Instead of "You cannot enter" let doors open upon random missions from Architect

[temnix]

First let me tell you about an incident I had a week ago. I'm a Prime Earth scrapper, and I went to Praetoria by TUNNEL. There it turned out that the local missions are limited to Praetorian natives. Bummer. Still, I explored in the Imperial City, fought a few Syndicate troops along the way. Somewhere near their Studio 55 something unexpected happened: I was thrown into a quest I hadn't taken. I was suddenly told to lure the Syndicate out of a building I had never seen in my life by fighting them, and some police arrived on the scene to help me, after which the spot was flooded with Syndicate mobsters. They kept running out of nowhere in droves and hurling themselves at me, making circle kicks, sunglasses shining, trenchcoat tails flying. It was hectic. I felt like agent Smith fighting all those Neos in "Matrix Reloaded." Finally, after a few close shaves, I beat them all. I could have continued to the next stage of that quest, but it wasn't my fight, so I quietly floated away, smiling to myself. Now this was a bug, of course, some global was missing, but I have that experience notched in my memory, no, decorated with a beautiful bowtie, as an Adventure.

 

What is an adventure? Something unexpected and uncontrolled. Challenging. Maybe funny. In that case the Syndicate was new to me - their looks, their powers, their intentions were almost completely a mystery. There was something to learn, fast, and there was challenge not of a predictable type. Now my idea for all those house doors and warehouse doors and sewer grates and ground holes and cave entrances and manholes is that instead of rebuffing us adventurers when there is no mission assigned to them they would invite us to a random mission from Architect. When clicked, the door would say "This is not the place you were sent to, but there is something going on inside. Do you want to intervene?"

 

Architect missions, but to happen there and then, dangerously, with all of the surprises and unknown objectives their creators put in. Why have something in a virtual space when you can have it in reality? (He asked.) Start from three-star ratings and above. For optimists, the entrance's script can contain the information about which hospital to send you to. Teammates might get an invite to follow and a marker, these details can all be worked out. The mission would not be explained or described in any way, nor its villains stated upfront. The difficulty would be tweaked for the character's level, but otherwise he would plunge into the unknown. Missions of appropriate tilesets would be chosen: a warehouse door would lead... to a warehouse (we really need a "normal house" or "hotel" tileset, preferably both), a sewer grate to a sewers mission, a ground hole might connect to the sandy cave tileset, the crystal cave tileset, even an Arachnos base.

 

Here is the kicker, though: these door offers would not be available everywhere at all times, nor reliably. Rather every door might cycle through a 50-50 chance (for example) of offering a mission once every hour. If the character decides not to involve himself, the door sets a local variable blocking further offers for that cycle. The character can try next door - literally. He might choose to investigate that manhole instead of the warehouse. If a character goes in but leaves, there is no coming back, the villains have fled. Upon completing the mission and exiting the victor(s) would find a clue - a message from the mission's author with explanations, any curious facts, advertising on Architect or anything else he wants to communicate, or just a "Hope you enjoyed it!" note.

[Saiyajinzoningen]

the devils in the details.

This in of itself isn't a bad idea, 

random quests for random doors

 

the problem is both AE and Oro lock chars into Task force mode

all players have to be in the same zone

new players cannot be added after the quest has begun

some vendors are unavailable

no other quests can be done at the same time. (unlike your other arcs which can be run concurrently)

 

tbh if these issues can be fixed I'd much rather have them applied to ouroboros

before implementing open world inverse trick or treat AE arcs

[Jiro Ito]

23 minutes ago, Saiyajinzoningen said:

the problem is both AE and Oro lock chars into Task force mode

all players have to be in the same zone

new players cannot be added after the quest has begun

some vendors are unavailable

no other quests can be done at the same time. (unlike your other arcs which can be run concurrently)

 

Just wanted to note that you can invite players onto an AE arc after it's begun, and you can start one even if teammates are in a different zone.

[Saiyajinzoningen]

4 minutes ago, Jiro Ito said:

 

Just wanted to note that you can invite players onto an AE arc after it's begun, and you can start one even if teammates are in a different zone.

waaaaaa?

when did that get fixed?

I abhor AE so I wasn't aware

[Sunsette]

1 hour ago, temnix said:

First let me tell you about an incident I had a week ago. I'm a Prime Earth scrapper, and I went to Praetoria by TUNNEL. There it turned out that the local missions are limited to Praetorian natives. Bummer. Still, I explored in the Imperial City, fought a few Syndicate troops along the way. Somewhere near their Studio 55 something unexpected happened: I was thrown into a quest I hadn't taken. I was suddenly told to lure the Syndicate out of a building I had never seen in my life by fighting them, and some police arrived on the scene to help me, after which the spot was flooded with Syndicate mobsters. They kept running out of nowhere in droves and hurling themselves at me, making circle kicks, sunglasses shining, trenchcoat tails flying. It was hectic. I felt like agent Smith fighting all those Neos in "Matrix Reloaded." Finally, after a few close shaves, I beat them all. I could have continued to the next stage of that quest, but it wasn't my fight, so I quietly floated away, smiling to myself. Now this was a bug, of course, some global was missing, but I have that experience notched in my memory, no, decorated with a beautiful bowtie, as an Adventure.

 

Just FYI, this wasn't a mission, but a zone event. Paragon and Rogue Isles have a few. Three of the eight Praetorian zones have them and they're generally more interesting than the primal versions.

 

More zone events would be neat. 

 

I think the quality and content variance as well as the likely bugs involved in random AE mishes sinks this idea, I am afraid, though I like the general notion of random doors taking you to something rather than forbidding you. The game could use more exploration. 

[Rudra]

4 hours ago, temnix said:

First let me tell you about an incident I had a week ago. I'm a Prime Earth scrapper, and I went to Praetoria by TUNNEL. There it turned out that the local missions are limited to Praetorian natives. Bummer. Still, I explored in the Imperial City, fought a few Syndicate troops along the way. Somewhere near their Studio 55 something unexpected happened: I was thrown into a quest I hadn't taken. I was suddenly told to lure the Syndicate out of a building I had never seen in my life by fighting them, and some police arrived on the scene to help me, after which the spot was flooded with Syndicate mobsters. They kept running out of nowhere in droves and hurling themselves at me, making circle kicks, sunglasses shining, trenchcoat tails flying. It was hectic. I felt like agent Smith fighting all those Neos in "Matrix Reloaded." Finally, after a few close shaves, I beat them all. I could have continued to the next stage of that quest, but it wasn't my fight, so I quietly floated away, smiling to myself. Now this was a bug, of course, some global was missing, but I have that experience notched in my memory, no, decorated with a beautiful bowtie, as an Adventure.

I explained this to you on the other thread where you mentioned it. You found a zone event. Specifically, you found the Syndicate zone event in Imperial City. Zone events are not limited by side. If you can get there, you can do them. The Syndicate were actually leaving a specific building to defend it, and then moving to fight you because you were there. If you pay attention to the Syndicate at the event, it is pretty clear what building they are coming out of. When the first phase of the zone event is completed, you enter that building and fight your way up to the top. In Nova Praetoria, the zone event shows some seers and civilians. You initiate that event by either attacking the seers or the civilians. Then you follow the instructions of the event to progress it. In Neutropolis, you find a zone event where ghouls and PPD are fighting. You initiate that zone even by either attacking the PPD or the ghouls. Then you enter the building they are fighting at to progress the event. In St. Martial, the zone event is near the Golden Giza. You fight the Longbow gathered around the building. When you clear them out, you enter the building they were surrounding and fight the Family. Then you fight Longbow again outside to finish.

 

Edited March 7 by Rudra
Edited to correct mis-capitalized letter and misspelled "Neutropolis". And again to add missing "around".

[lemming]

3 hours ago, Saiyajinzoningen said:

waaaaaa?

when did that get fixed?

I abhor AE so I wasn't aware

It's been working like that for years.    S.T.A.R.T. vendors outside of Pocket D and a couple other locations won't talk to you.

 

On the original post, hilarious, but no.   If you were on a team and one of your teammates opened a door, getting suddenly dropped to level 1 from one of those AE farm missions would be very bad.

[WanderingAries]

6 hours ago, Saiyajinzoningen said:

the devils in the details.

This in of itself isn't a bad idea, 

random quests for random doors

 

the problem is both AE and Oro lock chars into Task force mode

all players have to be in the same zone

new players cannot be added after the quest has begun

some vendors are unavailable

no other quests can be done at the same time. (unlike your other arcs which can be run concurrently)

 

tbh if these issues can be fixed I'd much rather have them applied to ouroboros

before implementing open world inverse trick or treat AE arcs

 

I figured the OP was referring more towards Solo players anyway, so it would be a cool idea for those players for sure.

[WanderingAries]

1 hour ago, lemming said:

On the original post, hilarious, but no.   If you were on a team and one of your teammates opened a door, getting suddenly dropped to level 1 from one of those AE farm missions would be very bad.

 

This would be a good reason to restrict it to solo play. Put a warning popup (if you're already on a team) explaining that if you want to proceed, then you'll drop from the team. Make it something you Have to click, but only when teaming.

[Rudra]

8 minutes ago, WanderingAries said:

 

I figured the OP was referring more towards Solo players anyway, so it would be a cool idea for those players for sure.

The game doesn't differentiate between teams and solo players when it comes to just randomly clicking the wrong door. So like @lemming said, that could really hurt a team.

 

Edit: Hells, it can hurt a solo player too. I can't recall the number of times I clicked the wrong door for a mission because the marker was between 4 doors on a building but only 2 apply for the mission. Especially on a timed mission. You click the wrong door and instead of a "You cannot enter.", you actually enter, rush through the mission clearing things, finish the mission and exit, and then find out that you entered the wrong mission and are about out of time on your timed mission. (Edit again: There have been many instances during the Halloween event where I'm rushing to a mission, click the door, and mobs pour out to attack me instead of me entering the mission because it was the wrong door.) And then how would the game differentiate between single AE missions and full AE arcs?

Edited March 7 by Rudra

[Luminara]

Break into random strangers' houses and beat up the occupants, barge into random offices and terrorize the workers, run into random warehouses and gun down all of the employees?

I think that crosses the line between harmless fun in a game and true psychopathic behavior.  Let's not, shall we?

[Lockely]

9 hours ago, Luminara said:

Break into random strangers' houses and beat up the occupants, barge into random offices and terrorize the workers, run into random warehouses and gun down all of the employees?

I think that crosses the line between harmless fun in a game and true psychopathic behavior.  Let's not, shall we?

 

To be fair, that would all be valid Redside behavior. You basically just described a Mayhem Mission but indoors instead out outdoors.

[Chris24601]

8 hours ago, Lockely said:

 

To be fair, that would all be valid Redside behavior. You basically just described a Mayhem Mission but indoors instead out outdoors.

It’s also basically what radio/newspaper missions are… just slightly more targeted.

 

You hear on the radio of a crime in progress and respond. You read in the newspaper of the prospect of a rewarding crime and make plans to carry it out.

 

The only thing really needed I think would be an expansion of those systems;

 

- Add more varied one-off missions to the rotations (consider mining some of the more interesting non-arc missions from various contacts… particularly if they use unique maps).

 

- Allow them to work in any zone regardless of level.

 

 

[Clave Dark 5]

With custom foes in AE, this would be a hard no.  I've had some people come back to me after running one of mine who were rather sore that "this was waaaay too hard for my [AT][build]" etc.  Plus, with how the AE is used by most players, odds are high you'd just end up in a farm.

 

I don't ,mind the idea of a random mission behind a door though, maybe a nice and short thing like a radio/paper mission.