Praetorian Characters

[Vindicator]

I really love the goldside content, and being of Praetorian alignment (Loyalist/Responsibility).  In my opinion, the story arcs are very well-written, and I wish more people would experience them.

 

Last week my lvl 20 character completed Provost Marchand's mission "The Rift Enclosure".  I entered the portal to Paragon City and immediately lost the following -

 

1.  access to all lvl 15 praetorian titles

2.  access to all lvl 25 praetorian titles

3.  mission progress with all praetorian contacts

4.  all story arc souvenirs

5.  my praetorian alignment

 

They've been completely wiped, as if they never happened.

 

I was so bummed out about it, that I rerolled the character.  I spent 5 days playing from lvls 1-32 in Nova Praetoria, Imperial City, Neutropolis, First Ward, and Night Ward.  It took 5 days because I had to play solo.  Goldside is, unfortunately, a barren wasteland in regards to player population and there is no way for goldside characters to que for anything other than Summer Blockbuster.

 

I haven't chosen to complete Provost Marchand's mission this time because I don't want to lose any of the above.

 

After exhausting all of the content I had access to, I went to Pocket D and played some missions in AE.

 

I am now sitting in Pocket D as a lvl 50 Praetorian with nothing to do.  If I go through Marchand's portal, I lose all of the above.  If I don't go through the portal, I can't do anything other than AE in Pocket D.  I can't even go to Ouroboros and play content with the Flashback system.

 

So I guess what I'm asking is, can we create a way for Praetorian characters to ignore Marchand's "The Rift Enclosure", keep their Praetorian alignment (Loyalist or Resistance), and have access to blue/red content like Vigilantes and Rogues can?

 

Perhaps change the way the game recognizes Praetorian characters by allowing the following - 

 

1.  loyalist/responsibility are treated as vigilantes or heroes

2.  loyalist/power are treated as rogues or villains

3.  resistance/warden are treated as vigilantes or heroes

4.  resistance/crusader are treated as rogues or villains

 

My proposal would help address several issues.  The first, not having all goldside characters content wiped when leaving Praetoria, and the second, allowing more integration with gold/blue/red players.

Edited September 9, 2020 by Vindicator

[TK3477]

I am not so sure you lose all story arc souvenirs as I still have mine at 50 and being a hero.

 

I personally would like to see half and half symbols or no change to the symbol at all.

 

The loss of titles sucks and I want those to stay.

[MTeague]

• Mission Progress with Praetorian Contacts, I think makes sense to lose. They straight up tell you "finish any remaining business you have here before entering" a couple of times. You're leaving the dimension on either a diplomatic mission (if blueside) or for personal power and gain (if redside). It's written in kind of a "you might not be coming back for a loooooong time, if ever" way.
• But I very much want to keep my Praetorian alignment, particularly for characters I level up in First / Night Ward before ever going through the rift. 
• And I very much agree that there should be a distinction between Loyalist/Power and Loyalist/Responsibility, etc when deciding whether to consider you Blue or Red side.  I hate how certain events (Winter, Valentine's, etc) just blanket treat all Resistance as "close enough to a Hero" and all Loyalist as "close enough to a Villain".  
  • Yes, yes, "Cole is Bad", I get that,.
  • But there's an ocean's worth of difference between Loyalist/Power and Loyalist/Responsibility, or between Resistance/Warden and Resistance/Crusader.
  • If there's no actual data on character file for this, perhaps it can choose which one you are by which portal you went through... If you're Loyalist and chose Red, we'll peg you as Power, if you're Loyalist and chose Blue, we'll peg you as Responsibility, etc.
• I do think the Praetorian Titles should remain selectable even after you go through the rift.  
  • Even if the price of that might be I don't get to choose certain Red/Blue titles, EVER. 
  • Let me keep my Goldside title selections

 

 

[Vindicator]

21 hours ago, MTeague said:

• I do think the Praetorian Titles should remain selectable even after you go through the rift.  
  • Even if the price of that might be I don't get to choose certain Red/Blue titles, EVER. 
  • Let me keep my Goldside title selections

After lengthy discussions with several GREAT people, I have decided to go through the portal.  I can confirm the following - 

 

1.  My souvenirs from Praetorian story arcs DID carry over this time.

 

2.  My Praetorian title DID carry over this time, HOWEVER... make sure you have your Praetorian title chosen (lvl 15 or lvl 25) BEFORE leaving Praetoria.

 

I don't know if I will still have access to Praetorian titles at the Primal trainers, and I am NOT going to risk checking for fear of losing it this time.

Edited September 10, 2020 by Vindicator

[Romanlaw]

I am totally with you Vindicator

i played for the first 7 years and now for two years in homecoming

i LOVE the praetorian content and I have many characters that don’t want to lose their faction. 
would it be difficult to just “open” four or even two new factions? And allow us to maintain our faction?

[RogerWilco]

Yes. My main in both live and HC is a Preatorian, and I got her to level 50 with AE missions as well, after the Wards ran out.

I am ok with becoming a Hero (or Villain/Rogue/Vigilante for some), but let us keep some of the stuff.

I understand the difficulty in programming such things.

It has annoyed me both on live and now in HC.

 

My character grew up fighting Cole and the PPD and even when in Paragon City or the Rogue Isles, she judges people based on those values.

Edited November 23, 2021 by RogerWilco

[Six-Six]

As it stands now, it is possible to get to 50 without going primal. lonelier, but possible. you can get up to 35 in the 3 topside gold maps + undergrounds. then you can push it to low 40s in night and first ward. the last stretch is the toughest since even at +4x8, you have to re-do some of the arcs with the danger of out-levelling your contacts. If you're lucky, you'll chance upon a Primal team that's doing higher level missions in the wards. another way around it outside of AE (though there are numerous well-crafted, gold-flavoured AE content out there) is through the pillar of ice and flame. so go through your normal levelling without having to turn off XP in the lower levels, then do the ones you missed through the pillar. 

And yes, gold side stories are well written, some are even better than red-side content. I just wish that one of these days, they'd follow through on the moral choices you make along the way.

[RogerWilco]

21 hours ago, Six-Six said:

As it stands now, it is possible to get to 50 without going primal. lonelier, but possible. you can get up to 35 in the 3 topside gold maps + undergrounds. then you can push it to low 40s in night and first ward. the last stretch is the toughest since even at +4x8, you have to re-do some of the arcs with the danger of out-levelling your contacts. If you're lucky, you'll chance upon a Primal team that's doing higher level missions in the wards. another way around it outside of AE (though there are numerous well-crafted, gold-flavoured AE content out there) is through the pillar of ice and flame. so go through your normal levelling without having to turn off XP in the lower levels, then do the ones you missed through the pillar. 

And yes, gold side stories are well written, some are even better than red-side content. I just wish that one of these days, they'd follow through on the moral choices you make along the way.

Are there higher level missions in the Wards? I had the impression that I had outleveled all of it by about 38.

I don't know what a Primal team is?

I also don't know what the Pillar of ice and flame is?

[Six-Six]

IIRC, Fireball is the highest contact you get, which is around 38 or so. So I save him for last and set the difficulty to the highest to get the most XP out of each mission. I just need to get the arc started before out-levelling him. Once the story arc is going (book icon beside the contact) it doesn't matter if you're higher level than the contact's level range.

A primal team is a hero, vigi, rogue or villain. they're free to move around Paragon unlike us goldies. There are a few missions or TFs that are set in the Wards whose contacts we don't get access to but they do. so chancing upon such a team is good XP.

The Pillar of Ice and Flame is a crystal that lets you access past contacts regardless of level. If you're higher, it just exemplars you to a threshold level. It is, however, located in Ouro, which is off limits to us. But you can place one in your SG base and use it just like the original one. Or if you can get access/passcode to an SG base that has one.

[huang3721]

10 hours ago, RogerWilco said:

I also don't know what the Pillar of ice and flame is?

 

Adding a bit of information: 

Pillar of Ice and Flame probably looks like this in your SG:

 

If your SG doesn't have it, you could ask your SG leader to buy the item.

 

Assuming you stay gold and have reached level 50, use the pillar to access Emperor's Sword Story Arc. You may need to unlock the alpha slot to defeat its final boss. 

https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Belladonna_Vetrano_(Contact)#The_Emperor.27s_Sword_.2850_Incarnate.29

 

I hope it helps!

[A Cat]

There are public SG bases that have all the utility pieces, including the pillar of ice and flame. For example, on Everlasting, it is zone-8888. 

[Bronze Ronin]

If you do the repeatable contacts till lvl 40 (Atherton Cromwell & Sir Lionel) and wait till lvl 40 to do contacts Fireball and Trilogy which give you missions till lvl 50 and you farm these contacts you do not have to do any AE.  I just got my first goldie I C Bergstrom an ice/ice tanker yesterday doing this method. During the repeatable missions levels I would accept missions from a contact and then accept from the other and either keep or abandon until I got doors very close to each other and setting up your diff would not complete the missions till I was close to the next lvl, just go from one (also abandon mission till I got one that was what I liked and was easy to rinse and repeat) too the other that resets them.  Went really well seemed to level fairly fast.  Did the same with Fireball and Trilogy on not completing mission till almost at next level just don't finish the mish and go from one to the other, went from 40 to 50 in a couple of days of playing after work.  good luck all you people who want to keep you toons on the the gold side.

[Sylapsis]

I'd very much love it if, like Vindicator suggested in their opening post, Praetorian alignments could be retained and game-system-wise be recognised as their Primal counterparts without actually changing for the character.

I wonder what it would take to introduce new alignments (or alignment designations) into the spaghetti-code?

 

Until that day, my poor escaped Seer will just have to languish in the liminal spaces with that one mission remaining, tauntingly: "The Rift Enclosure"...

[lemming]

What I really miss with my Praetorian Characters are the later incarnate missions where contacts have zero clue who you are now.

[Darmian]

39 minutes ago, lemming said:

What I really miss with my Praetorian Characters are the later incarnate missions where contacts have zero clue who you are now.

Apart from the Redside Mr. G missions, where at least one of the NPCs has heard of you if you've done the Olympian mission Goldside before taking the Rift.

[Darmian]

On 1/11/2022 at 10:20 AM, Sylapsis said:

Until that day, my poor escaped Seer will just have to languish in the liminal spaces with that one mission remaining, tauntingly: "The Rift Enclosure"...

Ego time!

 

I refer you to my sig, wherein you will find six arcs (3 Loyalist and 3 Resistance) at levels 20 - 25, designed to bridge a gap between Neutropolis and First Ward basically. Four of them are Dev Choice/Hall of Fame rated, including one for this month (January 2022) so it will drop full XP for you.

[A Cat]

38 minutes ago, Darmian said:

Ego time!

 

I refer you to my sig, wherein you will find six arcs (3 Loyalist and 3 Resistance) at levels 20 - 25, designed to bridge a gap between Neutropolis and First Ward basically. Four of them are Dev Choice/Hall of Fame rated, including one for this month (January 2022) so it will drop full XP for you.

Can confirm, they're really good. I especially think the loyalist arc nails Sinclair's personality. 

[ZorkNemesis]

2 hours ago, lemming said:

What I really miss with my Praetorian Characters are the later incarnate missions where contacts have zero clue who you are now.

 

Actually a lot of characters in some late story arcs do recognize former Praetorians.  Provost Marchand, Mr. G, BV, and Number Six all feature characters that will recall your actions if you worked with them at some point.  Marchand has different opening text depending on if you were Loyalist or Resistance when you left, Cleopatra's body may or may not be present when you rescue Marauder, The New Praetorians will reminisce about their times with you, BV is pissed if you captured her, Reese will have a bone to pick with you if you crossed him.  I have a feeling the writers were aiming for more unique Praetorian dialogue during the Battalion era story arcs, but seeing as how that never happened...

[SeraphimKensai]

2 hours ago, lemming said:

What I really miss with my Praetorian Characters are the later incarnate missions where contacts have zero clue who you are now.

I always played that off in my head as some sort of time travel mechanic in that when I got sent to primal earth, my actions in Praetoria hadn't occurred yet and created a time paradox to explain no one remembering me or losing titles and such.

[lemming]

3 hours ago, ZorkNemesis said:

 

Actually a lot of characters in some late story arcs do recognize former Praetorians.  Provost Marchand, Mr. G, BV, and Number Six all feature characters that will recall your actions if you worked with them at some point.  Marchand has different opening text depending on if you were Loyalist or Resistance when you left, Cleopatra's body may or may not be present when you rescue Marauder, The New Praetorians will reminisce about their times with you, BV is pissed if you captured her, Reese will have a bone to pick with you if you crossed him.  I have a feeling the writers were aiming for more unique Praetorian dialogue during the Battalion era story arcs, but seeing as how that never happened...

Huh.  I didn't note Reese or BV noting me.  I'll have to recheck maybe...   Cleopatra's body was one of the few I noticed changed.

[A Cat]

8 hours ago, ZorkNemesis said:

 

Actually a lot of characters in some late story arcs do recognize former Praetorians.  Provost Marchand, Mr. G, BV, and Number Six all feature characters that will recall your actions if you worked with them at some point.  Marchand has different opening text depending on if you were Loyalist or Resistance when you left, Cleopatra's body may or may not be present when you rescue Marauder, The New Praetorians will reminisce about their times with you, BV is pissed if you captured her, Reese will have a bone to pick with you if you crossed him.  I have a feeling the writers were aiming for more unique Praetorian dialogue during the Battalion era story arcs, but seeing as how that never happened...

I dunno if it was just me, but for some reason, Katie Douglas didn't seem to recognize me when I first re-met her in First Ward. 

[ZorkNemesis]

2 hours ago, A Cat said:

I dunno if it was just me, but for some reason, Katie Douglas didn't seem to recognize me when I first re-met her in First Ward. 

 

The First Ward arcs don't follow this rule.  Katie and Noble don't remember you if you were a Warden.  Katie will remember you if you completed First Ward then did Provost Marchand's arc in Brickstown, as will Nadia, Makawa, and Anna if you check in with them (don't think Night Ward is necessary).  Not sure if Pendragon will know you if you did BV's Primal arc first though.