The Mean Missions Guide: A Villainous Levelling Journey through Story Arcs

[Rieitdd]

So, if one wants to continue goldside storyline what path would one take ?

 

 

I really want to see the return of my power storyline character to praetoria after gaining "powa" and what happens after that.

 

 

[Gulbasaur]

11 hours ago, Rieitdd said:

I really want to see the return of my power storyline character to praetoria after gaining "powa" and what happens after that.

That's a good question. Good news and bad news!

 

Good news: It's hard to avoid going back to Praetoria in later missions. 

 

Bad news: The Praetorian storyline is not told in "levelling order" - some L40 arcs canonically take place after some Incarnate stuff. There's a good discussion of it here.

 

This post on reddit puts the canonical Praetorian order as (roughly) 

1. Tina Macintyre 
2. Maria Jenkins, Harvey Maylor, and Unai Kemen.
3. (Gold character stuff 1-20)
4. Apex
5. Tin Mage
6. BAF
7. Lambda Sector
8. Keyes
9. First Ward and Underground trial
10. Night Ward (roughly, but it makes sense here)
11. TPN Campus
12. Dark Astoria (all six contacts?) and Dilemma Diabolique

13. Belladonna Ventraro

14. Magesterium

15. Provost Marchand and Mr G

Basically, if you want to play it in order while you level, you can't. The canonical order is the order that it was released in, which doesn't follow a 1-50 model. 

 

My suggestion is to do Goldside > FW > NW > New Praetorians > the old PI contacts > Dark Astoria > work up the incarnate trials and task forces. 

 

There are also a few story arcs that sort of fit indirectly - Field Agent Kieth Nance has you a mission taking on your double, which could be fun from a storytelling point of view as you're fresh out of Praetoria at that point. 

[Gulbasaur]

Added a few bits on today and did a little editing.

[Gulbasaur]

Added on some stuff about strike forces and cleared up a couple of typos. 

[trunkmud]

I'm thinking about levelling up a villain, and it should be the right thing to do...

[Gulbasaur]

On 7/15/2022 at 6:51 AM, trunkmud said:

I'm thinking about levelling up a villain, and it should be the right thing to do...

Desperate times call for desperate measures... not everyone has the chance to walk up to Ms Liberty with their new hero licence. Sometimes you have to fight for something to call your own!

 

It's a good experience, although I admit that sometimes the gloom can get to me a bit. Spending time in the Wards can help break it up a bit and towards the end you end up in sunnier climes. Do it!

[wesslen]

Regarding the broker hate...

 

I'm currently trying to play through all the redside story arcs at appropriate level.

 

My process is:

(Lock xp at something-4 and something-9 levels.)

At every level up, check the "find contacts" window for new contacts. Talk to them if there are any new ones (to remove them from the introduction pool.)

Play through all available story arcs from the active contacts. This will give introductions to new contacts.

Once out of contacts, run paper missions and mayhem.

 

I've only ever received... I think two(?) contacts from brokers - the rest had already been introduced by other contacts / were immediately available.

So for anybody who wants to avoid brokers and wants to play missions from contacts, well... just do that. If the contact you want to play isn't available, you'll probably get it from another available contact without needing to bother with the broker. (And you can check the wiki to find out which contacts introduce which.)

[carroto]

On 4/16/2023 at 12:44 PM, wesslen said:

I've only ever received... I think two(?) contacts from brokers

 

I wonder if you can expand on this a bit.  I use the contact finder redside quite a bit and there are many contacts I've never gotten any way except through a broker.  For example in Port Oakes I can get Mr. Bocor through the finder, but he only introduces The Radio at an appropriate level.  I have never gotten Billie Heck or Angelo Vendetti through the finder or an introduction from another contact.

 

It's the same for Cap Au Diable.  I can get Dr. Shelly Percey through the finder but she only introduces Marshal Brass.  If I want Dmitri Krylov or Peter Themari I have to go through a broker.  If there's another way I've been missing all these years I'd love to know about it.

 

It's the same for every zone.  Contacts don't do introductions across zones.  In my experience I can get one contact in a zone through the finder, but that's it, and that contact only introduces their related contact in the next level range up.  The one exception for this is Grandville, where you can start with Westin Phipps through the finder and end up getting introductions to all the other contacts as you work through each of them.

 

All of this is for regular contacts of course.  There are other special contacts like Veluta Lunata in Port Oakes that can also be accessed through the finder.

[wesslen]

On 4/18/2023 at 10:51 PM, carroto said:

 

I wonder if you can expand on this a bit.  I use the contact finder redside quite a bit and there are many contacts I've never gotten any way except through a broker.  For example in Port Oakes I can get Mr. Bocor through the finder, but he only introduces The Radio at an appropriate level.  I have never gotten Billie Heck or Angelo Vendetti through the finder or an introduction from another contact.

 

It's the same for Cap Au Diable.  I can get Dr. Shelly Percey through the finder but she only introduces Marshal Brass.  If I want Dmitri Krylov or Peter Themari I have to go through a broker.  If there's another way I've been missing all these years I'd love to know about it.

 

It's the same for every zone.  Contacts don't do introductions across zones.  In my experience I can get one contact in a zone through the finder, but that's it, and that contact only introduces their related contact in the next level range up.  The one exception for this is Grandville, where you can start with Westin Phipps through the finder and end up getting introductions to all the other contacts as you work through each of them.

 

I haven't actually been counting and probably apparently forgot some (hence the "(?)" in my post), but there haven't been many contacts exclusively introduced by brokers. Of the 4 you listed, it appears 3 are only available via broker according to the wiki, but Dmitri Krylov is introduced by Ashley McKnight.

 

I'm not saying brokers are entirely redundant, only that you don't generally need to grind brokers to unlock many contacts. May be a matter of perspective - I'm also running each mayhem mission once for badges, so I'm not dealing with them just to get contacts. My impression is that most times I run a mayhem mission I don't get introduced to any new contacts.

 

Mostly I wanted to balance the multiple mentions of hating the broker system... but honestly I'd recommend newspaper missions over some of the worse story arcs - at least with paper missions you get to choose your own objective so you don't get several consecutive defeat all or escorts. (Edit: and some arcs really don't even have more of a story than the paper missions.)

 

Edit 2:

At the time I wrote these, I hadn't yet dealt with the brokers in St. Martial. That seems to be the worst area. I ended up going through all the broker-introduced contacts on the wiki to see how many are only introduced by brokers, to see how misleading I'd been, and in total there are 10 contacts that are only listed as "introduced by" brokers: Mr. Bocor, Billie Heck, Angelo Vendetti, Peter Themari, Lorenz Ansaldo, Lt. Demitrovich, Hard Luck, Hardcase, Vivacious Verandi, Regent Korol.

 

I'm fairly certain I got Vivacious Verandi from the find contacts window, not the broker (Edit 3: verified on another character.) Can't remember earlier contacts well enough to dispute them. Maybe my memory was off, maybe more of them can be had via find contacts.

 

Edit 4:

Regent Korol is introduced by Westin Phipps, though this isn't listed on the wiki. I have the introduction window open as I'm typing this.

 

So for St. Martial and Grandville - the part where I've actually been counting - only 2 of the 4 supposedly only introduced by brokers contacts are in fact only introduced by brokers.

Edited April 22, 2023 by wesslen

[AlpineTsar]

@Gulbasaur Any update on your "Goldside Guide" work progress?  Huge fan of your other two guides and follow them for lore sake.

[Gulbasaur]

On 1/15/2024 at 6:38 PM, AlpineTsar said:

@Gulbasaur Any update on your "Goldside Guide" work progress?  Huge fan of your other two guides and follow them for lore sake.

Sorry, I thought I'd replied to this a few days ago.

 

It's unlikely now. My life is just much busier than it used to be! Redlynne's guide is pretty comprehensive, though.

[Aean]

As someone who is already level 50 mostly through group play, are there any particular missions that are worth doing through Ouroboros?

 

...and also what are the names of the specific arcs? It seems like the replay crystals only give the arc names and not the contact names.

[Gulbasaur]

On 4/20/2024 at 3:51 AM, Aean said:

As someone who is already level 50 mostly through group play, are there any particular missions that are worth doing through Ouroboros?

Honestly? Most of them.

 

I'd definitely run through the First Ward and Night Ward arcs if you haven't already; I really think they're about as good as it gets for storytelling in the game, outside of Dark Astoria (which is also quite good).

[Herotu]

This guide is what forum pins are for!