Adjust/improve the Find Contact option

[Ukase]

Short version: As a level 35 character: 

Can we adjust the Find Contacts option to list (for example, for a level 35 hero/vig): 

 (In addition to the undesired by this character First Ward stuff) 
As of now, it only gave me Ginger Yates. I don't want Yates. I want Anton Sampson. 

Longer version for context: 
 

Spoiler

So, I want to be efficient in a fashion. I don't want to do these pesky, annoying missions that aren't part of a story arc. If I'm going to do those, I might as well just use a radio or the paper - which I don't, because they don't give merits, which is the driving currency of our economy. 

I wanted to do some Fake Nemesis stuff. At level 35, Anton Sampson is my go-to. I click find contacts - and as always, the game tries desperately to throw me into First Ward. Other than that, I've Ginger Yates. Origin of the character doesn't seem to matter. I know Ginger; she won't introduce anyone when I'm 35 unless I've done a mission for her. Sadly, I didn't check the wiki, and she gave me two defeat alls, with a quick chat in between. Annoying, but that was my fault for not tabbing out and checking the wiki first. See? I'm already trained to grasp that the game wants me to waste time. It doesn't want me to be efficient. It wants me to hunt 10 council. And then when done, hunt 15 council. and then when done with that, hunt 20 council, and then it'll decide to give me the next mission in the arc. It's all good. 

But in this case - Ginger didn't introduce me to Anton Sampson. It now looks like, after going through Find Contact, and checking with each and every contact I have, both active and inactive, I will have to do those boring, useless radios to get him as a contact. 

 

 

[Chris24601]

I definitely think the multitude of First/Night Ward contacts could be curtailed down to just the Doorman and the repeatables (Night Ward really needs First Ward for context in story arc proper*).

 

The reason Find Contact is so very lopsided is largely because of when it was added on Live and the idea that it was a “best foot forward” list of the newest and more detailed content, particularly as Live was pushing into making 1-50 something to power through to get you to the grindy iTrials.

 

That’s why it’s prioritized on the Shining Stars “tutorial as storyarc” and included the “powerset advertisement” arcs before shooting you over to Praetoria’s outskirts which took full advantage of the graphical improvements since the early content (compare the detail of the ruined buildings in First Ward to the i0 hazard zones… compare Imperial City to Steel Canyon**).

 

Atlas got a huge graphical upgrade with the launch of Freedom. They were working on graphics updates to King’s Row (which didn’t need much since it was meant to be drab, but see the upgraded Skulls) and the new arcs there (which I suspect were meant to be part one of a larger story BaBs was left on a cliffhanger essentially… the Skull leader and his sister were still on the loose) ran up to level 20.

 

So did the Shining Stars (which spends a good chunk in Atlas and Kings and a lot of time indoors in Steel). The find contact system will point you at the Faultline arcs (15-25) which are notably improved in appearance and mission structure compared to i0 content (and unlock Oroboros).

 

The Midnight Squad intro arc is also on the list.

 

The first part of your doppelgänger arc runs mostly through Faultline as well… also on the find contact list.

 

First Ward + Night Ward though ran effectively 20-35… skipping you past a lot of the older, less pretty and old grindy content until the tail end of the i0 content where, low and behold, the New Praetorians arc happily sits (that sends you on fairly instanced missions).

 

35+ is when the Vanguard arcs kick off. Improved quality over i0 and a co-op zone like First/Night Ward were.

 

This is also where, had it not been shutdown, Kallisti Wharf would have come in, diverting you from the old 40-50 content of the dated Peregrine and just ugly Grandville to a beautiful new zone with Heroes on one side and villains on the other (where the post-war hero and villain content could have continued in what the live devs had on the storyboard for i25+), meeting in the middle for post-Praetoria incarnate content.

 

So, viewed from that lens, the find contact system made perfect sense for the live for-profit game.

 

It does NOT make sense for the semi-archival non-profit game that is Homecoming.

 

The goal here isn’t so much “new shiny” it’s “greatest hits.”

 

And that’s what the Find Contacts button should send you to… the contacts with those “greatest hits” story arcs and missions (prioritized for handing those out).

 

* Note: given that many of the major factions of First Ward have versions that extend up to level 35 (and the Night Ward ones via repeatables at least to 40) I think that extending the First Ward arcs all the way to 35 and Night Ward up to 40 wouldn’t be a horrible idea).

 

** Note the Second: It would be a fairly big project, but I would love to see some beautification of Steel Canyon via some building swaps with the newer Imperial City buildings… with an emphasis on using the glass and steel skyscrapers to replace the brutalist tiny-windowed concrete masses that are there now. The outskirts are pretty much fine, but the core should be renamed Concrete Canyon with its present look.

[srmalloy]

13 hours ago, Chris24601 said:

They were working on graphics updates to King’s Row (which didn’t need much since it was meant to be drab, but see the upgraded Skulls)

While we did get a significant increase in the variety of mobs in the Skulls group, did the bug with low-rank female Skulls not counting for the Skulls defeat badge ever get fixed?

[Snarky]

23 hours ago, Ukase said:

Short version: As a level 35 character: 

Can we adjust the Find Contacts option to list (for example, for a level 35 hero/vig): 

 (In addition to the undesired by this character First Ward stuff) 
As of now, it only gave me Ginger Yates. I don't want Yates. I want Anton Sampson. 

Longer version for context: 
 

  Reveal hidden contents

So, I want to be efficient in a fashion. I don't want to do these pesky, annoying missions that aren't part of a story arc. If I'm going to do those, I might as well just use a radio or the paper - which I don't, because they don't give merits, which is the driving currency of our economy. 

I wanted to do some Fake Nemesis stuff. At level 35, Anton Sampson is my go-to. I click find contacts - and as always, the game tries desperately to throw me into First Ward. Other than that, I've Ginger Yates. Origin of the character doesn't seem to matter. I know Ginger; she won't introduce anyone when I'm 35 unless I've done a mission for her. Sadly, I didn't check the wiki, and she gave me two defeat alls, with a quick chat in between. Annoying, but that was my fault for not tabbing out and checking the wiki first. See? I'm already trained to grasp that the game wants me to waste time. It doesn't want me to be efficient. It wants me to hunt 10 council. And then when done, hunt 15 council. and then when done with that, hunt 20 council, and then it'll decide to give me the next mission in the arc. It's all good. 

But in this case - Ginger didn't introduce me to Anton Sampson. It now looks like, after going through Find Contact, and checking with each and every contact I have, both active and inactive, I will have to do those boring, useless radios to get him as a contact. 

 

 

As someone who is running a “do every contact” in game run I can tell you this would have been so helpful

[Snarky]

additionally, if the find contact lists people in the range that are not open (with an indicator of course) this would be the gold standard.  then you can choose to search out, or not, these stories.