Test Discussion Episode 31: 'Stemming the Tide' Solo Story Mission

Hey villains and heroes,

With Episode 31, we are combining elements of past "pointer missions" with some of story telling of some of the more well received solo missions of yore. There are three versions of this:

Story Mode:

• This is the first time you play through the story. This mission acts similar to a pointer mission, directing you to various pieces of content while also providing more in-depth story bits contained in instanced maps and open world locations. It will cover the story beats of the Starro content from last year as well as introduce how the content has evolved today.
  • Starro daily missions unlock to new characters via this mission now. The old pointer mission has been deprecated.
• The difficulty here is shared with the Event mode difficulty, meaning clamped up (not down) content with easier mechanics.
• Feats cannot be obtained inside the instanced content in Story Mode.
• You can only play this long mission chain once. After that, you unlock the next two modes, which are:

Event Mode:

• Solo game play version of the Story Mode that is condensed into 2 maps and 1 queue. You can find this in the Event tab on the On Duty Menu.
• Content is clamped and game mechanics are easier.
• Feats cannot be obtained inside the instanced content in Event Mode.

Normal Mode:

• Solo game play version of the Story Mode that is condensed into 2 maps and 1 queue. You can find this in the 1 Player tab in Tier 8 on the On Duty Menu.
• There are no clamps here and the full breadth of mechanics are available and active.
• Feats are achievable in this instanced content.

Please provide any feedback or bug reports of any of the above content here. To help facilitate faster iteration, please indicate which mode and faction you are reporting on.

The mission stopped tracking at one point (but that may have been because I picked up the Starro'd iconic mission). So hen Mera told me where to go, I didn't have a direction on the minimap. I didn't know where to go, so I started looking for a mission entrance and didn't see one. So then I tracked the mission again and the entrance appeared. I tracked another mission, and the entrance dissappeared again.

I think it would be a good idea to show the entrance to the CCPD regardless of the mission being tracked.

If I'm reading the feat "manual override" correctly, I should have gotten it when I did the CCPD instance. I used the switch by door, which turned off the power to the cell door, then defeat the starro that had been on the door, then opened the door for each cell.

Also, does sparkle, sparkle little starro require them to still be on the energized door for the feat to pop? I don't think any of them grew.

The spawn pattern of the controlled iconics seems different than last year. Last year there was always one of each iconic out. As soon as they were defeated, they would appear at one of their other two spawn locations. Right now I'm not seeing Weather Wizard or Trickster anywhere. I did hear Trickster at one of his spawn points earlier, but I didn't defeat him.

Do we only get one up at a time this year? That's going to make meeting the condition to be able to get the Radio Starfish mission difficult for a while. You needed to defeat each of the four iconics at least once before you could get that mission last year. I'm assuming it's the same this year (since I don't see the mission icon over thing that gave it last year.

in the CCPD, during the fight against flash in the prison cells, there is an invisible wall you cant fly or jump up to. it is strange because everywhere else in the game, you can run up the walls and along the ceiling, here, the invisible wall is holding you back...
glitch or intended?

The biggest problem I'm running into is the "Complete Starro: The Threat Below Raid" requirement on Part 2 of the Story mission. No one is running "The Threat Below" on Test and it has made it impossible to advance/unlock the second part of the mission.

Bug Report
This seems like quite the bug:


I'm supposed to be a Hero.

So one minute I'm fighting Ocean Master and go to a cutscene where Mera gets backstabbed. Then I come back to a scene where Ocean Master has been arrested.

Something doesn't add up here.

By chance were you still in the "Story Mode?

I didn't notice that. Yep, I was still doing the pointer mission.

Cutscenes are swapped. They'll get sorted next week.

Intended. QA was able to break AI behavior with various cameras and other geometry up there beyond that first floor. The easiest solution was to block access off from there. It's either that or give Controlled Flash mechanics to bypass line of sight hacks and nothing up there gains a flyer anything that we wouldn't have to counter via another, more complex, method.

This should be in the other thread but to answer the question, no it's not intended. Nothing has been touched since last year for the spawn rates/patterns and they were behaving fine earlier internally. There should be one of each up in their three known spots - a couple may have moved a bit due to new quest hubs, however. Will investigate early next week and sort it out.

I'll investigate if that's doable. If so, I don't mind it. The requirements to use it are to be on the mission and that may also prevent me from making it visible when you aren't on the mission. Ever other time you access that content, after the story mission is done, it'll be via a queue in the On Duty tab.

oh... i sea ^^ thx for clarification ^^

i don't get why heroes turn against theyr ally in the second part of the solo...
it comes totally out of nowhere when your hero does the 180° all of a sudden...
am i missing a very important plot twist or is this actually the villains ending?

better yet: the villains second solo part doesnt even show the characters at all,
neither mera nor ocean master is in the short cut szene at the end of the fight!
now, there is some serious glitch going on, or is the instance not finished yet?

As stated above, the cutscenes were swapped. One is also missing the actors. I'll speak with the person who made them on Monday and get it resolved. Thanks.

Question
I'm getting credit on the 329 weekly kill mission for KOing Starros in the queued Hero instance. Is that intended?