Mission 23 megabytes a second

[Deist]

Sorry if this has been discussed but, was this mission supposed to be a SWATTING type call? The briefing says the suspect killed his mother and has taken his brother hostage.

When you arrive there are lots of bad guys to shoot but the mother is obviously alive and the suspect hasnt killed anyone. It feels like they scrapped the idea and just turned it into a terrorist hunt but didnt change the briefing.

Can anyone make this make sense?

[Major Fret]

VOID's just allergic to the concept of a level taking less than 5 minutes.

There's so much they could've done to make this premise interesting, but instead they just through a bunch of badguys into the level and ironically gave it less replayability than the level could have.

[S3rva1]

Yes, It is supposed to be a swatting call. The reason the thugs are there is to protect their illegal crypto rig in the apartment on the second floor. The large volume of baddies is due to some of the background lore surrounding Los Suenos as a city, the city is on the brink of martial law is the summary of it.

[Quill]

So here's what happened

Dude you're there to Arrest is a Streamer. His Brother lives with him (The guy in the Soccor Jersey. Usually found in the Furry Room). Their Mother lives in the apartment next door. Streamer owns all 3 apartments you can enter. The other units are either unoccupied or the residents are sheltering in place/evacuated.

The Streamer is a Discord Mod and the Brothers together run a major illegal crypto mining farm. They have gangsters on their side to help maintain the servers and keep the apartments patrolled. If you view the brief there's shown to be a lot more than meets the eye with the call as there's a piece of evidence showing a massive and unpaid gas bill that the Streamer hasn't paid.

On one of his typical Streams a person puts a SWATing call on him saying he Shot and killed his Mother and Brother and will kill himself too as typical swatting calls do. As the person is streaming attempts by the police to reach him go unanswered.

Once you arrive the Gangsters and Streamer think you are there conducting a Raid on either their crypto farm or the Stramer's discord actions. This is why they open fire on you and are in a much larger than expected firefight.

TLDR: The Wrong Call was placed on the Right Person and Unforeseen Consequences happened

[Quill]

Originally posted by Major Fret:

VOID's just allergic to the concept of a level taking less than 5 minutes.

There's so much they could've done to make this premise interesting, but instead they just through a bunch of badguys into the level and ironically gave it less replayability than the level could have.

There's a reason those guys are there. VOID just does it's story in the visuals; they don't tell you it. Took awhile for the Furries to catch on that the Streamer isn't the Furry, it's his Brother who is

[The Infamous Cloaker]

Originally posted by Quill:

So here's what happened

Dude you're there to Arrest is a Streamer. His Brother lives with him (The guy in the Soccor Jersey. Usually found in the Furry Room). Their Mother lives in the apartment next door. Streamer owns all 3 apartments you can enter. The other units are either unoccupied or the residents are sheltering in place/evacuated.

The Streamer is a Discord Mod and the Brothers together run a major illegal crypto mining farm. They have gangsters on their side to help maintain the servers and keep the apartments patrolled. If you view the brief there's shown to be a lot more than meets the eye with the call as there's a piece of evidence showing a massive and unpaid gas bill that the Streamer hasn't paid.

On one of his typical Streams a person puts a SWATing call on him saying he Shot and killed his Mother and Brother and will kill himself too as typical swatting calls do. As the person is streaming attempts by the police to reach him go unanswered.

Once you arrive the Gangsters and Streamer think you are there conducting a Raid on either their crypto farm or the Stramer's discord actions. This is why they open fire on you and are in a much larger than expected firefight.

TLDR: The Wrong Call was placed on the Right Person and Unforeseen Consequences happened

There is actually even more to it if you read the evidence stuff, as it connects the streamer to being the face of a crypto scam ring as well as the local CP ring

[Quill]

Originally posted by The Infamous Cloaker:

Originally posted by Quill:

So here's what happened

Dude you're there to Arrest is a Streamer. His Brother lives with him (The guy in the Soccor Jersey. Usually found in the Furry Room). Their Mother lives in the apartment next door. Streamer owns all 3 apartments you can enter. The other units are either unoccupied or the residents are sheltering in place/evacuated.

The Streamer is a Discord Mod and the Brothers together run a major illegal crypto mining farm. They have gangsters on their side to help maintain the servers and keep the apartments patrolled. If you view the brief there's shown to be a lot more than meets the eye with the call as there's a piece of evidence showing a massive and unpaid gas bill that the Streamer hasn't paid.

On one of his typical Streams a person puts a SWATing call on him saying he Shot and killed his Mother and Brother and will kill himself too as typical swatting calls do. As the person is streaming attempts by the police to reach him go unanswered.

Once you arrive the Gangsters and Streamer think you are there conducting a Raid on either their crypto farm or the Stramer's discord actions. This is why they open fire on you and are in a much larger than expected firefight.

TLDR: The Wrong Call was placed on the Right Person and Unforeseen Consequences happened

There is actually even more to it if you read the evidence stuff, as it connects the streamer to being the face of a crypto scam ring as well as the local CP ring

I haven't read any of the evidence as I mainly play Co-Op but I knew he was in the CP game (related to my Discord Mod comment)

[Major Fret]

Originally posted by Quill:

Originally posted by Major Fret:

VOID's just allergic to the concept of a level taking less than 5 minutes.

There's so much they could've done to make this premise interesting, but instead they just through a bunch of badguys into the level and ironically gave it less replayability than the level could have.

There's a reason those guys are there. VOID just does it's story in the visuals; they don't tell you it. Took awhile for the Furries to catch on that the Streamer isn't the Furry, it's his Brother who is

I KNOW why those guys are there.

It doesn't change the fact that VOID doesn't seem to understand level design isn't just about cramming in as many bad guys as possible.

[The Infamous Cloaker]

Originally posted by Major Fret:

Originally posted by Quill:

There's a reason those guys are there. VOID just does it's story in the visuals; they don't tell you it. Took awhile for the Furries to catch on that the Streamer isn't the Furry, it's his Brother who is

I KNOW why those guys are there.

It doesn't change the fact that VOID doesn't seem to understand level design isn't just about cramming in as many bad guys as possible.

Except they do, as you have two maps that have really low numbers of suspects (A Lethal obsession and Ends of the earth)

[Quill]

Originally posted by The Infamous Cloaker:

Originally posted by Major Fret:

I KNOW why those guys are there.

It doesn't change the fact that VOID doesn't seem to understand level design isn't just about cramming in as many bad guys as possible.

Except they do, as you have two maps that have really low numbers of suspects (A Lethal obsession and Ends of the earth)

Ya. Lethal Obsession only has 3 lol

Makes for a really easy S rank if you know how to deal with Traps

[Major Fret]

Originally posted by The Infamous Cloaker:

Originally posted by Major Fret:

I KNOW why those guys are there.

It doesn't change the fact that VOID doesn't seem to understand level design isn't just about cramming in as many bad guys as possible.

Except they do, as you have two maps that have really low numbers of suspects (A Lethal obsession and Ends of the earth)

And for some odd reason they decided to place those maps later in the campaign (especially Ends of the Earth, which is somehow placed after what most people would consider one of the hardest level in the game).

Streamer really should've been a tutorial level to ease players into the game's various mechanics (ROE, Giving AI orders, using gadgets etc). Instead it's just another cluster-♥♥♥♥ of gunfights.

Again, there's so much VOID could do to make Streamer an interesting level, such as a random chance of:
-Have the call be fake
-Have it be real and there's a hostage situation
-Have it be real but the hostages turned the tide on the streamer
-Have it that you're too late and the streamer cancelled everyone's subscription to breathing, including his own

Instead, they put a bunch of bad guys in and shrugged their shoulders because that's seemingly their solution to upping the difficulty. That's fine in the right context and I enjoy larger levels, but the 2nd level of the game shouldn't be that way. It literally plays like every other map in the game where every suspect seemingly wants to go out in a blaze of glory.

[S3rva1]

Originally posted by Major Fret:

Originally posted by The Infamous Cloaker:

Except they do, as you have two maps that have really low numbers of suspects (A Lethal obsession and Ends of the earth)

And for some odd reason they decided to place those maps later in the campaign (especially Ends of the Earth, which is somehow placed after what most people would consider one of the hardest level in the game).

Streamer really should've been a tutorial level to ease players into the game's various mechanics (ROE, Giving AI orders, using gadgets etc). Instead it's just another cluster-♥♥♥♥ of gunfights.

Again, there's so much VOID could do to make Streamer an interesting level, such as a random chance of:
-Have the call be fake
-Have it be real and there's a hostage situation
-Have it be real but the hostages turned the tide on the streamer
-Have it that you're too late and the streamer cancelled everyone's subscription to breathing, including his own

Instead, they put a bunch of bad guys in and shrugged their shoulders because that's seemingly their solution to upping the difficulty. That's fine in the right context and I enjoy larger levels, but the 2nd level of the game shouldn't be that way. It literally plays like every other map in the game where every suspect seemingly wants to go out in a blaze of glory.

Those aren't bad ideas to be real, but now that most of the missions are connected in 4 mission chunks that have story connected between them, I don't think this is an option anymore. There isn't anything wrong with either option though. All things being considered, VOID understands how to create a mission considering how much effort has been put into environmental storytelling and streamer doesn't even really have that many suspects on it compared to later missions. Ontop of this the suspects are all very low moral and pushing them even slightly harder than just walking through the front door will cause them to surrender. I think it's spot in the campaign is perfect. It get's the player accustomed to bigger, multi-roomed maps without throwing them into a map like hospital or school completely blind.

[The Evil Soultaker]

I wouldn't even mind if it wanted to be like "They're his friends helping with the crypto op" if there was like maybe 1 or 2 that could spawn max but the maximum number of thugs that can spawn is literally 10.
They also should've had them have unique voicelines (his "buds" are supposed to be d&d playing, community college attending nerds based on the streamer's apartment, and what the suspects wear, they maybe might act all hard and tough initially but should give up rather quickly if their friend gets shot).

It goes against the whole "Swatting" thing they were going for imo, and defeats the whole purpose of the mission.

[ParkayDud]

Suspect was literally swatted by someone who called 911 with a fake call. There was no murder. As for the guys with guns, one could just chalk it up to the streamer and his buddies having illegal weapons because its Los Suenos, a terrible city where everyone may as well be packing. That and they probably got the guns from Mindjot since one piece in the evidence room from getting A ranking notes that the company had been selling crypto-miners to make money in a scam and using streamers to shill it, one of whom would be the suspect himself.

One could also just say the guys with guns that aren't in the same apartment room as the suspect are just random gang bangers that were walking around in the neighborhood but that can be a stretch since you'd have some in the server farm.

Originally posted by Quill:

Originally posted by Major Fret:

VOID's just allergic to the concept of a level taking less than 5 minutes.

There's so much they could've done to make this premise interesting, but instead they just through a bunch of badguys into the level and ironically gave it less replayability than the level could have.

There's a reason those guys are there. VOID just does it's story in the visuals; they don't tell you it. Took awhile for the Furries to catch on that the Streamer isn't the Furry, it's his Brother who is

Just to note, the streamer is the furry or highly likely. One of the chat messages says "yip in hell."

Originally posted by Major Fret:

Originally posted by Quill:

There's a reason those guys are there. VOID just does it's story in the visuals; they don't tell you it. Took awhile for the Furries to catch on that the Streamer isn't the Furry, it's his Brother who is

I KNOW why those guys are there.

It doesn't change the fact that VOID doesn't seem to understand level design isn't just about cramming in as many bad guys as possible.

While one can say VOID just throws in a lot of bad guys as possible, did you at least looked at the layout of the level? And that aside, the mission itself could likely be done in less than five minutes if one's just throwing gas grenades in the enclosed spaces and just shooting the guys outside in the courtyard area of the building.

[Major Fret]

Originally posted by ParkayDud:

While one can say VOID just throws in a lot of bad guys as possible, did you at least looked at the layout of the level?

Again I understand why the level is the way it is, I just think VOID seems to drop interesting ideas in favor of 'Make it bigger' and 'add more bad guys'.

[Slicer [OSL)]

I was in the missionbriefing and was like wow thats cool. Than i killed like 6 shotgun boys and i was like:
"ok nice neighbourhood? Wassnt i suppose to rescue someone?" xD
Didnt liked it, how ppl already mentioned, this mission could have been an amazing buildup for the story.
But to be fair atleast the guy that tried to swat the streamerboy did a good job to get rid of the weaponized homies around there so i wouldnt say it was a fake call at all lol