Tip System To Introduce Contacts

[CraterLabs]

Would it be possible to use the Tip system as a way to introduce certain contacts? I think it might help the players to learn more about things organically, and also address a couple of personal annoyances i have, heh.

 

Namely, three things I don't like:

 

• Some contacts that used to have regular missions to go meet them in Live (like David Wincott or Gordon Bower) no longer have those missions available. That clears up mission bloat, but it also means that the bread crumbs to go to the stories and areas that these characters facilitate are often ignored. You either need to remember to do them when you're at the right level, or go back and do them later in Ouroboros (which isn't always great for players who prefer to do stuff while leveling up instead of backtracking through Ouroboros to get them.)
• Some contacts you're supposed to meet by having a pop-up appear when you get to the right level or get the right badge or whatever (like Bane Spider Ruben), but for whatever reason, the game doesn't always make those pop-ups appear. I'm not sure why they sometimes appear and sometimes don't, but I think I've had Ruben's introduction trigger maaaaybe twice since Homecoming opened up?
• I don't like Dr. Graves and Twinshot automatically becoming contacts. It's easy enough to ignore them, sure, but if I do that it always bugs me that they wind up hanging around in my contacts menu forever with an incomplete (and incompletable) relationship bar. This is a super niche problem, I fully admit that, but I always like completely filling up the progress bars on my contacts, so my choice is either to get bugged by Graves not getting a full progress bar in my menu, or to force myself to march through his mission with my XP progression turned off on every villain I make. (Twinshot doesn't bug me as much, probably because I like her story more.)

 

And I think a lot of these little issues might be resolved if the Tip system replaced the current methods of meeting them. Consider:

 

• Instead of having a contact give you a mission to introduce yourself to David Wincott and his Trolls Task Force, you could get a tip, hearing from the FBSA that a PPD officer named David Wincott is starting some new task force specifically to deal with the Trolls problem! But unlike most other task forces... it's personal! He may have issues, but he's addressing a real crisis for the city in a region that's been destroyed, and a superpowered hero could turn the tide. And if a player doesn't want to do that? They can just drop the tip!
• Instead of gambling on if Bane Spider Ruben's introductory pop-up makes its way to you... what if your villainous character just hears about it naturally through a tip at level 15 or so? The word gets out, and Port Oakes can have a decidedly dastardly villain show up if they choose to investigate, and the mission won't be missed because no introduction popped up.
• I CAN JUST IGNORE DR. GRAVES. ...I'd like to pretend this isn't personal, but it totally is. I'm the only player who hates that he's automatically a contact. But if his introduction is a tip? If you hear a rumor about a whispered gathering of new villains who are holding a contest for a mysterious benefactor? Well then, that sounds *delightful*. I admit that this one is a little trickier, because his mandatory-ness is meant to help new players be introduced to certain game mechanics. I am willing to sacrifice those players' tutorial experience to make it possible to never interact with him again, however, mwahahaha.

 

...okay, so, I think it's a good idea, but even if Dr. Graves doesn't get this treatment I think we should do it. Let's get the Hollows Task Force back in the spotlight. 🙂

[lemming]

Yea, I hate that some contacts just show up. Heck, I would like a "drop this contact" option for that, though I would prefer hidden, so if you were doing missions for them, it would pickup where left off.

I think some of the ones you mention not being introduced are if we level past them.  At least I suspect that's the case with Wincott, but might be that he still gets introduced if you do the old Origin contacts.  Would need to verify though.

 

On Red & Blue, Newspapers and Police Radios do introductions as well, though iirc, they predate Tips.

 

What you're proposing, would mean more dev work, since probably a tip mission for each contact, but I wouldn't be opposed.

[MTeague]

Keep in mind there is a max number of tips, and if you're not interested and drop the tip, you'll probably just keep getting it and keep having to drop it. 

That said, I'm not really opposed to the idea. I just think some degree of unintended hassle is likely. But said hassle, would be quite manageable.

[lemming]

On 8/28/2025 at 8:37 PM, MTeague said:

Keep in mind there is a max number of tips, and if you're not interested and drop the tip, you'll probably just keep getting it and keep having to drop it. 

That said, I'm not really opposed to the idea. I just think some degree of unintended hassle is likely. But said hassle, would be quite manageable.

Some tips don't pay attention to that rule.   ie: The Kogan arc tip and a few similar ones. Does seem like 3 per type for Exploration tips, Valentine, and Normal (Alignment).

Edited Saturday at 05:37 PM by lemming
clarification

[Psyonico]

4 hours ago, lemming said:

Some tips don't pay attention to that rule.   ie: The Kogan arc tip and a few similar ones. Does seem like 3 per type for Exploration tips, Valentine, and Normal.

I'm pretty sure it's just alignment tips that have a cap to the number you can have at once,  making it the exception,  not the rule. 

[MTeague]

5 hours ago, lemming said:

Some tips don't pay attention to that rule.   ie: The Kogan arc tip and a few similar ones. Does seem like 3 per type for Exploration tips, Valentine, and Normal.

I stand corrected.

[CraterLabs]

I'm pretty sure Exploration tips also get limited to 3, but I've not really tested it. But either way, this kinda thing wouldn't count against that limit.

[lemming]

20 hours ago, Psyonico said:

I'm pretty sure it's just alignment tips that have a cap to the number you can have at once,  making it the exception,  not the rule. 

Yea, I should have said alignment in my list instead of normal.   Those three types are limited.

Really should have linked to the page, so what the OP wants, is more Introduction Tips.

Though for those, you have to have the intro tip, where in most cases, you can just walk up to a level appropriate contact.  (Though I found that's not always true either.   It seems like another non-standard pile of variations)

 

https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Tip

[CraterLabs]

On 8/30/2025 at 12:36 PM, lemming said:

Yea, I should have said alignment in my list instead of normal.   Those three types are limited.

Really should have linked to the page, so what the OP wants, is more Introduction Tips.

Though for those, you have to have the intro tip, where in most cases, you can just walk up to a level appropriate contact.  (Though I found that's not always true either.   It seems like another non-standard pile of variations)

 

https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Tip

 

 

Yeah, this is basically what I was suggesting. I think the thing that even sparked the idea for me was the recently-implemented "Skulls Vs. Family?" tip.

 

In *practice*, this might not be quite what I want since each of those tips gives you a short mission to run through before you actually get introduced to the contact in question, and that would probably be a bit much for Doctor Graves or David Wincott. But theoretically something similar to the Valentine's Tips which are pretty much just a tip to have you go up to a contact and click on them (except when they're not doing that) could work? I dunno how twisted that particular knot of code is, admittedly.

 

-EDIT-

 

In fact, a Valentine's Tip might be perfect for David Wincott. His first dialogue serves as an introduction to him, but if you're following a tip there could just be an extra dialogue page that describes him busily coordinating with other police and holding up a finger to ask you to wait for a second while he handles things to serve as the Mission Complete moment a la the Valentine's Tip missions, and then have that segue into his normal introduction.

 

The other thing about Wincott and Gordon Bower is that they both have separate dialogue coded for an initial meeting depending on if you get referred to them from a mission, or if you just walk up to them out of the blue. It's not hard to imagine that extra dialogue code being handy for this kind of thing, though again I've never seen the code myself.

Edited Wednesday at 10:36 PM by CraterLabs