f13.net

I'm level 18 now, and I'm starting to notice that, having rescued Lou's family and in the process freed myself from the yoke of clockwork missions; most of the missions I get are in fact the same mission set as the other origins were getting in levels 10-14. I seem to be mainly progressing through the same CoT and Vahz storyline as others had done previously, with what looks like the beginnings of an Outcast story line (a particularly cool storyline imo, the outcasts getting involved in blackmarket magic item dealing).

I don't have a problem with this, but its worth mentioning because all the worries people have about out levelling their contacts, and thereby missing out on the story don't appear to be valid. Other contacts will pick up the story where the earlier ones left off. As far as I can tell.

In beta, I rolled my first mutant defender, and literally seconds after I finished the tutorial I got invited into a group that went straight down the sewers, and we all powered through to level 6 or 7 or something in that first session.  By the time I thought to actually check my first contact for missions, he wouldn't give me any, he just referred me to the next contact and I started from there, so in theory I missed some.

In release, I went straight to the newbie contact at City Hall, and started doing all his missions.  As far as I can tell, I'm still getting the mutant storyline missions (investigate the gang warfare, recover the magic robe, free the hostage magician) but at different levels, and from different contacts than before.  So I think the system is reasonably robust, and won't really let you break it to the extent where you can't advance through the storyline.

I have finished the save the water supply storyline and gotten a water badge souvenier thing twice now (once in beta) with my science guy.

Does each origin have a storyline that gives out a souveneir?  Or can any origin do the vahz water mission if you pick the right contacts?  I am sort of confused and expected to see some story arc with my mutant by now, but I don't really (only level 10)

Not all storylines have soveniers as they're not all that developed.   (A lot of kill x missions, ect.)   However, I think all of the more developed storylines leave you with one if you play them through to completition.

One particularly cool thing happened to me is I (as the Nanites) have been following this lvl 15+ Tsoo storyline and one of the missions took place in a very high tech facility - think halls of a starship or something.   First time I've ever been in an interior other than a Cave, Sewer, Office (ruined or otherwise), or Warehouse (ruined or otherwise).

It may be a playstyle thing. At level 18 I had 2 souvenirs and had finished up all my missions from all my contacts. At level 20 you get all new missions, against mostly new enemies.

I'm 19 and have three souvenirs (one Vahz, one Outcast and one Clockwork) and working on at least one more, another clock, have several missions left from my contacts and have recently been getting new contacts in Independance port and Talos Island (thogh I have yet to hit them up for missions).  I know some people have run out of missions at 18 or so but I haven't seen any shortage at all.

I did missions basically from the get-go up until 18, when the missions dried out for me.  I had new contacts in Talos and IP, but couldn't get missions from them til 20, and yet I still only ended up with one souvenir.  Still don't know how I managed to screw that up.  May have had something to do with the fact that I hate the kill X mob missions and avoided them like a Frenchman does a bath.

I agree with this conclusion, a lot of those seem to be 'clue gathering' missions, which kick off mission strings.

--
Alkiera

Most of the 'slay n mobs' goals that are part of a story arc seem to be the any-zone type. The any-zone type can be completed w1th1n other m1ss1ons.

1n other news; two letters on my pc have stopped funct1on1ng.

What I have found is that the kill N mobs gernerally are what kick off a story arc.  It's in how the mission is worded, if it's something like "Theres something odd about clockworks, I need 15 clockworks for my research" theres a good chance of it turning into a multipart event.  If they say "Clockworks are wrecking the city, go stop them!" then chances are it's a one-off thingie.

Ya until the 20's I kept outleveling my story arcs too quickly.  Now that I'm in the 20's I can finish a story arc and not get more than 50% of the exp needed to level from it.

And yeah, you get new mission map scenery as you level up.  I loved that Sci-fi lab, and I 've seen another new one that was a 5th column lab built into a cave.

I am still concerned about Mission Gimping.

I got so caught up in Boomtown I catassed from 11 to 16.  Up until then I did missions only.  Then at least one NEW contact I subsequently went to for the first time told me take a hike as they had no missions for me.  So I am still concerned it is possible to outlevel missions made available by contacts.

I am looking into the interaction between Origin choice and mission selection.  So far, it seems that every contact I go to offers a variety of missions of different villian types.  So I have been doing missions for every villian group.

My bud indicates that is not the way to go.  He catassed for a night just killing CoT repeatedly, and claimed that his subsequent mission choice options had CoT in them as a result.  I am not convinced - but would like to test this:  does the simple slaughter of one villian type give you a "faction" that skews the type of mission choices you get from contacts?

Going to find out.

Thats rather interesting.  I am a souvenir addict.  As it stands, I am working through level 24, have jut been given all my level 25 contacts (they wont give me any missions yet), and I have:

2 Clockwork (Etched Piece, Damaged Powersource)
1 Gang (Skull Bandana)
1 Vahzilok (Hypodermic Needle [the vahz plague])
1 Tsoo (Tsoo Dagger)
1 Tsoo/Trolls (Rage Ampule)
1 Tsoo/Banished Pantheon (The Hub of the Wheel of Destruction)
1 Sky Raiders (Captain Indomitable's Uni Bands)
1 Freak Show (Iron Hands badge)

and I am working on one more Sky Raiders one right now, for a total of ten, and even then, I think I missed one somewhere earlier on (I failed a timed mission with some 5th Column that I am pretty sure would have kicked off a Souvenir arc)

on another note, ever had an old contact tell you he has a pair of new contacts for you to chose from, and the two choices are the exact same person?  Kinda redundant.

I don't know how I managed to screw it up, but at level 27, almost 28, I have done all the missions I can do.  I have exhausted contact after contact, doing indoor, outdoor, all kinds of missions, and I have only ONE souvenir, a clockwork one.  Man, I must have done something severely wrong...

And as for redundancy, I have had at least five missions repeat themselves.  Exact same mission, goal, named mob, everything.  And I got these from separate contacts.  I did one mission three different times.  Kind of annoying, actually.  Possibly something is bugged for me and this is why I can't get any storyarc missions.  I dunno.  Luck of my life, I guess.

Having just reached level 20 I have 4 sourveniors here.

Do these things accumulate - or do they eventually disappear when certain missions are solved? e.g. like clues.

In terms of story arcs - when a villian group starts to ambush you - assuming they do not eventually kill you - any ideas on why they eventually stop?  

It is completely unlike any other villian encounter - they appear out of nowhere and chase you - literally - until you exit the zone or die (I normally use teleport to evade but this only delays them - they persist).

Usually ambushes seem to stop when you have completed so much of a kill whatever mission. Usually although not always but if you are ambushed on a kill 10 mission you will get like a 5 to 8 person ambush team. I rarely have ever completed the kill mission by just wacking ambushers.

On patrol missions you can get ambushed at any time as long as the patrol is still active and you are in that zone I think.

Other types of ambushes you usually will only get jumped once or twice per mission you are given by whatever story line kicked it off.

kaid

As far as i know, souvenirs never go away.  They are there as a record to commemorate your completion of a story arc.  Makes me wonder why you never get a souvenir for completing a task force.

As to what triggers them, i am not sure, though I do believe that most of the ones I did had a timed mission somewhere in the beginning of the set (possibly the first mission).  If you have been avoiding timed missions, that might be why you dont have any.

I also dont know if it is possible to break one by not immediately taking the next mission in the set.  IE, contact gives you a mission that starts one off (you can usually tell you have one if a clue persists after you finish its mission and talk to your contact), contact then offeres you two new missions, one related to the arc, the other not.  Not sure if it breaks if you take the unrelated one.

I love souvenier collecting myself.  Had 6 by 18 and now that I'm 20 I;m almost done with the Wheel of Destruction one and have just started some skyraider and tsoo missions which may lead to more.

Just out of curiosity, what origin are you?  I'm Magic and wonder if all origins get the same possibilities as you and I are on the exact same path it seems.

Xilren

I started trying to get as many contacts as I could. Each time you complete around two missions, the contact will offer you another contact of seemingly the same level until you got about five of that level. Then when you completed all of the missions, they typically offered you a choice of two others in a higher level zone - presumably a higher level contact.

So I made sure to try to keep getting as many contacts as I could regardless of missions types to keep options open. Then I thought that maybe I should be focusing on my origin type to increase the number of encounters with that type of mob and thus drops given as prizes.

So I now try to fully complete any magic based quests and magic based contacts fully before touching any others. I also level up on magic based mobs. Since testing this theory, the two new contacts I have been given after fully completing a contacts missions have been magic-based. This is a sample size of two, but at least it does not refute this theory.


Grind

Well, I am technology origin.  Not sure how that has affected the assorted missions i have been given.

Also, that Tenth Souviner I was working on ended up being "The Mysteruous General Z", a Sky Raider story arc.

Interesting little side note there, the two Sky Raider specific story arcs have actually lead to a fair amount of back story into the Sky Raiders themselves. The one that gave me "Captain Indomitable's Uni Bands" explained a bit of history behind the origional government organization Vigilence, who's commanding officer would later deffect, taking the unit with him to become the Sky Raiders Merc group, and the second fleshes out the background a bit more, and hints at more interesting things to come (specificly that the Raiders are consorting with the forces of Nemesis, one of the old school Supervillian groups from the 40's of the game world) (the Nemesis soldier in the last mission was a really tough bastard, and dressed pretty cool too) (fuck, I just got thinking that i should have taken a screenie of him :-/  ).


As to the frequency of the missions you take reflecting your later contacts interests, I think it does have some bearing.  I tried to take missions for the groups i was interested in (Raiders, Tsoo, Banished Pantheon) and seem to have picked up contacts that have an interest in them as I progress upwards.

My personal goal is to be assassinated by as many villian groups as I can lol.

I have had squads of Clocks and Vhaz come after me - but this one was new:

A group of 5 Lost came after me.  Surprisingly, they were higher level than me - conned yellow.  They killed me - but STILL persisted - as they waited for me as I emerged from the hospital.  Avoided that second death though.

My bud is a tank and was present - and it was almost impossible for him to taunt them off of me (used provoke too, but he is 3 levels below me - factor?).  So they are very focused - very resilient to taunting by a 3rd party that attempt to distract them from their target.

Best bet in these situations seems to be to head either to the nearest signature hero, shouting HELP a lot, as lots of players hang around there. Or to head to the station, and watch the police droids pwn.

When the ambushes happen at convienient moment, like when your group or even just some random friends are nearby - they're great fun, solo they can get a little irritating.

At what exact moment in time is a mission caliberated for the party size and level?

Currently, I am under the impression it is set based on the size of the party when the mission is selected by the leader of the group.  Any confirmation on this or disagreement?

Some have argued it is set by the first member to enter the instance, others have argued it is set at the time the contact gives you the mission.

Based on my experience (so don't take this as gospel or anything) the level of the mission is set when the person who holds the mission actually recieved it from their contact.

So if you get a mission at lvl 9, then go group up until lvl 19 (or whatever) then start the mission, it'll be lvl 9-ish mobs inside.

The size of the mission (in terms of villian population) seems to be set when the first person enters the mission.

From what I can work out

* Level of mobs is based on the level of the char who first got the mission - thats set when they actually get the mission.
*  Number of mobs is based on how many people are in the party when you first zone into the instance.

I've been on missions that I get  at, say lv10, and its full of yellow cons.  I'll level up 2 levels, and come back, and its full of blue cons now.  If I get a friend in 5 levels higher than me, the number of mobs double, but they are still lv11 (ie +1 level over my level when I got the mission).

From what I can tell, thats pretty consistent.  So if you have a lv20 and 5 lv18 buddies, try out one of the lv20's missions, you're gonna have a helluva time with it.

Talking about the hit squads, it isn't always linked to getting a temporary power. I was doing a fedex mission, where I took something to 2 different people in Skyway City. After the 2nd person, I was told to go take down 15 Tsoo. I figured I'd head on to Steel Canyon  and do it. There was no temp power granted. I spotted a yellow gardvord standing near me and figured that'd be a good hit to work off some debt. I started attacking him and got him about halfway down when I noticed a hit on me for about 103 points. From my right, there was an ancestor spirit attacking me, yellow at the time. Behind him were about 5 white enforcers, and at least one or two sorcerer. Since I don't think I've ever seen Tsoo in Skyway City, I can only assume it was a hit squad.

And yes, they kicked my ass.

I had a group of Hellions jump me upon receipt of a mission at 2nd or 3rd level with my n00b controller (who needs an invite into the SG, btw!). Also saw a group of level 13 Clockwork cruising through King's Row with a a definite purpose- pretty sure someone else was about to get a surprise beatdown. Kinda cool that they spawned offscreen and then homed in.

Yeah, the hit squads can be fairly interesting.  I got jumped by a Tsoo hitsquad in one mission, and having flying ancestor spirits constantly trying to smack you out of the air is not fun.

The other nasty thing about hit squads is that they scale to your GROUP, not just the mission taker.  Nothing like splitting off from the group to do some shopping and getting ganked by a 10 man hitsquad that all con yellow just as you come out of the DO shop......

Of course, the REALLY high level ones are always entertaining.  Nothing like cruising down the streets of Steel Canyon, turning the corner and running headlong into a small group of level 35 Devouring Earth :/

The idea of hit squads makes missions in this game seem active: CoH responds to you and acts on you in a way that other games never did (CoH remind anyone of Fallout?).  In a way it's like the fright of pvp - you never know when out of nowhere some folks will descend upon you when you least expect it.  Well done.  

Thinking of new strategy for visiting contacts:

1. catass / missions killing ONE villian type
2. visit new contact(s)
3. accept missions from new contacts that ONLY deal with the villian type I am after. (avoid mission types from other villian groups)

Based on some comments above it seems that catass / missions against one villian group increases the likelihood of getting missions aganist that group.

I am finding more missions to do than my leveling permit e.g. Folks higher than me seem to be in higher level zones doing missions.  At level 21, and by doing missions only - I still have missions in lower level zones like Steel that I am doing.

So... why not be selective in the contacts I work with - it seems there are so many missions to do I never have a shortage.

(I am travelling on business so my buddy is testing these ideas vicariously for me lol)

*Sigh* I'm afraid I blew my Wheel of Destruction one.  Got a timed mission late in the arc to recover 4 peices and close a magic portal, and 2 peices into the mission a minor emergency popped up and I had to go. :(  I was pissed b/c both the recovered peices I had gotten granted temp powers, plus I still have a temp power from my Lost mission so I was experiementing like crazy.

So, despite feeling I know the answer, if you fail a mission in an arc does that absolutely mean "no souvenier for joo!"?

On the plus side, it's tough to decide who to go after, from my 5 contacts I've gotten offers to go after The Family, Tsoo, Freakshow, Banished Pantheon, Warriors, Sky Raiders, CoT and the Lost.  It's a villian smorgasboard...

Xilren
PS Just did the Freakshow disguise mission; that was fun, and some of the boss names are humorous leetspeak...

Ouch, oh damn man, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but that timed mission you failed was the last mission in the arc :(   And to confirm, the other two pieces of the Wheel also give you temp powers (4 temp powers is WAY too much fun)  Our of curiosity, what two temp powers did you get? The four of mine were fire based stuff.

Another intersting side note, who here goes after villians related to their origin, while who pursues the groups they find "interesting" in a story, game enjoyment way?  I would think it would actually be be more beneficial to go after the groups in your origin.  Ie, Tech characters should focus on Freaks, Sky Raiders and the like, while Magic people should take CoT and Banished Pantheon.  Why?  Because they have an increased chance to drop Enhancers related to your origin.  Myself, I have been mainly going for groups simply because I find them interesting.

That being said, if I focus on skyraiders, my next contact in the group seems to have greater chance of having Skyraiders + X as an interest (the x being a possible new group, or another group you might have been focusing on).

SurfD - Until now I have gone after every Villian group but am now trying to focus on villians matching my origin.

Anyone take time to click on the pedestrians?  It's a nice touch.  They tell you rumors about your mission accomplishments - and they make a number of comments along these lines.  If you keep going they provide other information about the game or your account.

Their mission comments appear as text balloons - but do not appear in your text box window.  So you have to read quick before their comments disappear.

I'd like to see if the missions they talk about are only the recent ones I have completed or ones just specific to the zone they inhabit.  It also helps provide some context for the things you have accomplished so far.

I hate the Tsoo and COT, which probably means I will hate Devouring Earth.  I love hunting the 5th Collumn, Freakshow and the Mob.  Probably the best story arch so far is the 5th Collumn one, but the story has a bugged mission currently, though we have not revisited after the patch.  Damn I love it when the boss/lt's go all Werewolf on ya.  Dark Astoria so far has been the coolest zone I have been in yet, damn nice atmosphere.

If you find a pedestrian who's name starts with M, they will tell your played time.

Yeah, the pedestrians are cool (I stumbled across them about second day in).  They have all sorts of nifty stuf to say.  So far I have had them:

- Make hints at other quests (one of them mentioned Adamastor, the Banished Pantheon Monster that lives in Dark astoria)
- Make references to quests you have solved (everything from "XXX whooped the Freakshow good" to "XXX is cool, she once saved my life" and evrything inbetween.
- Just make general comments ("I hate living in this part of town, the XXXX Villian group is such a pain")
- Make references to other players
- Tell me the current real time
- Tell me my current played time
- Tell me exactly how many points of damage I have done with a specific power in that play session (You have done 3134 points of damage with your Power Blast attack today!)

I also have to give props to Dark Astoria.  First time I got a mission in that zone I was like, "oooo, flashbacks to Silent Hill".  That, and the names of the various areas in there are hilarious.

Unfortunately, it seems i now have a problem that might slow down my rampant rise through the levels a bit.  I now have two bugged story arc missions (Devouring Earth "An Unnatural Order" and I think one of my other contacts wants to give me the "Ubleman the Unknown" 5th column one, which is also bugged), which really sucks, because I am hoping they will fix them, and I dont want to Outlevel the contacts that have them.

Yea, I was taking a close look, and I'm pretty sure the area names come from horror film directors.  Took me a few minutes to realize that Romero Heights wasn't named after the creater of Daikatana...

Yes, it's named after the italian horror director.

(Granted, the gaming Romero is scarier than any movie I've ever seen.)

I noticed a complaint on the main boards for CoH about a group member hogging clues.

??

Does it matter who gets the clues in a mission?  I have never thought about this.  If it's my mission- someone gets a clue - we eventually complete the mission.  No big deal.

Or is it?

Some clues, when recovered, grant an experience reward to the one that recovered it.    Sometimes quite a substancial amount.   This can chafe a bit when it's your mission and you're wanting that experience and the snake you invited along decided to snag the experience for himself.

Here's how I understand it.

The base level of the mobs and their distribution are set up by the game when you get the mission.

Bringing more people into the mission increases the number of mobs, adds more lieutenants and bosses (bosses show up reliably in the groups at about 4 team members) and increases the mob level (+1 for >4, +2 for 7 or 8, not sure there).

This is actually dynamic. So if you clear out the first few groups of a mission, then invite your seven friends in, the succeeding groups will be sized for eight people. It also works in reverse - if you wipe out some mob groups, then four people leave your group, the succeeding mobs will be scaled for only four people. Neither change happens until the relevant people are actually in the mission zone - so if you wipe the first few spawns easily, THEN your seven teammates show up, things are going to suddenly get a lot harder.

The real problem is when you bring in eight, get wiped by an overspawn, and then four people quit in disgust - the remaining for still have to deal with that overspawn (though succeeding ones are scaled better). You can rezero a mission by selecting a different active one and choosing to abort the mission in progress when the game asks you to. Then going back into the mission won't result in overspawn.

So far I've found three or four to be an optimal group size - especially for the task force missions that let you bring in a force that small.

--GF

Souvenir update: as of lvl 22 I have the following:

Skull Bandana - Hellions and Skulls
Water Dept ID Badge - Vhaz
Etched Peice - Clockworks
Damaged Powersource - Clockworks
Rage Ampoule - Tsoo & Trolls
Hypodermic Needle - Vhaz (including Doc)
Tsoo Dagger - Tsoo, Family and Warriors
Iron Hand's Badge - Freakshow
(and I blew the Wheel of Destruction last mission - Banished Pantheon).

In checking around both the boards and with other players, it seems it really doesn't matter what origin you are, all players can get these story arcs.  Not sure why so many players seem to miss them unless the just advance past them without realizing it.  Being a primarily solo player, I always attempt to do every mission I have (no matter what the foe group) so as a result I dont think Ive missed any. One nice thing about completing one is I believe you get a reward on top of the reward for the normal completion of the last mission; i.e. when I finished the Tsoo dagger last mission, I got a double reward of 1600 exp and influence.

My main dissappointment is that there really aren't very many overall arcs.  From what I've ready they tend to taper off the higher you go so if you get them all you might end up with 16-20 or so total.

To me, this would be an easy content add for cryptic; a lot more story arcs with souveniers at the end, else every character will get the same ones if they choose to pursue them.  Heck just rip off half a dozen comic book plots.  Since the missions themselves aren't that different from a one of mission, it seems like it would just be some story writing and linking.

Like the story arcs; just want more, lots more (like 20 per origin instead of 20 total in the whole game).

Xilren

You can only get two story lines active at one time. Often your contacts you chose when you get options influance what story lines you will be able to do. Also at lower levels outleveling missions is a problem especially if you do not concentrate on clearing your own missions all the time.

I finally did two story lines now that I have been grouping with just one other person and we have been concentrating on really working the story line missions because they are interesting.

So far at level 15 I have the etched clock work piece and the skulls bandana.

Once you get nearer to 20 leveling starts slowing down and that allows you to actually complete more and more story lines although due to choices of contacts it is likely that one person cannot hit them all.


kaid

90% sure a dev shot down this rumour a few weeks back.

I am, however, too lazy to look up the quote.

Also, I've had clockworks, skulls, and vahz clues in my clue section all at once.

At least in beta the devs said only two active story lines at a time not sure if they opened that up more. As for having different clues in your list that can happen as some of the story lines cover more than one gang.

My skulls bandanas had both hellion and skulls info and even had some clues talking about the family and the trolls.


kaid