Focused Feedback: The Graveyard Shift (Hero Story Arc, Level 20-29)

[Jimmy]

This is a Focused Feedback Thread

• Please note that Focused Feedback threads are heavily moderated to ensure they remain on topic.
  • Any off-topic posts in these threads will be removed without warning.
  • The thread will be locked when no more feedback is required, but you are more than welcome to continue the discussion in a new thread.
• The most up-to-date version of the changes will be listed in the first post.
• The changes in each build will be posted as replies.
  • Most changes from the previous beta build are listed in green.
    • Green text will become white text in the next set of patch notes.
  • Any changes or fixes that are only relevant to the beta builds (ie: fixes / tweaks to new features) are listed in blue.
    • Blue text will be deleted in the next set of patch notes as it is only relevant to highlight changes between beta builds, not a changes from live.
  • Known issues are listed in purple.

 

---

 

New Story Arc: The Graveyard Shift (Hero, Level 20-29)

FBSA NetOps Agent Watkins has set up a small command station in North Steel Canyon, as an optimal location to investigate... something. Being somewhat dodgy about his assignment, he has constantly referred heroes to Positron first, to establish a reputation. The tasks that Agent Watkins has for you are no small feats, and involve the clean-up of one of the city's most exciting showdowns. Heroes 20 and above should seek him out, and bring plenty of club soda to wash out any stains.

• Contact: Agent Watkins, Steel Canyon
  • Listed in Ouroboros under Champion (Level 25-29) > The Graveyard Shift (27.01)
• This arc features new maps, new environments, the return of the Vahzilok Wasting Disease (it missed you), interaction with the alignment system, an actual investigation with clues and interviews, new badges, three alternate endings depending on the choices you make in earlier missions and... dubstep
• The Vahzilok enemy group has also been expanded with a wider level range with some additional tweaks for the higher levels
• This story arc currently awards 20 merits for completion, and an additional 20 merits for the first completion
  • These values will be adjusted in a future update to line up with other content when we have enough data to calculate the average playtime for this arc

Changes in this build:

• Bonus merits awarded one-time have been corrected
  • 20 Merits for arc completion (Always)
  • 20 Merits for first time earning the arc's badge
    • This is a temporary bonus for i27 release until we get enough data to set a proper end-of-arc merits reward number based on completion time datamining)
• Added an icon to the CDC Vaccine, which somehow wasn't showing.
• Doubled the time that the temporary immune booster lasts.
• Mission 3
  • Rave's missing catwalk repaired.
  • Encounters in total reduced by 3, this should spread things out a little more.
• Mission 6
  • Pathogen fire damage cut in half.
• Finale
  • Pierce's encountergroup should always spawn. Really.
  • Cortex's Vahzilok ambushes reduced. Illusions remain the same
  • Vigilante hunt reduced from 40 to 15.
  • Missing minimaps repaired.

 

[Jimmy]

Build 1 - October 24th, 2020

Spoiler

New Story Arc: The Graveyard Shift (Hero, Level 20-29)

FBSA NetOps Agent Watkins has set up a small command station in North Steel Canyon, as an optimal location to investigate... something. Being somewhat dodgy about his assignment, he has constantly referred heroes to Positron first, to establish a reputation. The tasks that Agent Watkins has for you are no small feats, and involve the clean-up of one of the city's most exciting showdowns. Heroes 20 and above should seek him out, and bring plenty of club soda to wash out any stains.

• Contact: Agent Watkins, Steel Canyon
  • Listed in Ouroboros under Champion (Level 25-29) > The Graveyard Shift (27.01)
• This arc features new maps, new environments, the return of the Vahzilok Wasting Disease (it missed you), interaction with the alignment system, an actual investigation with clues and interviews, new badges, three alternate endings depending on the choices you make in earlier missions and... dubstep
• The Vahzilok enemy group has also been expanded with a wider level range with some additional tweaks for the higher levels

 

 

[LQT]

4 hours ago, Jimmy said:

and... dubstep

I knew @Piecemealwas a villain!

[Lines]

Enjoying this a lot!

 

Had some minor weirdness between chapters four and five.

Spoiler

 

Spoke to the NPC in Skyway City (The dialogue tree, clues and choice of the next mission was excellent, btw!) > Chose to investigate the patrol boxes > Did so > Called contact, but went into Faultline before accepting the mission (I think) > Called contact again.

 

They gave the initial dialogue as if I'd just met them. It took me as far as them offering the mission, but didn't give the first mission. Called them again and it resumed to chapter five.

 

 

I've not finished it yet, but one thing stood out

 

Spoiler

 

Getting groups that look to be x8 on the rave mission, even though I was on +0/x0. Not constantly, but if I weren't on a lvl 50 survivable build this would be impossible to solo.

 

Other than that, this is fabulous so far. The depth of new lore feels really good to start dipping into and Piecemeal's dialogue on the Freakshow is constantly delightful!

[PheonixLord]

Just ran it, thought it was really great. The NPC names were pretty clever, the chat lines were amusing, and the story line was actually pretty interesting. 

 

I noticed a couple of really cool custom changes to a few of the maps that I thought were particularly impressive, and I really liked the moral choices you could make at the end.

 

It was fairly challenging but not frustratingly so, just bring a Controller or Dominator or someone with a bit of crowd control and it's very smooth sailing.

 

I really don't have any criticisms other than a few typos I noticed (one of Dr. Pierce's lines is repeated twice in one of the dialogue windows). If this is the kind of content we can expect in the future, I'm really excited! 

Edited October 24, 2020 by PheonixLord

[Jimmy]

5 minutes ago, PheonixLord said:

I really don't have any criticisms other than a few typos I noticed (one of Dr. Pierce's lines is repeated twice in one of the dialogue windows).

Please post these so we can fix them 🙂

[Lines]

Bigger issue I'm having:

 

Spoiler

On the Investigate Pathogen's Warehouse mission, I've defeated Pathogen, tried to make it back to the start, died, reentered, disabled the sprinkers. Now my objectives are to Corrupt the Data Stream (Can't figure out where to go just yet) and Radio in to Watkins.

 

I can repeat the conversation with Watkins over the radio and continuously gain Vigilante alignment points. I tried multiple vigilante trees and they just kept letting me repeat. I then tried a heroic tree and it awarded a hero alignment point. It then didn't allow me to repeat the conversation from the start, just the last bit after the narrated three hour containment.

 

I went further into the mission to corrupt the data stream, this completed the mission.

 

Changing morality during an arc is awesome though! MORE MORE MORE! 😄

 

And that mission was brilliant in general. The little touch of going through the office space in the middle did some really nice things for the pacing of the mission.

 

Edit: Wrote that in real-time which is why the tense is all over the place. 😅

Edited October 24, 2020 by Lines

[rciccolini]

 

I played the first mission so far while testing blaster secondary changes. The mission storyline seems interesting and cool so far.

 

I definitely don't like the instantly exploding cadavers. I am not sure if I am missing a trick to it?

 

At one point I activated Executioner's Shot, and two cadavers spawned close enough to step twice and explode before my animation finished. That's probably not ideal. Those waves also made it a bad idea to use my entire melee oriented secondary. I have no idea what melee characters are supposed to do, just tank the explosions? That feels terrible. A statistical punishment for playing melee.

 

The damage wasn't too bad, the explosion did 1/4 to 1/3 of my blaster bar so I imagine my melee will just blow them all up.

 

More as I play it.
 

[PheonixLord]

43 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

Please post these so we can fix them 🙂

I didn't take screenshots or write it down. 😞 I'll do the arc again later with another character and post.

[Lockpick]

First Thoughts:

 

All in all I felt it was okay, but I haven't finished it yet.  Seems like some serious old school mission design.

 

• Start in SC
  • The contact here was nice, I liked the video he received on his phone which sent me to a mission, this is an upgrade to modern times
• Go to Sky
• Go to Talos. Kill 20 Freak (really? defeat 20 Freaks to get info for the door mission? Why couldn't I get the info for the door mission from the boss in the previous mission?)
• Talos Mission
  • I called into the contact after the mission and he was acting like I had handed him some notes even though he is in SC and I am in TI.  I would suggest saying I sent him an email with the notes or something.  Keep it modern with the smart phone angle that was created at the beginning of the story.
• Go to Sky, Travel halfway across the map to talk to someone
• Go halfway across Sky and talk to someone else
• Go across Sky to some call boxes (after all this runaround I was irritated and decided I was done with it for now)

 

My honest feedback is that I am not interested in running all over the place like it is 2004 again.  The missions I did were fine, the dialogue was fine, the spelling of the dialogue was fine, combat was fine, etc., but running around everywhere just made me feel like I was back playing an old school mission arc.  Maybe that is the intent, but not something I would be interested in doing more than once.  If you are going to have this type of mission arc I suggest adding a badge.  I doubt this arc is something people will do over and over without some incentive. There are some badges and merits, so nice to have some rewards for this arc.

 

I hate being so negative because I know a ton of work went into this arc, but I wanted to provide my candid feedback.

 

I'll go finish it, but wanted to get my feedback in when I hit the frustration level.

 

Edit: Starting back up and finishing arc.

 

• Go across Sky to some call boxes (after all this runaround I was irritated and decided I was done with it for now)
  • Travel around Sky to 4 different call boxes
  • Call contact
• Go to Faultline to Investigate the Rusty Rivet Bar
  • Which apparently has a top notch VIP room, so I was surprised that I was entering a bar through a manhole cover
• Chapter 6 Intro
  • Long run on sentence in the Intro
  • New sentence started with a lower case "we"
  • The player response should end in a question mark
• Go to IP (are you f'ing kidding me?)
  • This mission was interesting and the choices were a treat
  • Watkins has turned into a dick and is asserting some authority he thinks he has
• Go to KR
  • This mission was pretty good and I was defeated once as I got overwhelmed. I liked the dialogue and choices.

 

All in all it was a decent experience, but probably something I would only run once.  Not something I would do for every character.  By contrast I run the Graham Easton and Laura Lockhart story arcs on pretty much all my characters.

 

Just my feedback, wish it was better.

Edited October 25, 2020 by Lockpick
Finished Arc and updated post

[Vanden]

2 minutes ago, Lockpick said:

If you are going to have this type of mission arc I suggest adding a badge.

The arc actually has 4 badges.

Edited October 25, 2020 by Vanden

[Piecemeal]

I'll address one thing: There are several outcomes from talking to Dr. Pierce that cuts down on travel time after the robbery. If you choose right path to investigate, you go right to the shortest route. This was also an experiment in people drawing their own conclusions, like a detective, so the subsequent mission would be a reflection of what they might think is best. It isn't elegant yet but it's the start of a more immersive experience, in my own eyes.

 

Other than that, I'll take your comments into advisement, as this was my task to learn on, and so incorporates a little bit of everything so I can fully comprehend how everything works. You don't have to fret that everything I make will be a multi-zone traveling affair. I am also a reasonable person and prone to change my mind when civil discussion is afoot, like we have so far, so there's nothing to worry about.

 

Redside, everything is in Sharkhead Isle with one deviation to Cap because it makes sense. Just FYI 🙂

[Piecemeal]

6 hours ago, rciccolini said:

 

I played the first mission so far while testing blaster secondary changes. The mission storyline seems interesting and cool so far.

 

I definitely don't like the instantly exploding cadavers. I am not sure if I am missing a trick to it?

 

At one point I activated Executioner's Shot, and two cadavers spawned close enough to step twice and explode before my animation finished. That's probably not ideal. Those waves also made it a bad idea to use my entire melee oriented secondary. I have no idea what melee characters are supposed to do, just tank the explosions? That feels terrible. A statistical punishment for playing melee.

 

The damage wasn't too bad, the explosion did 1/4 to 1/3 of my blaster bar so I imagine my melee will just blow them all up.

 

More as I play it.
 

The exploding cadavers are not exactly working the way they were back in closed beta, as in they are not supposed to spawn right on top of you, and I am addressing that in my next updates.

[CrudeVileTerror]

@Piecemeal, something that would have been helpful in giving a more in-depth review of @holymittens' work of yesteryear would have been the opportunity to see the mission files.

Yes, this would "spoil" things that were intended to be surprises, but I think at a certain point it might be worthwhile to show the guts of your work so the playerbase can give a more intensive analyse of it.

 

In the meantime . . . I'mma get started on this and see what I can knock loose!

Although; could we please have the initial post in this thread mention that FBSA NetOps Agent Watkins is situated at -2261.0, -84.0, -2578.5 in Steel Canyon?   Took me a dog's year to find the guy!

Might also be good to mention that this is not a "Hero Only" Contact, but rather a "Blueside" Contact, since it appears Vigilantes can access him.

 

And thank you for volunteering your time and work on this.

[Lockpick]

1 hour ago, Piecemeal said:

I'll address one thing: There are several outcomes from talking to Dr. Pierce that cuts down on travel time after the robbery. If you choose right path to investigate, you go right to the shortest route. This was also an experiment in people drawing their own conclusions, like a detective, so the subsequent mission would be a reflection of what they might think is best. It isn't elegant yet but it's the start of a more immersive experience, in my own eyes.

 

Other than that, I'll take your comments into advisement, as this was my task to learn on, and so incorporates a little bit of everything so I can fully comprehend how everything works. You don't have to fret that everything I make will be a multi-zone traveling affair. I am also a reasonable person and prone to change my mind when civil discussion is afoot, like we have so far, so there's nothing to worry about.

 

Redside, everything is in Sharkhead Isle with one deviation to Cap because it makes sense. Just FYI 🙂

 

Thank you.  I liked the amount of choices that were provided and do like the intent to make it more immersive and having the choices drive the way the arc flows.  That is extremely hard, so definitely appreciate the effort.

 

I should mention that I was on a stalker (EM/EA), so had to deal with the waves of enemies exploding.  My defense was high as I was using an end game build, so could see it being challenging for lower levels.  I got wrecked in the one mission where I had waves of Psy foes attacking me because I have a Psy hole in the defense.

 

[Piecemeal]

I will comment that I had a super sub-par team composition when I tested today, and control powers are ideal for controlling the zoombies. They are weak to knockback, for instance 😉

[Drakwatch]

Posting some thoughts and notes I had after 1 play-through of Graveyard Shift today. Overall, it played pretty well and I only had a handful of bugs, none of them game breaking. Spoilers below:

 

 

• My first note is that Agent Watkins doesn't have a proper introduction besides finding his van in Steel Canyon.  Perhaps adding him to the "Find Contact" button or maybe have Positron introduce him after Posi part 2 would be helpful.
• Reading some posts above confirmed that I wasn't the only one experiencing the weird ambushing mechanics of the "Zoombie" Embalmed Cadavers. Most of the missions, I see them work as intended (Spawn, say "...", and run towards the target for instant, and thankfully reduced damage, explosion.) However, during the first mission, they would suddenly appear as you walked near their "invisible" position and then explode. I think they need to be visually separate them from their normal, slow exploding kin. Perhaps changing their names from "Embalmed Cadavers" to "Zoombies"?  Additionally, making them visually distinct (such as orange gloves or bright wires) could help players have an easier time reacting to them before they explode. I will keep an eye out for the next update and I'll try to do some additional testing.
• Dr. Pierce's dialog is repeated here:
  
• Something is seriously wrong with Josh's arm here:
• A few things after completing the Arrest Pathogen mission:
  1. Don't get defeated in the fire. Just don't. 
  2. The final ambush while trying to turn off the sprinklers and hack the computer is a bit much. I had to kite them around the map in order to survive. They eventually defeated me while I radioed Agent Watkins and had to sit through his dialog.
  3. I don't really know what the medical research items were for? Since I was playing a melee character, I didn't come near them or attacked them because I figured they would just explode.
  4. The objective marker was stuck on the first locked door at the beginning of the mission. I think it would help a lot during the timed portion of the mission to have markers on the computer, the sprinkler system, and the radio for Watkins.
• Small typo in the final debriefing with Watkins.
  

Overall this was a very welcome and creative new addition to the old City of Heroes content. An interesting mystery, very modern themes, and some awesome gross-out parts. I'm glad this release was timed around Halloween. I will say, however, after playing this solo with a lvl 25 MA/Ninja Scrapper, this story arc was VERY challenging. I died quite a few times, especially during the elite boss fights, but I'm not sure if that was mostly just due to me being low level with almost no AOE powers. I played at +0 x0 with elite bosses, but the mobs felt very full with a true challenge mainly coming from maintaining stamina (not made easier with Wasting Disease) while ambush after ambush comes after you.  Having stealth helped me avoid a lot of the larger mobs.

Edited October 25, 2020 by Drakwatch

[CrudeVileTerror]

Mission 1:

Positives:
- The not-so-subtle jab at forum arguments turning in to name-calling fights.  This was amusing to me.

 

- Rotting Mire Eidolons splitting open and complaining about their impending death.  Really sets the stage.

 

- Emblamed Cadavers going "...wheeeee..."  Pure hilarity!

 

- Instant cell phone number.  Always a nice quality of life perk.

 

- Newt (and Malady).  Although, despite having the Regeneration visual effects, Newt doesn't seem to actually regenerate hit points at much of an accelerated rate.  It may be worthwhile to bump him up a touch.  Then again, if Malady is right about Newt, then it's just fine that Newt's no good at regen'ing.

Malady . . . that collar and those boots and gloves . . . those aren't standard for Eidolons, are they?   *goes off to check*  Hmm . . . interesting.  The collar in particular bears a striking similarity to the one YOU wear, @Piecemeal.  Also, I think I saw some red visual effects animating from Malady's right hand in combat, but didn't notice anything else special about her.  I feel like maybe I'm missing something.

 

 

Uncertain:

- Those Insta-boom Embalmed.  Are these the "Zoombies?"   Perhaps they should be called "Bomb-bies" instead?  And are they -supposed- to insta-explode?  I know you said they weren't supposed to spawn on top of players and that would be fixed, but the instant explosion is still very . . . odd.

 

- Moldy face mask and blotch of petroleum don't invoke any Clues?  And the debrief dialogue suggests my character was diligently documenting things inside the mission?  Or was that Watkins trying to be sarcastic?

 

 

 

Negatives:
- The introductory text (including all of the myriad dialogue paths) is entirely skippable, untethered from player level, and assumes that the player-character had a part in defeating Dr. Vahzilok.  Given the way Contact introductory text works, this can cause some issues that could easily result in players missing information that is crucial to getting the initial context of the whole arc.  

There's also some really awkward dialogue from Watkins, but that might just be his personality.  He seems like a fairly unlikeable person, which I suppose is on-brand for a government hacker.

More of an issue is that the temporal displacement of the whole setting makes for some awkwardness in terms of when Dr. Vahzilok was arrested and when Galaxy City suffered the Shivan meteor attack . . . but that's hardly your fault as the author of this one arc.   More an issue with the greater timey-wimey stuff which the entire narrative suffers from.   Still . . . there might be a more elegant way to address it.  Or, more to the point; NOT address it.  The more ambiguous you keep the events surrounding this story arc, the easier it is to slip it in to this fluid timeline.

 

- There are talking Cadavers and Abominations in very first mission, saying things which are very inappropriate for them.

If this was intentional, then I call in exhibit A:  The Eidolon Description.  "Unlike the cadavers, they retain all of their memories and personality."  The Cadavers (and by extension, the Abominations) are simple robots built from cybernetic replacement limbs, covered in spare flesh and given rudimentary programming.  Instances of them having dialogue in the existing missions from Retail are (as I recall) admitted errors on the parts of the Legacy Devs which could not be easily fixed.

If unintentional, then perhaps one more additional new enemy is necessary to complete the story:  Weakened Eidolons.  Same attacks and animations as Cadavers and Abominations, but using the Rotting Eidolon character models.  Would that be something that could be implemented without too much stress or difficulty?

 

- One of the pop-up narration text blurbs is a little irksome.  "You hear the quick shuffling of bare feet and the low groan of the living dead!"

I recommend replacing it with something along the lines of:  "The eerie sound of quickly shuffling bare feet and the low groan of animated corpses creeps through the air."

The revision allows the player to retain agency (avoids the use of the second-person "you") without changing the overall essence of the narration, and (personal pet peeve, as the subject of undeath is one near and dear to me) modifies the description of the Bomb-bies to be more in line with the greater distinction between true undead and the Vahzilok creations.

 

- There doesn't appear to be any unique text for Newt's description.  Newt deserves a little something, no?  What with how cute Newt is!

 

 

 

I'm WAY PAST my bed time now.  Fighting some kind of throat infection, and I told myself I would get to bed by 10pm tonight.  It's now 1:45am.  I'll gave to finish testing the other missions in this arc, and the entirety of the other arc in the following days between work and other responsibilities.
Thanks again for putting your hard work out there, @Piecemeal.   I hope this feedback is helpful.

 

Edited October 25, 2020 by CrudeVileTerror
Little extra more.

[BZRKR]

Ran this yesterday with friends.

We noticed that the callboxes and the trips from Skyway, to the Hollows, back to Skyway felt like "Monthly subscription mission design". However, if the amount of legwork you have to do is based on what choices you make in the dialogue then a) that's friggen awesome! and b) it's kind of a funny troll on mission leaders who just click through the text 🙂

 

Two things that I was able to screenshot:

First, when we saw a mission text that said "Investigate" we assumed that we could use Team Transport to go to a mission door. Instead we needed to talk to a contact. This caused some confusion when TT didn't work, and felt bad when we got to Doctor Pierce:

 

Second, I spotted this and screenshotted it:

Discrete vs . Discreet

 

Overall, this arc (and the villain side one) are awesome and I am very impressed with all of the work that clearly went into it, and look forward to more! 

Thank you @Piecemeal!

 

[RubyRed]

I made a level 28 psi/sonic blaster to test this out so I could try it at the appropriate level for the story arc. Only using SOs.

 

First off ... the writing in this is very good but needs some serious editing for length. I appreciate that the writer enjoys what they're doing, but this is an MMO and not a visual novel. Right off, Agent Watkins has I think twelve pages of initial dialog before you can take his first mission (maybe, I wasn't counting too closely, but somewhere in that realm). I would compare to the length of text present in other missions and try to hit somewhere in the same ball park.

 

Overall the old school design with going to multiple city maps, street sweeping missions, etc. isn't my cup of tea but that's entirely subjective.

 

The zoombies as they're being called are annoying but manageable. It actually makes them a bit of a threat compared to the other embalmed, which are easy to deal with. I think they're fine.

 

Crash the Unholy Masquerave was my first wall. Keep in mind I'm level 28, +0x1. The enemy groups all consisted of 2 lieutenants + 4 embalmed cadavers... this is really rough for someone at the lower level range. Also because of the tight map I frequently had to deal with two or three groups right next to each other. I was able to cheese it a bit by hovering to the ceiling but it was still taking quite a while to kill everything, and I ended up auto-completing because it would've taken me over an hour to clear my way to the objective. This mission needs some rebalancing.

 

Dr. Katelyn Pierce -- I really really like the idea of this NPC that you ask questions to get some clues, and that your choices can effect the mission path. Please more of this! I like choices that matter. But again needs some editing. Like 3 or 4 options would've been fine, not 8.

 

Investigate the Rusty Rivet bar -- the two named guys I was supposed to defeat in the beginning were killed by NPCs as I watched. It didn't even take that long, not sure I could've gotten to them before they were defeated. Not sure if that was intended? Either way kinda funny and made finishing the mission easy.

 

Then I got to Investigate Pathogen's warehouse and got stuck. No idea what I was supposed to do. The front door requires a key to enter, there was a glowie next to it that I couldn't interact with, and no mobs to kill. Re-read my clues to see if I missed anything, but didn't see any relevant info. Unfortunately I had used my one auto-complete earlier so I got stuck here and couldn't go any further.

 

Overall: Despite the critiques above, this is really good work. It feels just like one of the missions I'd expect from the original devs (sans the dialog length issues I pointed out). It fits nicely into the lore of the city. Very good work! I could see repeating this mission on alts for the fun of it. (Not something I can say about every story arc in the game...)

[Piecemeal]

27 minutes ago, RubyRed said:

I made a level 28 psi/sonic blaster to test this out so I could try it at the appropriate level for the story arc. Only using SOs.

 

First off ... the writing in this is very good but needs some serious editing for length. I appreciate that the writer enjoys what they're doing, but this is an MMO and not a visual novel. Right off, Agent Watkins has I think twelve pages of initial dialog before you can take his first mission (maybe, I wasn't counting too closely, but somewhere in that realm). I would compare to the length of text present in other missions and try to hit somewhere in the same ball park.

 

Overall the old school design with going to multiple city maps, street sweeping missions, etc. isn't my cup of tea but that's entirely subjective.

 

The zoombies as they're being called are annoying but manageable. It actually makes them a bit of a threat compared to the other embalmed, which are easy to deal with. I think they're fine.

 

Crash the Unholy Masquerave was my first wall. Keep in mind I'm level 28, +0x1. The enemy groups all consisted of 2 lieutenants + 4 embalmed cadavers... this is really rough for someone at the lower level range. Also because of the tight map I frequently had to deal with two or three groups right next to each other. I was able to cheese it a bit by hovering to the ceiling but it was still taking quite a while to kill everything, and I ended up auto-completing because it would've taken me over an hour to clear my way to the objective. This mission needs some rebalancing.

 

Dr. Katelyn Pierce -- I really really like the idea of this NPC that you ask questions to get some clues, and that your choices can effect the mission path. Please more of this! I like choices that matter. But again needs some editing. Like 3 or 4 options would've been fine, not 8.

 

Investigate the Rusty Rivet bar -- the two named guys I was supposed to defeat in the beginning were killed by NPCs as I watched. It didn't even take that long, not sure I could've gotten to them before they were defeated. Not sure if that was intended? Either way kinda funny and made finishing the mission easy.

 

Then I got to Investigate Pathogen's warehouse and got stuck. No idea what I was supposed to do. The front door requires a key to enter, there was a glowie next to it that I couldn't interact with, and no mobs to kill. Re-read my clues to see if I missed anything, but didn't see any relevant info. Unfortunately I had used my one auto-complete earlier so I got stuck here and couldn't go any further.

 

Overall: Despite the critiques above, this is really good work. It feels just like one of the missions I'd expect from the original devs (sans the dialog length issues I pointed out). It fits nicely into the lore of the city. Very good work! I could see repeating this mission on alts for the fun of it. (Not something I can say about every story arc in the game...)

I'd urge you to try the Pathogen mission again - there's nothing to suggest you can't click that glowie, it's what unlocks the door.

 

Well, technically, anyway.

[RubyRed]

2 minutes ago, Piecemeal said:

I'd urge you to try the Pathogen mission again - there's nothing to suggest you can't click that glowie, it's what unlocks the door.

 

Well, technically, anyway.

I'm guessing it was a bug then. It didn't change to the hand icon and I couldn't interact with it in any way. I also tried the new /interact command and it didn't do anything.

I'll try it again later today and see if restarting the mission makes it work, but just be aware it looks like it can bug out.

[gourdhead]

 "As you know, the activity at the Overbrook Dam were all anyone could talk about for weeks."  Shouldn't this be "was all anyone could talk about"? 

[GM ColdSpark]

@gourdhead I think you're probably right if we're using the Queen's English... "were" could work if it were being spoken in a somewhat more English country yokel type voice I guess! (I think you're probably right - nice spot!)

[gourdhead]

I'm running the first mission now, and one thing I noticed is talking to Watkins, i reached the initial "Investigate 6+1+2 North" prompt, but when I selected it, I didn't get a mission. I had to reselect Watkins, and got a slightly different dialogue with the mission option.  Is that working as intended?