Story Arc and Mission - feedback

[BurtHutt]

So, July 5, a group of friends and I just completed our second KW arc. The reviews are not good. I really appreciate HC and all they do but these arcs and missions are not enjoyable in teams. Walls of text, running around, meeting the team etc.

 

They have slightly improved over previous HC offerings but still...my friends and I have never gone back and played through any of the arcs after giving them the initial try. 

 

The Live Devs started to change the mission design and style towards the end and for good reason. Are me and my band of Merry Metas alone in this thinking or are others also feeling this? I know most players don't come on here but this is a start. So, fellow supers, what says you?

[Psyonico]

I’m torn.  On one hand I agree that the missions don’t lend well to teaming, on the other, I feel like there is some good writing in these new arcs.

[BurtHutt]

2 hours ago, Psyonico said:

I’m torn.  On one hand I agree that the missions don’t lend well to teaming, on the other, I feel like there is some good writing in these new arcs.

Which parts did you enjoy the writing? I may have to read that material again.

 

I would like to suggest doing more stuff in the style of DFB, some of the iTrials, Yin...that stuff works and is played a lot. Actually played because we enjoy it and not for the rewards alone.

[Psyonico]

So, I really liked Alexander “the great”’s arc and I have started the Crey rogue arc (can’t remember the contract’s name). They’re both pretty good.

[Rudra]

17 minutes ago, Psyonico said:

I have started the Crey rogue arc (can’t remember the contract’s name).

Erin West. And I love how upset the NPCs get when you make mention of things like Crey's Folly.

[Psyonico]

2 hours ago, Rudra said:

Erin West. And I love how upset the NPCs get when you make mention of things like Crey's Folly.

My favorite part is that I chose “Lord/Master” for my pronouns and so now everyone in the arc refers to my character as “Lord Say-Tin”

[shortguy on indom]

• DID NOT MAKE IT A POINT TO READ THESE NEW ARCS, SO NO IDEA. JUST CLICKED ON THE CHOICES UNTIL MISSION COMPLETED.  NOT KEEN ON SOME OF THE HYPE, JUST NOTICED THEY WERE VERY LONG ARCS WHEN RUNNING SOLO IN OURO.  AFTER THE PROGRESS BAR IFS FULL, STILL 3 MORE MISHES.  OTHER THAN THAT, THE NEW ENEMIES WERE FUN IMHO.

[BurtHutt]

9 hours ago, shortguy on indom said:

• DID NOT MAKE IT A POINT TO READ THESE NEW ARCS, SO NO IDEA. JUST CLICKED ON THE CHOICES UNTIL MISSION COMPLETED.  NOT KEEN ON SOME OF THE HYPE, JUST NOTICED THEY WERE VERY LONG ARCS WHEN RUNNING SOLO IN OURO.  AFTER THE PROGRESS BAR IFS FULL, STILL 3 MORE MISHES.  OTHER THAN THAT, THE NEW ENEMIES WERE FUN IMHO.

This was kinda my team's feedback too. 

 

All of the others posting here, did any of you run this in a team? Or did you solo?

[Rudra]

12 minutes ago, BurtHutt said:

This was kinda my team's feedback too. 

 

All of the others posting here, did any of you run this in a team? Or did you solo?

2-person team. All of the KW arcs.

[mistagoat]

As of last night I've completed all the new arcs/contacts in KW. I duo'd all of them with a buddy, mostly at +2x8 on "not-50s". For the most part we enjoyed the arcs. There were a couple questionable choices and I don't like the heavy use of "map not available" but generally they were all pretty fun and had some unique mission designs. They are all a bit on the long side side, playing through them the first time and not really doing any stealthing since we wanted the xp, each arc took around 2-3 hours. Admittedly some of that was learning the ropes on these new arcs.

 

I really liked the one where you have to split up Alpha Team but also in that arc was a mission where you get deep into a cave and then click something and then the whole cave is filled with tightly packed DE and 6 waves of DE ambushes while "map not available". They really setting us up to fail on that one. Next time I'll have my buddy stay at the door and TP me when the ambushes come. At least we'd have a safe place to start from but you'd never know that playing it the first time.

 

The amount of dialog choices is way too high, and the amount of "answer one million questions" interactions with the quest givers and npcs was way too high. There are some fun bit in there but it's just way too much clicking through dialog screens. Way WAY too much! Worst of all is that those myriad choices have no effect on the outcome, they're just flavor and the next mission will always be the same so what was the point of making click 20 times?

 

The inconsistency of contact requirements with your quest giver was frustrating as well. I have to physically return to Erin West for debriefing after every single mission despite being able to call her. Meanwhile Robert Kogan also wants a debrief after after every mission but he's happy to do it via a phone call. Not the end of the world but an annoyance for sure!

[BurtHutt]

4 hours ago, mistagoat said:

As of last night I've completed all the new arcs/contacts in KW. I duo'd all of them with a buddy, mostly at +2x8 on "not-50s". For the most part we enjoyed the arcs. There were a couple questionable choices and I don't like the heavy use of "map not available" but generally they were all pretty fun and had some unique mission designs. They are all a bit on the long side side, playing through them the first time and not really doing any stealthing since we wanted the xp, each arc took around 2-3 hours. Admittedly some of that was learning the ropes on these new arcs.

 

I really liked the one where you have to split up Alpha Team but also in that arc was a mission where you get deep into a cave and then click something and then the whole cave is filled with tightly packed DE and 6 waves of DE ambushes while "map not available". They really setting us up to fail on that one. Next time I'll have my buddy stay at the door and TP me when the ambushes come. At least we'd have a safe place to start from but you'd never know that playing it the first time.

 

The amount of dialog choices is way too high, and the amount of "answer one million questions" interactions with the quest givers and npcs was way too high. There are some fun bit in there but it's just way too much clicking through dialog screens. Way WAY too much! Worst of all is that those myriad choices have no effect on the outcome, they're just flavor and the next mission will always be the same so what was the point of making click 20 times?

 

The inconsistency of contact requirements with your quest giver was frustrating as well. I have to physically return to Erin West for debriefing after every single mission despite being able to call her. Meanwhile Robert Kogan also wants a debrief after after every mission but he's happy to do it via a phone call. Not the end of the world but an annoyance for sure!

Great stuff here. I totally agree on your dialogue take. Also, they're just way too long overall. Maybe they could've been TFs or something...I dunno...

 

It is odd that I don't see too many full teams running this. 

[Forager]

There will never be a lot of overlap between people who like blasting bad guys in brightly colored and noisy battles, watching the numbers go up...

 

And reading.

 

Long dialog trees and excessive focus on the NPCs comes from designers who haven't put the player first. They love their story and their characters so much and they just know you will too!

 

In this game, if need me to know something about the story... it should fit in the nav bar. If you want me to love a character, you have to do it with one or two lines during the mission.

 

And this is before we make any critique of the quality of the story or the writing.

 

This is real common in AE. Designers shoehorn a story into a game engine that does not have the mechanics to tell it, so they do it with a wall of text.

[lemming]

Some of the new arcs, I probably won't run with most of my characters because of questionable choices that don't align with what I like, but they are fairly well written, and at least entertainingly. 

The Dap Dap and Alexander arcs are ones I'll probably repeat the most, at least if they change the ambush mechanic in the DD Protect the Lab since the waiting is the worst on that one.

 

The long cut scenes need a "no thanks" ability.  For Dap Dap, right before you go to the next floor should be a terminal "Do you want the cut scene?" ability.

 

I'm one of those weirdos that keeps General chat up.  I constantly see chatter about why some lore isn't explored, though sometimes it's because the player didn't know about some of the new arcs.

 

The main complaint I have is that for some of the actions needed in the arcs, you have to know the lore very well.  My character might know what to do, but I am not going to remember that Number Six has an important Crey connection.   Synapse or Manti would have been more likely, but a clue thrown the way of the player would have been good in Erin's arc.    The arc in Sharkhead where you go talk to old contacts at least tell you who to talk to.

[Forager]

On 7/8/2025 at 11:03 AM, lemming said:

The main complaint I have is that for some of the actions needed in the arcs, you have to know the lore very well. 

 

They're banking on the audience getting some of those sweet reference-getting endorphins.

 

If you've ever seen Pitch Meeting: "He's from the other movie!"

 

 

Edited July 10 by Forager

[Nightmarer]

So far I've only tried the Alexander "The Great" arc and I couldn't finish. I certainly did not expect in this game to see more "kill X" mishes, especially being 30 X to kill. I also did not enjoy traveling around Khallisti Wharf to go from one mission to another 1.20 miles away or going back to contact a la fedex just to have to move 1.20 miles to next mish. And yep, TT and Mission Teleporter have a long recharge. Anyway, could not even finish so i abandoned it half way.  Also, found the wall of text captions when inside missions intrusive and annoying. Might try another arc sometime but so far, not impressed with the one I tried.

[BurtHutt]

8 hours ago, Nightmarer said:

So far I've only tried the Alexander "The Great" arc and I couldn't finish. I certainly did not expect in this game to see more "kill X" mishes, especially being 30 X to kill. I also did not enjoy traveling around Khallisti Wharf to go from one mission to another 1.20 miles away or going back to contact a la fedex just to have to move 1.20 miles to next mish. And yep, TT and Mission Teleporter have a long recharge. Anyway, could not even finish so i abandoned it half way.  Also, found the wall of text captions when inside missions intrusive and annoying. Might try another arc sometime but so far, not impressed with the one I tried.

I'm in the same boat. I am hoping an HC Dev(s) chime in and discuss their philosophy on mission design.

 

Me and my regular group do not enjoy pretty much all of the HC content - too much text for teams to consume, not all text available to the entire team, running around, too long, not too different from the other stuff...the list goes on.

[ThatGuyCDude]

Haven't had a chance to try them yet, but... if the captions are too long, wouldn't it be better to shunt that text into non-progression clues and souvenirs instead?  That way players looking for the lore can take their time with them in a solo or repeat run, whereas teams would only need to worry about the broad strokes.  Older missions from Live handle lore that way, letting players engage as much or as little as they like.

Just deposit them into the player's clue repository when the walls of text would occur, with the pop-up captions being summaries instead.

EDIT: Okay, I've played about half of Alexander's arc and I see the problem clearly now (and clues are not the solution).  Captions need about a three-line limit to allow the average player enough time to read them before the next one comes along.  The long ones definitely need to be broken into more bubbles.

Edited Saturday at 09:18 PM by ThatGuyCDude

[Forager]

On 7/11/2025 at 5:15 PM, Nightmarer said:

So far I've only tried the Alexander "The Great" arc and I couldn't finish. I certainly did not expect in this game to see more "kill X" mishes, especially being 30 X to kill. I also did not enjoy traveling around Khallisti Wharf to go from one mission to another 1.20 miles away or going back to contact a la fedex just to have to move 1.20 miles to next mish.

 

I felt like it was 2006 again. They even rolled back being able to call the contact to turn the mission in!

[strix_]

Recently played through the new KW content and while the ideas in the arc are great, I was spending the entire time just groaning at the walls of text and all the deeplore references and wishing the HC team had an editor on-staff to rein in the bloat and fix all the technical errors with the prose. (This was a problem with the Striga Isle stuff, too, which feels like it was mostly handled by the same writer given all the callbacks.)

 

Too much of this content suffers from using 100 words to describe what could be done in 10 really well-considered words. I think I brought this up in the focused feedback threads on Striga when that was ongoing, and it's kind of a shame that the KW stuff still suffers from the same issues.

Edited Sunday at 08:45 AM by strix_

[twozerofoxtrot]

Overall I really liked the Story Arcs a lot. But I've enjoyed all of the Story Arcs from the HC team so my experience might be 💯 % different fundamentally from Burt's.

 

My going-in expectation in every story arc is that it's best consumed as a solo experience. I feel this way with with pre-i24 story arcs and continue to feel that way. If anything, devs have made the arcs more team-accessible by pushing some of the windowed text for the team leader into local npc chatter. Older story arcs never did that and often dumped a wall of exposition about Vanessa DeVore or Malta or different dimensions in your face.

 

So I don't mind that they were wordy. It's sort of what I expected and show up for. A story, in my story arc.

 

That may have read as a little condescending but I just wanted to beat the point to death before I go on. Because...

 

On 7/6/2025 at 1:17 PM, BurtHutt said:

I would like to suggest doing more stuff in the style of DFB, some of the iTrials, Yin...that stuff works and is played a lot.

 

..none of these are story arcs. They're trials and task forces designed to be played through by a team at a relatively fast clip. They're not the place to build on pre-existing lore but rather to exploit that lore established in story arcs for a mutual understanding of what's going on.

 

On the flip side, outside of the badge mission for Frostfire how often do people form a team to run through the Hollows arcs? How often do we see teams forming for World Wide Red? Dean and Vincent? Which, for my money, are some of the best "original" story arcs as far as writing and gameplay. 

 

All that to say that you're not wrong for how you feel about the arcs Burt, but you might be expecting something from the experience that it's never been designed to offer.

 

Moving onto something else now...

 

On 7/7/2025 at 9:44 PM, mistagoat said:

Worst of all is that those myriad choices have no effect on the outcome, they're just flavor and the next mission will always be the same so what was the point of making click 20 times?

 

Depending on what you click, it does change what happens in the final mission and who you have to fight and who helps.

 

Besides that, if you choose the exact right sequence of options you can get 2 badges. I had beef with that but I've already put that out elsewhere on the forums. 

 

2 hours ago, strix_ said:

Too much of this content suffers from using 100 words to describe what could be done in 10 really well-considered words. I think I brought this up in the focused feedback threads on Striga when that was ongoing, and it's kind of a shame that the KW stuff still suffers from the same issues.

 

I wholeheartedly agree here. I've felt like HC has needed a dedicated editor for not only their written content but their patch notes as well. 

 

I also tried to provide input into the writing for the Striga arcs during their open beta, and while I think my geometry errors feedback was noted the comments on writing were ignored. Which did nothing to incentivize me to do the same thing for the KW arcs in the last open beta.

[BurtHutt]

2 hours ago, twozerofoxtrot said:

Overall I really liked the Story Arcs a lot. But I've enjoyed all of the Story Arcs from the HC team so my experience might be 💯 % different fundamentally from Burt's.

 

My going-in expectation in every story arc is that it's best consumed as a solo experience. I feel this way with with pre-i24 story arcs and continue to feel that way. If anything, devs have made the arcs more team-accessible by pushing some of the windowed text for the team leader into local npc chatter. Older story arcs never did that and often dumped a wall of exposition about Vanessa DeVore or Malta or different dimensions in your face.

 

So I don't mind that they were wordy. It's sort of what I expected and show up for. A story, in my story arc.

 

That may have read as a little condescending but I just wanted to beat the point to death before I go on. Because...

 

 

..none of these are story arcs. They're trials and task forces designed to be played through by a team at a relatively fast clip. They're not the place to build on pre-existing lore but rather to exploit that lore established in story arcs for a mutual understanding of what's going on.

 

On the flip side, outside of the badge mission for Frostfire how often do people form a team to run through the Hollows arcs? How often do we see teams forming for World Wide Red? Dean and Vincent? Which, for my money, are some of the best "original" story arcs as far as writing and gameplay. 

 

All that to say that you're not wrong for how you feel about the arcs Burt, but you might be expecting something from the experience that it's never been designed to offer.

 

Moving onto something else now...

 

 

Depending on what you click, it does change what happens in the final mission and who you have to fight and who helps.

 

Besides that, if you choose the exact right sequence of options you can get 2 badges. I had beef with that but I've already put that out elsewhere on the forums. 

 

 

I wholeheartedly agree here. I've felt like HC has needed a dedicated editor for not only their written content but their patch notes as well. 

 

I also tried to provide input into the writing for the Striga arcs during their open beta, and while I think my geometry errors feedback was noted the comments on writing were ignored. Which did nothing to incentivize me to do the same thing for the KW arcs in the last open beta.

All fair points. However, you seem to kinda contradict yourself when you say you 100% enjoy these story arcs (you seem to use a lot of italics...you may want to check your keyboard) but then conclude by saying HC could use an editor.

 

I do believe the massive amount of text is a huge issue for me on these arcs as well.

 

I'll also add that I play an MMO to team up...not solo. So, that's my 2 INF.

 

Astute observation where you note my examples (DFB, trials, Yin) are not arcs. I am fine by telling the story by using these styles and having more succinct text.

 

I am sure most haven't played a lot of the arcs you mentioned. Why do you suppose that is? Why do you not see arcs getting spammed and when you do see the odd arc (Frostfire, some P.I, arcs) advertised in LFG, it isn't any of the ones you listed. My belief: most do not enjoy playing solo in an MMO - it seems to read all of the arc material, solo is the way to go. Therefore, perhaps the ideal adds to the game would be things that the majority enjoy? 

 

Now, I have no idea if the HC team can collect data that reveals what gets played the most and least and so on. If they do, I'd love to know. But based on my observations, many story arcs are not the go to for teams.

 

I am here to play a vidya game. I enjoy fun game play and am not too worried about the fine details in the story. Sure, I like some info but have it delivered in small chunks that we can all view/read. 

 

Again, absolutely adore the HC team. You brought CoX back to life and made it legit. Kudos. But I wanted to give my honest feedback. Various comments won't change my mind. I just hope this feedback proves useful. And if I am in the minority with these concerns then ignore me. I'd still love to see actual data on which missions/arcs/TFs/SFs/trials/ etc get played the most etc.

[Forager]

10 hours ago, twozerofoxtrot said:

and while I think my geometry errors feedback was noted the comments on writing were ignored.

 

You can't rationalize the former as a matter of taste.

 

Edited Sunday at 09:14 PM by Forager

[twozerofoxtrot]

8 hours ago, BurtHutt said:

However, you seem to kinda contradict yourself when you say you 100% enjoy these story arcs (you seem to use a lot of italics...you may want to check your keyboard) but then conclude by saying HC could use an editor.

 

You can like something without it being perfect.  

 

Kinda like HC in general. Or people. 

[BurtHutt]

28 minutes ago, twozerofoxtrot said:

 

You can like something without it being perfect.  

 

Kinda like HC in general. Or people. 

Agreed. However, that's not exactly how your post reads. You seem to praise heavily in the start then note the editor would be a big help. I am sure you can see how that's a tad contradictory. 

 

I do agree editing would help. 

[twozerofoxtrot]

4 minutes ago, BurtHutt said:

Agreed. However, that's not exactly how your post reads. You seem to praise heavily in the start then note the editor would be a big help. I am sure you can see how that's a tad contradictory. 

 

Not at all!

 

I think it's a perfectly reasonable and normal opinion to have.

 

I do think you want it to seem contradictory so it undermines my analysis and points made, since they run counter to your own opinions.

 

And I'll leave it at that!