Please remove the maximum level from Contacts!

[Taveena]

Contacts already have coding in place to function when the player has outlevelled them - their story arcs will continue to their completion and each further mission will just be issued at the cap instead. Without changing anything else, it would be frankly wonderful if we didn't outlevel contacts at all. Like, I don't care if they don't scale, I'd just love for First Ward to not suddenly end because I hit level 30 and then have to awkwardly go to Ouroboros and miss out on all the original contact introduction dialogue and so on.  I'd love Twinshot to stop telling me I missed my chance for no reason. I'd love to not have to pause my XP in order to actually do all the redside storylines 25-29.

Sure, it'd be nice if they also scaled to your level, but that's really not something I care about anywhere near as much - but storylines arbitrarily booting you out because you had too much XP would be great. Would love to be able to do literally any story arcs in a group without having to worry about it cutting me off from the actual story, you know?

EDIT: OH, yeah, it'd also let us play through all the non-story arc missions that get locked out after you outlevel them! Without having to add them as badge missions to Ouro or whatever. Like the ones where you test out a gun on the Clockwork that doesn't work very well.

Edited January 14 by Taveena
remembered another use case!

[Psi-bolt]

I think this would be a good idea.  Better if you got auto-exemplared to the max level of that mission contact.  But even if not, it doesn’t make sense for some contacts.  For example, Tina at Portal Corp stopping at 45

even though she has you fighting the Praetorians.

[Rudra]

44 minutes ago, Psi-bolt said:

I think this would be a good idea.  Better if you got auto-exemplared to the max level of that mission contact.  But even if not, it doesn’t make sense for some contacts.  For example, Tina at Portal Corp stopping at 45

even though she has you fighting the Praetorians.

Currently the game only has 2 means of auto-exemplaring your character. The first is to join a team with a team leader of lower level. The second is to join a TF or SF like when you do an Ouroboros Flashback mission. The last thing I heard, mind you I can't say if it is true or not, is that the game cannot handle exemplaring characters without something to lock them too. The previously mentioned two methods of auto-exemplaring.

 

As for the OP? I don't care. If the level restrictions were removed for when we could access contacts' missions, we would wind up with a lot of grey missions from said contacts. Not really a problem other than it would reduce those missions to complete non-threats to the characters. (As evidenced by the current ability to complete started arcs no matter how much you out-leveled the contact. So we wind up with no mob rewards.)

[Crossie]

It would be nice to be able to set what level you are as long as it's lower than current. 

[Reiska]

With as fast as you level in modern CoH, I actually think this is a pretty good idea overall.  Usability issues can be addressed by just clearly indicating (perhaps in "Ask about this contact") what level range a contact's missions are.

[macskull]

Here's the biggest reason why this sort of thing is probably way down on the list of priorities for the dev team: the level ranges of existing factions (and critters within those level ranges) exist for a reason. Trolls might be challenging for a level 6 character, but a complete non-issue for a level 50 character. You'll notice that some factions straight-up don't span the entire 1-50 level range, and for the rare ones that do, the types of enemies you see and the powers they have change quite a bit (look at PPD for a great example of this). If you want a contact's missions to remain at the intended challenge level outside of their original level range, you need to give the PPD/Family/Longbow/Arachnos treatment to pretty much every enemy faction in the game.

[PeregrineFalcon]

21 minutes ago, macskull said:

You'll notice that some factions straight-up don't span the entire 1-50 level range...

Which is exactly why it makes the most sense is for entering the mission to exempt you down to the maximum level for the mission.

[macskull]

3 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

Which is exactly why it makes the most sense is for entering the mission to exempt you down to the maximum level for the mission.

On the other hand, this breaks things for people who pick up lower-level missions and then intentionally outlevel them for badge-farming purposes. 0/10 would not have a good time getting the Croatoa ghosts defeat badge.

[PeregrineFalcon]

1 minute ago, macskull said:

On the other hand, this breaks things for people who pick up lower-level missions and then intentionally outlevel them for badge-farming purposes. 0/10 would not have a good time getting the Croatoa ghosts defeat badge.

So?

 

I believe the number of people who would benefit from being able to play, and get XP from, all of the in-game content significantly outnumbers the small amount of people who farm outleveled missions for badges.

[Saiyajinzoningen]

This has been suggested before.

It is possible.

Not on this server but possible.

I support this idea simply because

There are a lot of bugged missions in oro.

oro missions cannot be autocompleted when theres an issues.

You cannot invite a friend mid oro mission

you cannot do a different arc mid oro mission

some npcs are locked out during oro missions

 

[twozerofoxtrot]

Fun fact you can currently do this with the Graham Easton arc as long as you've talked to him once and have him in your contacts during the appropriate level range.

 

Don't even need to start the arc. Come back at level 50 and whup tsome Tsoo!

 

Bug?

 

Or WAI preview feature?

 

You decide!

Edited January 16 by twozerofoxtrot

[UltraAlt]

On 1/14/2024 at 12:27 PM, Taveena said:

Without changing anything else, it would be frankly wonderful if we didn't outlevel contacts at all.

 

Unless you are scaled down to their max level in their missions, you will gain a huge advantage over most foes.

Many villain groups don't scale up to 50.

 

On 1/14/2024 at 12:27 PM, Taveena said:

I'd just love for First Ward to not suddenly end because I hit level 30

 

You have the ability to solve that problem already. (And I do this myself for more than just my Origins Project characters.)

Turn your XP off before you outlevel content you want to play.

That doesn't require any DEV time. It doesn't change the way that anyone else is experiencing the game.

 

 

 

[Ruin Mage]

as a note just because other servers show it can be done does not mean it should be done here.

just my 2-cents.

[Lazarillo]

13 hours ago, Saiyajinzoningen said:

There are a lot of bugged missions in oro.

...and there's a lot of "working as designed" function that still doesn't function the way it "should" in Ouro.  For example, if you miss Praetorian content (which is extremely easy to do even without any XP gain buffs), and go back and use Ouroboros to complete it, the game's ongoing story flags won't pan out correctly.

Given Praetorian content is generally more punishing than equivalent stuff in the Primal Level ranges, contacts at least needs an increase in its cap.

 

...but honestly, it'd be nice just to be able to finish stuff.  My anal-retentiveness hates that I have a character who permanently is stuck with Diviner Maros' contact bar half-full because I outleveled his arc but not his standalone missions, and he stopped giving me stuff before we were done.