missing arcs and missions to Ouro, rather than make fundamental changes to how the game works with regards to levels and contacts.  I think the former has already been done, including taking a set of non-arc missions from a contact and packaging them up as an arc in Ouro.

There's literally hundreds of minor-arc missions and actual arcs not in Ouro though. I'd rather try and see if this actually does constitute a fundamental change, and get shut down for that reason than assume. If adding to ouro is easier, I'm down for that, but I don't have reason to think universally removing the out-leveling of the contact as a feature would be more difficult than individually tracking and adding every single arc that isn't in ouro; there's a lot. 

 

I also think there was a reason all of them weren't added to ouro, though it's just a theory. What's added to Ouro will be for everyone universally anyway, origin and arcs played regardless, and at least in my vision of this request I would like to see some of the reward for unlocking contacts and completing arcs maintained. You know, you finish the arc and you have the opportunity to do another contacts once you're introduced. Adding them all to ouro would just practically remove the point of contact progression entirely. The idea above just prevents the achievement of unlocking a contact in of itself from becoming useless once you hit a higher level. You have greater general option of arcs to play at 50, but only depending on what you were doing up until that point. I'm again willing to concede if the removal of the level limit is too much of a task, but I'd like to see if it actually is. I think this would be really convenient, and without whatever gripes come with additional sources of rewards from adding things to ouro.

[Lines]

I'm not sure all contacts should be available to level 50s, outside of Ouro (my argument was going to be chronology, but I know CoH stopped caring about levels-as-sequential while ago).

 

But definitely would love if arcs that have started don't become a rewardless chore if you outlevel them.

 

Also, while I'm here, raise the cap on praetorian contacts! 🙂

[Icecomet]

I completely agree with this suggestion.  I was talking about it on Discord just yesterday.

 

Once you have a contact in your contacts list, you should be able to finish an arc/storyline that contact has, so what if you don't get xp for finishing it later?  That's the same as turning off your XP gain, the mission is gray, ok, so what?  Some of us like to finish our storylines, it's not about the xp or rewards.  The  reward are completely finished contacts that then go to your inactive tab because you actually finished the stories.

 

This hurts nobody, this hurts nothing.

 

It's just a simple matter of telling your contacts NOT to check your level once you've received them as a contact!

 

Icecomet

 

[Monos King]

On 4/29/2020 at 6:44 AM, Icecomet said:

 

It's just a simple matter of telling your contacts NOT to check your level once you've received them as a contact!

Yeah as long as that's possible I see no issue here.

[Grouchybeast]

On 4/29/2020 at 2:44 PM, Icecomet said:

Once you have a contact in your contacts list, you should be able to finish an arc/storyline that contact has, so what if you don't get xp for finishing it later?  That's the same as turning off your XP gain, the mission is gray, ok, so what?  Some of us like to finish our storylines, it's not about the xp or rewards.  The  reward are completely finished contacts that then go to your inactive tab because you actually finished the stories.

 

If this were to become a thing, it would be nice to add another tab, so that the options are active, out-levelled and inactive.  I really wouldn't want to have to scroll through a massive list of old contacts offering me grey-conning one-off warehouse missions whenever I attempt to find a current contact.