Focused Feedback: New Story Arc: <Noble Intentions> [John Houston] - Rogue, Levels 40-44

[The Curator]

New Mission Content: John Houston

New Story Arc: <Noble Intentions> [John Houston] - Rogue, Levels 40-44

John Houston, WSPDR's new star reporter, is following a lead that has taken him all the way to Independence Port where he was supposed to meet up with a source to get hold of some juicy information. Unfortunately, as is so often the case, his source was kidnapped and now he is in desperate need of some morally dubious help.

Players will get a chance to influence the politics of Paragon City for years to come while checking in on old friends, and making powerful enemies. It's all in a day's work for the free-wheeling entrepreneurial type.

 

 

• Story Arc Contact: John Houston, Independence Port
  • Located near the Smuggler's Ship icon on the map in Independence Port.
    •  /thumbtack -872.5 0.3 -3852.8  will place a map waypoint near John Houston while in Independence Port.
  • The leader of the team must be of the Rogue alignment to take on these missions.

[twozerofoxtrot]

Really interesting to see a Rogue mission in the Blueside areas.

 

Without having yet had an opportunity to play the arc, I'll limit my feedback to saying I think this is a neat idea for helping to stir up alignment diversity a bit.

 

Edit: Big Fat Feedback Dump below.

 

Mission 1

Spoiler

• I ran this with a character that had 'full stealth' (Stealth Proc in Sprint + Blaster /Nin Shinobi) and it was really neat that Tunnel Rat would follow without breaking even far out of range. A little less neat that she attacked everything she saw while stealthed herself, but hey. NPCs, right? Still, seems a little out of character.
• I left the mission through the door early before Tunnel Rat could catch up, and when I linked back up with her inside noticed she didn't have "found me" chatter.

 

Mission 2

Spoiler

• Being able to call to the contact right after the first mission is a big improvement. Sustain for future content.
• For the dialog below, I recommend changing Doctrine to Policy. Doctrine are the guidelines for combat operations (eg: US military doctrine is to assault a defended position with a 3-1 advantage) but Policies are the official decisions made about the overall direction of an operation (eg: to pull out or stay). Minor quibble, but touches on my professional background so I'm noting it.

• I feel like 'breath' should be 'breathing' here. 

 

 

Mission 3

Spoiler

• The marker placement caused me a moment of confusion. Maybe this is intentional, but I'd recommend placing it higher up on the actual "door." Might save GMs a report or two from players "unable to click the glowie." 

• Once inside the warehouse, that marker outside doesn't go away. Less savvy players might transition back and forth through the duct confused why their hand-holder isn't updating. I'd recommend either having it transition to the NPCs that "drop the password" or having it vanish once inside.
• After you go through the portal, if you click on this bunker door on the other side, it can take you back to the warehouse. Not sure if WIA.

• The Lazy Scientist doesn't go 'blue reticle' or give lost/found dialog if you move out of range while stealthed. They'll just sit there with a green reticle and refuse to move until you get close enough with stealth off.
• I liked getting alignment points for decisions made. This might be present in other new arcs, but I don't recall. Still, a nice touch.

 

Rogue Interlude

Spoiler

• Zephyr seems way more eloquent than in the Dark Hearts arc before you fight him. Though once you get to fisticuffs, his speech seems more character appropriate.
• Port Noble Citizens Brigade has proper noun capitalization in other instances but not here.

 

Mission 4 (Rogue)

Spoiler

• Hey! 😠

• Once all the Optional objectives are cleared, I think it would make sense to place a hand-holder marker on the door. Especially for people who clear without reading any flavor dialog; they'd get lost and likely complain to a GM that something was wrong.

 

Mission 5 (Rogue)

Spoiler

• The sentence flow here seems awkward. I'd recommend changing the second "John" to simply "He."

• One of the markers for the archon hunt was pretty far from the archon himself. I had to make a find macro and hop around to discover the NPC.
  • Marker:  [-2652.3 84.0 -856.1]; Archon:  [-2658.8 -0.0 -1048.8]
  • Ended up on the street below (at about 10 o'clock orientation from my character in the image).

 

 

This was limited to just the Rogue branch tree because I'm short on time, but I personally enjoyed this arc. That said I'm a sucker for pretty much all the new content HC has been putting out lately, so YMMV.

 

I did try to break stuff, find seams in the geometry, etc. But I played this over 2 hours after midnight so I didn't try that hard. 😛 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 6, 2023 by twozerofoxtrot

[Xiddo]

Hello!

General points:

1. No badge for the new mob? 😞 (trying to avoid spoilers)

2. The redraw changes make warriors attack much faster! However, I noticed they all ran out of end as I stood doing nothing to test their attack chains. So they eventually all.. stopped attacking. This is obvious a rare thing as no one is just going to let them slash and I’m sure it probably happens with all mobs. But still. Might be the end costs of axe? I would say: the redraw changes make them, on the whole, a bit more challenging cos they aren’t fighting with themselves!
3. The badge art isn’t viewable in anything less than 'recommend' graphics quality. I'm on performance and it looks really weird.

4. Have you changed the level ranges on warriors? Running on a PB, the quants only go to level 29 and are grey.

 

HEROIC RUN:
 

Mission 2:

Spoiler

1. There are no quant PNCB’s 😉 

2. Old Toby stays on the map after he is rescued. Not a big thing Ofc.

 

Mission 3:

Spoiler

1. The port noble patroller enemy changed its weapon between using assault rifle and flamethrower. Not a redraw issue, just noticed it.

2. Similar redraw thing with dynamite. Is the animation for it “pull the stick from back and then throw” or just the throw? Cos it does a weird “get weapon out” animation.

3. Should it not be ‘Shot-Caller’ rather than ‘Shot-caller’?

4. All of the PNCB mobs seem to cycle turning on/off leadership powers? Kept seeing the Tactics animation. Looked like it would turn off the power periodically.

5. do they have… no regen? I got a boss down to half and left it for a good while and it barely healed itself. Would also probably give the bosses some KB res. 
6. Would the archon call a rogue a “cape”? Can I suggest “super” or something like “nosy”?

7. Oddly, both the PNCBs and the named Archon held me in Light Form. That’s fairly new. Hmm.

8. this map is brilliant 

9. cutscene: not everyone turned to see doug (the best character ever) fly.

10. The clues mentioned Moonfire but we don’t meet her? Are we meant to? Note: the Striga’s Sentinels clue in-mission includes Moonfire but after it ends she’s not there.

11. Dr Todd’s powers are a bit different to in Moonfire! She might actually survive the TF with this set.

12. Is the final boss an AV when with a team? Just checking.

 

Mission 4

Spoiler

1. Weird quant thing again: lvl 29 elite quantum gunner (warriors) spawned multiple times with PPD groups

2. FREAKLOK BOSS!!!!! This was very exciting. But intentional?

3. The PPD started smashing up trash cans, cars, lights etc

4. no quant freaks

Mission 5

Spoiler

1. The board transit bit… this might be cos I’m doing it through ouro… but I went to the train station in talos to enter the mission. It said “Northeast Boomtown - Ouroboros”.

2. I did this one on -1/x8 cos I needed to leave. But the lvl 43 groups had lvl 42 Zenith Hoverbots.

3. Macaskill’s spawn locator was off by about 100 yards.

4. I take back what I said about Todd surviving.

ROGUE RUN:

 

Mission 3

Spoiler

1. For a scrapper with DA, Ravenstorm has some pretty mega KB-res... I'm on a PB and this lad did not fall over ONCE.

Mission 5 - I think? Explanation in spoiler.

Spoiler

(might've not been paying attention - the one where you meet Zephyr)
1. I'd clicked on a glowie so the suit of armours spawned. They took him down to 50% through AoEs before I'd spoken to him.

 

I really enjoyed this arc. Edit: I enjoyed it EVEN more now I've done it both ways. Really great way to do content. This kind of format is EXACTLY what I'd hoped Live CoH would do with the alignment system. If only there were endings like this to big, landmark content like a TF. Great stuff.

It’s fun, the maps are good, it links up well, it makes sense, and when it does make you run across cities it is justified. 8/10 9/10 now I've done both versions.

Edited April 8, 2023 by Xiddo
Did a heroic and a villain run to compare

[lemming]

On 4/5/2023 at 7:09 PM, twozerofoxtrot said:

Really interesting to see a Rogue mission in the Blueside areas.

 

Without having yet had an opportunity to play the arc, I'll limit my feedback to saying I think this is a neat idea for helping to stir up alignment diversity a bit.

 

Edit: Big Fat Feedback Dump below.

 

Mission 1

  Hide contents

• I ran this with a character that had 'full stealth' (Stealth Proc in Sprint + Blaster /Nin Shinobi) and it was really neat that Tunnel Rat would follow without breaking even far out of range. A little less neat that she attacked everything she saw while stealthed herself, but hey. NPCs, right? Still, seems a little out of character.
• I left the mission through the door early before Tunnel Rat could catch up, and when I linked back up with her inside noticed she didn't have "found me" chatter.

 

 

 

 

 

I think her being able to follow and aggro on everything is keyed to her having the plusses to perception that resistance has.

[twozerofoxtrot]

1 hour ago, lemming said:

I think her being able to follow and aggro on everything is keyed to her having the plusses to perception that resistance has.

 

You're probably right!

 

It's just that she's usually a very timid character so it seems odd that if she can stealth and follow stealth (again high Perception) that the NPC would be a combat escort rather than a civilian type escort.

[onyxus]

Great fun. Loved it. We did it as a pair of us - auto completing the active mission of the other person. As far as I could tell we both got the alignment points message appear - but not necessarily get - as we ended up diverging to the two different endings. Honestly not sure if its a bug but thought I'd mention it! It split at the point where one of had to go back to see John in person the other got sent on a money liberation trip first.

 

Thanks for doing these new missions - awesome stuff.

[Voltor]

•  - 'Underdog': Complete the Hero-alignment ending of the John Houston story arc, 'Noble Intentions'.
•  - 'Pollster': Complete the Rogue-alignment ending of the John Houston story arc, 'Noble Intentions'.

I received Pollster for completing the Hero arc  and Underdog for the Rogue arc

 

Overall an entertaining arc, very well done! Nice to see some aftermath to one of the previous arcs

[Taxes]

I built a level 40 storm/energy sent and added mostly basic IOs, a couple uniques, and ATOs. Overall I think the design is fair and balanced, good pacing. Writing is done well and kept brief. It really feels like something Paragon could've made themselves, so kudos for fitting into the overall feel of CoH.

 

Mission specific feedback items:

 

Interview Striga locals

• Love that the 3 bosses are optional and also grant temporary powers, felt worthwhile to spend the extra time to hunt them down
  • Claymore, however, disappeared from my inventory after the mission whereas the other two did not
• Not sure if they’re normally elite bosses or if they’re just ignoring the solo bosses setting? (Feel like it’s probably the latter)
• Old Toby didn’t have a marker like the other objectives, not sure if that’s intentional

Investigate the PCNB HQ

• Once you enter the HQ, the marker stays on the exit through the following objectives until the hidden door, which is a bit confusing
• Unseal the blast door objective directed me to a control panel that when clicked says “You can’t complete this objective yet.” Didn’t take long to figure out I needed to go grab an NPC from the next room, but it would be nice if the message was clearer, like “you need to find a way to unlock the door” or something
• Also the blast door just fading out of existence looks a bit unpolished, wonder if you could replace with something that would make more sense to fade out, like a force field?

Burgle the Family Money-ship

• Was mostly confused by this one. I clicked on the first cart, and then it said a patrol had found me, and then a bunch of guys started spawning right on top of me, I finally kill Tommy One-Eye, and the mission is over. Never walked more than 20 ft from the entrance. Not sure if this was how it’s supposed to go down?

Riots in Talos

• Like the blast door earlier, using a van model without openable doors is a bit jarring. But it’s less so than the blast door since you barely see it before the loading screen.
• Not sure what the spawn with Vulcannon, Bronze Bird, Little League is about? I defeated them (tough fight!) but nothing happened. The NPC they were guarding wouldn't talk to me.

Steal the election

• I appreciate the map markers for the targets, “find the 1 guy on the giant open map” is not one of my favourite mission types
• Ending with an EB was a nasty surprise, but luckily I was able to beat him with Inspo dumping
• While “Waiting for Election Results”, you can start Dr Arvin’s dialogue again, which is a bit weird

This took me about an hour and a half to do solo while pausing to go afk a couple times. 20 merits feels fair.

 

[Lazarillo]

I did not enjoy this one as much as the vigilante one.  A little too...spread apart.  The mission maps, in a literal sense, which just felt unnecessarily huge, but also just kinda the disparate plot points.  I'm also kind of a stickler for "continuity", and to me, putting this arc at level 40 despite taking place after the Marchand arc, which in turn takes place after the Incarnate arcs (even if Marchand can be started at 30, it's post-50 in plot terms), made me disappointed that I can't approach it properly in order, either.  Also, while I did this on a fresh character, I would hope that if I'd done the various Praetorian arcs that allow you to meet up with Houston, Arvin, Tunnel Rat, etc (or the Primal arc with Alexander the Great), that that gets properly acknowledged.  But I didn't have any characters ready for testing that could confirm those, unfortunately.  I also feel like Arvin becoming a villain felt a little...contrived.  The Center has mutant charisma, not, like, active brainwashing.  I feel like there needs to be more on why a Resistance Warden would join him.

 

Also, I apparently got the "hero" ending, which I'm not sure what the key difference is?  It seemed to be because I didn't beat up Ravenstorm and the doc, which felt to me less like a moral stand, and more like a "enemy of my enemy" thing.

 

So with all this, I realize there's a lot of complaints, but I will say it was solidly fun, and neat to see how all the various characters interact with each other.  Plus, even if, as the player, I didn't get to hang out at the Mermaid Tavern, my character did, something I've wanted (along with more Striga content in general) for a long time. So thanks for sending me back to one of my favorite places.