Focused Feedback: Story Arc - 'Hunting the Hunters' - Adelard Ziegler (Level 40-50)

[The Curator]

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Hunting the Hunters - Adelard Ziegler (Level 40-50)

“Adelard Ziegler has contacted you to work on his behalf as the acting force behind his investigation into the Council. The Council’s Void Hunter division has been a subject of much controversy and rumor, and now have suddenly withdrawn from active duty. On top of that, the black market sales of their Void Rifles to other factions seem to be drying up or delivering ‘Dead on Arrival’.

 

Players will aid Adelard is determining what has happened to the most dangerous and notorious cadre within the Council to see if they are retiring, mutinying, or worse…”

 

• CONTACT: Adelard Ziegler

• LOCATION: Kallisti Wharf /thumbtack 6072 65 1304
• ALIGNMENT / LEVEL: Hero, Level 40-50
• OUROBOROS / ARC: 28.06

 

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[Techwright]

Opening text for Chapter Four: Liquified Assets has orange-colored text reading:

 

Ziegler hands you a photo.

 

But I was calling this in from a great distance.  It's a minor quirk, but weird.

The game is set sometime after 2012.  Might I suggest the text read something like:

 

Ziegler transfers a photo to your smartphone. 

 

This would cover the discrepancy of handing a photo when your character is actually not in proximity.

[Techwright]

Just an observation:

 

The last mission of the Ziegler arc contains  a ton of text and very interesting lore advancement, but I'm saying that as one who soloed the arc and had the time to read it.   As it takes a lot of time to cover the text, is this really going to work for a full team, when the other 7 cannot read the text?   Might there be a way for them to at least see what the team lead is reading?  Otherwise, they're standing around for a while, which usually doesn't do well for maintaining team cohesiveness, when team members want to move on to the next arc to punch things.

[PBiz]

This one had some problems.

 

Mission 2 had a bunch of collectibles and I would collect one and then the counter would either not go down, or it would deplete to zero and not complete the mission until I found the correct glowy. You ought to just make it like the first mission computers where there's a lot of duds until you collect the right ones.

 

Mission 3 had a weird issue where when I clicked the glowies 

Spoiler

both Blackwing AND the PPD came to attack me. Was this intentional? I don't see why they would be working in tandem now.

Aside from that, Mission 3 wants you to escape from the mission, but it could stand to have a waypoint directing you back to the entrance since you keep being ambushed and it's unclear if you need to defeat them all or not. Plus waypoints are nice, even if it's a little map.

 

Mission 4 or 5 wants you to defeat Raid Leaders. Given the context of the mission, would it not make more sense they'd be Base Leaders, since they aren't actually raiding anything? They're just chilling in their own base, unless I missed something.

 

Overall, this seems to be a second of the two hero arcs made where they build up to something and just kind of abruptly ends it. I'm sure this gets continued in another arc, but having a rather ominous conversation to conclude on doesn't really feel satisfying. I'm frankly still not sure what the major thing we did was aside from stop a bunch of Council bases, and that doesn't seem significant enough for an arc like this. I would've liked something a little bit bigger to end on. There's also a Sky Raider mission that seems kind of interesting but sort of goes nowhere too. Again, I'm sure it continues somewhere down the line, but it honestly feels a bit dissatisfying and out of place.

 

I'm not trying to dump on this arc because there's parts I really enjoy about it, but it doesn't have nearly the same kick to them that other Homecoming arcs do where it completes stories and leaves you with a big climactic finish where you feel like you really saved the day.

 

Oh, and after I completed this arc, it doesn't show as completed in the Ouroboros list. The other hero arc did show as completed though.

 

Here's a screenshot of the completion badge and the Ouro list.

 

Edited Saturday at 03:51 AM by PBiz
Screenshot of Ouro

[termyt]

Something I've wanted to see for some time - in the finale, the Harbinger calls the PC "Terran"

 

How about a retort for those who are not from Earth?

 

Heroes who are alien or other dimensional?

 

On a side note, walking all the way back to the front just to find (a hidden objective) half way between in a mission this is all talk isn't grand.  Not a big thing, just a little thing.

Edited Sunday at 05:17 PM by termyt

[Yuro]

Typo/bug: In Ziegler's intro text, he misspells his own name as "Zeigler".

[Lazarillo]

On 6/1/2025 at 12:12 PM, termyt said:

How about a retort for those who are not from Earth?

 

Heroes who are alien or other dimensional?

I'd just note that even if your character is not from Earth originally, they're currently at least running a dual-citizenship in some form or another at a minimum.  So it prolly still counts.

[BurtHutt]

I haven't gone through the arc yet. PLEASE tell me the mission/game design is not like the previous HC mission arcs....please...I beg...