Author Topic: A Fistful of Sand - Finding & Maintaining the Protector  (Read 8180 times)

Angeles2099

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A Fistful of Sand - Finding & Maintaining the Protector
on: September 29, 2018, 07:46:54 AM
General Overview
For those who are new to this Mission, the task here is simple, acquire Aleph and use it to find which prisoner is Uru Gal the Protector. Once you do find him you will escort him and have to maintain his health until the end.


Before I continue I’ll briefly note all Raiders capable of Healing or Defending the Protector outside of usual means.

Locals
Doldren - Ability + Card: Breath
Iune - Ability: Healing. Cards: Lazarus, Eurythmy (Damage Reduction), Healing & Balm.

Umbra Wardogs
Alicia: Weapon - The Painkiller
Rak Mayura - Ability: Pishachas. Card: Agnation

Hades Division
Lycus Dion - Ability: Kinetic Shield (Body Block)
Mikah - Weapon - Barrier (When the Protector loses his Shield replace his with yours).
Ayana Kwena - Weapon: Versatile

Fifth Council
Konstantin: Ability + Card: Healing Nanobots
Dr. Kuzmann: Weapon - L. Horizons
Valeria: Ability + Card: Zero Point Energy


Finding the Protector: When the Mission starts each player will have to check a total of 10 Prisoners. The 11th prisoner will be Uru Gal, once 10 Aleph is used on the prisoners I recommend that you *Do-Not* check any more Prisoners. Ideally you should instead continue to collect Aleph until each team member has 5x Aleph. At this point you will want to find the closest Prisoner at the center of the Stage (Elevator). This will reduce the amount of time enemies have to attack him and allow each player to use there Aleph on him on the next stage.


Healing & Defending the Protector: Once the Protector is on the second stage you have less than 30 seconds to wipe out the awaiting Ambush of Hades soldiers before they all have a clear shot at him. If you have chosen at least one of the 10 Raiders mentioned earlier you’ll be able to Heal or Defend Uru Gal effectively so the rest of the team can focus on clearing a path.


Antagonist
In this mission the Antagonist has a much simpler task than wiping out all the raiders before Cortez can save them, here all they have to do is wipe out The Protector. An Antagonist would have a harder time doing this if they choose a Raider who is more Melee oriented or other wise need to get close in order to be effective. If this is the case they will aim for You and the Raiders as they carefully pick you off until there isn’t anyone left to defend the Protector, at which point they will switch gears and attack Uru Gal ending the mission.

A more likely outcome would be that the Antagonist would choose a Ranged Raider here. They will most likely skip the first half of the mission as the second stage gives a better vantage point to attack.
If they do show up in the first half it will be towards the end of it when the Protector is found.

Solutions:
You can never know which Ranged Antagonist will show up but it will always prove beneficial to have at least 1 Raider in the far end keeping watch, typically one who can hold there own against the Hades soldiers and one ranged Antagonist. A good choice could be Dr.Kuzmann, Rak Mayura & Ayana Kwena to name a few. 
Alternatively you can have two Raiders keeping watch of the Antag  and two crowd controllers keeping guard of the Protector

One last thing, If I had to pick the best 4 Raiders for this mission it would be:
*Valeria with her weapon The Whip and her card Zero Point Energy.
*Doldren with his default weapon KLT-13 and his card Breath
*Rak Mayura with his Weapon DPY-2M and his Card Agnation
*Ayana Kwena with her weapon Versatile


I Hope this helps a little. If I missed anything let me know so I can think of something else.
« Last Edit: October 01, 2018, 11:16:30 PM by Angeles2099 »

Level9Drow

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Re: A Fistful of Sand - Finding & Maintaining the Protector
Reply #1 on: September 29, 2018, 06:12:58 PM
You cannot card your characters for one single mission. When people randomly queue they card with what they think would benefit most missions or what they have fun and grown good at. Your first solution is useless in a game that doesn't allow you to switch your cards and weapons on the character select screen before the missions. Loadouts cost REAL money and if you use that as an example then we have a Pay to Win game.

Secondly, some of those characters you named for antag have burst SO HIGH that even if ALL 4 characters were healing and defensive characters they would burst right through it all and kill the protector ANYWAYS.

I have a better solution for everyone vexed by this mission with an antag, simply don't ever choose it. You don't have to bow your head to MSE and players who defend the stage and accept the missions and "git gud". If it was fair like other missions it wouldn't have been an issue in the first place. Vote with your choice of missions and let MSE know, through the lack of play on that stage, that the mission is broken and needs to be fixed. When they fix the issue, then play the mission.

There are other missions, and although I liked Fistful of Sand, I no longer choose it anymore. The burdon isn't on me, I don't HAVE to play it. The burden is on the developers to fix it. No one HAS to do X,Y and Z in a long drawn out provess that may only IMRPOVE the chances that the old man doesn't get killed fast. You just choose another mission that doesn't have this issue. Starve the goddamn antagonists out of that mission. They won't be able to get any Raiders for this mission except new players, this will cause new players to leave even more, therefor causing the developers to do something about the old man. Be smart about this, don't bow your head and let others blame the Raiders as the problem. Just ignore the mission.

Lehi

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Re: A Fistful of Sand - Finding & Maintaining the Protector
Reply #2 on: September 29, 2018, 06:40:54 PM
This is helpful! GJ Angeles2099

Addition:
- Pick Uru Gal from the location nearest to the elevator. Near the raider's spawn, the better.
- If you do not have unlocked the characters recommended, high mobility raiders and snipers come in handy. Lycus with a shield? (But Shae might not be able to lock-in in time.)
- Watch for Antag's spawn spots at high ground. Say, the elevator is the center, and the raider's spawn is the north, watch East side high ground.

Angeles2099

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Re: A Fistful of Sand - Finding & Maintaining the Protector
Reply #3 on: September 29, 2018, 10:03:18 PM
Level9Drow, whether I bow or not, whether the game is broken or not im not going to cast out a mission cause its seemingly impossible when an Antag shows up. If they ave an OP build, good on them but im going to make them work for there meal. If I abandon any mission where Antags have an easy win then I cut out a 3rd or more of all the missions. Instead I'm going to help show possible means of victory no matter how bleak it may seem. 
Man, that seems to be the trend here, if it sucks leave it alone and go on strike till MS does something about it. If they give a damn about this game like I do then just say so and give it time.

I know they suck at communicating sometimes which makes it hard to believe that there doing anything about it but instead of focusing so much attention on the things you hate focus on giving new players a chance to have fun.

This is helpful! GJ Angeles2099

Addition:
- Pick Uru Gal from the location nearest to the elevator. Near the raider's spawn, the better.
- If you do not have unlocked the characters recommended, high mobility raiders and snipers come in handy. Lycus with a shield? (But Shae might not be able to lock-in in time.)
- Watch for Antag's spawn spots at high ground. Say, the elevator is the center, and the raider's spawn is the north, watch East side high ground.
If you do not have any of the Recommended characters outside of the default characters, Aim to make a set up before the mission begins that you feel will be a good idea for it. If you have no one that can Heal with or without cards and say Lycus is already chosen by someone else than have a back-up character with high fire power to kill as many grunts as you can. 
I don't want to bombard you with too much information, so if anything, just remember to keep the amount of grunts low and Always keep one eye on the protectors health and who's near him. otherwise good luck.
Next week i'm going to do a live stream so I can help you then.

If you get an Antagonist, just relax and do your best, if you lose remember how you lost so you'll expect it next time.

Whitebleidd

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Re: A Fistful of Sand - Finding & Maintaining the Protector
Reply #4 on: September 29, 2018, 11:59:04 PM
Heals on npc escorts is pretty much useless be it the old man or Schneider, u could have Iune, Alicia, Ayana and Rak all with healing builds and it wouldn’t be of much help, it’s just better to focus on clearing mobs/antags and bringing him aleph fast if he goes down, but still the mission is a waste of time with an antag, even if you happen to have the bad luck of getting a bp for that mission it’s better to cut your losses and not queue for it, or if you queue and get an antag just vote surrender.

Angeles2099

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Re: A Fistful of Sand - Finding & Maintaining the Protector
Reply #5 on: September 30, 2018, 01:08:09 AM

Im done, if someone has anything constructive to say, quote me.
« Last Edit: September 30, 2018, 05:37:27 AM by Angeles2099 »

reaperofsorrows7

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Re: A Fistful of Sand - Finding & Maintaining the Protector
Reply #6 on: September 30, 2018, 01:35:19 AM
Agreed angeles. If im going to lose then that antagonist is going to be pry the win from my aleph infused corpse. Still annoying that there is little that can be done in terms of direct defense for escorts.

Level9Drow

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Re: A Fistful of Sand - Finding & Maintaining the Protector
Reply #7 on: September 30, 2018, 02:09:36 AM
lol ok man. You aren't understanding. The missions is broken. The constructive thing would be to leave the mission alone. Will they get to it? Yes, but they have to know it's an issue in the first place. They have the data, if they see hardly any people doing the mission it's a step in the right direction.

This post is basically offering solutions on how to ride a broken bike with one wheel. Well I want the bike to be fixed, but until then I'll use the moped, the scooter, the skateboard, the roller blades. And when they fix the bike I'll ride it. I guess I'm wondering why bother in the first place. Not trying to be a Debbie Downer.

Ok, sorry, um...awesome advice for those who still want to do Fistful of Sand. Thanks? I'll use those if EVER I queue for it. In the meantime I will do other missions where antags can't abuse the mechanics of the mission design? I guess I'm an asshole for that? *shrug shoulders*

reaperofsorrows7

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Re: A Fistful of Sand - Finding & Maintaining the Protector
Reply #8 on: September 30, 2018, 02:21:45 AM
Opinions. Fickle aren't they?

Angeles2099

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Re: A Fistful of Sand - Finding & Maintaining the Protector
Reply #9 on: September 30, 2018, 05:35:59 AM
I'm not saying your an asshole man, you have a clear reason to do what you do, cool same as me. I'm teaching how to ride a broken bike and you trying to show them the bike is broken I get it. I kind of want this to just die so lets agree to disagree.

Tomorrow in the Spacelords Assemble ill post what days next week ill be broadcasting. Ill be mainly covering a few missions, mainly boss battles and A Fistful of Sand, Feel free to Antag, it'll help.

Also Level9Drow, Srry if I offended you.

Level9Drow

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Re: A Fistful of Sand - Finding & Maintaining the Protector
Reply #10 on: September 30, 2018, 05:50:29 PM
I'm not saying your an asshole man, you have a clear reason to do what you do, cool same as me. I'm teaching how to ride a broken bike and you trying to show them the bike is broken I get it. I kind of want this to just die so lets agree to disagree.

Tomorrow in the Spacelords Assemble ill post what days next week ill be broadcasting. Ill be mainly covering a few missions, mainly boss battles and A Fistful of Sand, Feel free to Antag, it'll help.

Also Level9Drow, Srry if I offended you.

No, I'm the one who is sorry. I think I'm TOO passionate about this game. It makes me crazy, it's a mad love affair. I promised some people I would dial it back anyways, some good people. I want this game to move forward and progress, I don't want the devs to get annoyed or demoralized at some ranting Drow fan. Looking at it from the outside, I can see how it would be.

LoganMaze

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Re: A Fistful of Sand - Finding & Maintaining the Protector
Reply #11 on: October 01, 2018, 03:32:42 AM
thanks angeles, i am level 100 and didnt know the 11 necessary aleph thing (i tought it was random) and thanks for making guides, this game hits hard on new players so they need all the help they can get.

LordDraco3

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Re: A Fistful of Sand - Finding & Maintaining the Protector
Reply #12 on: October 01, 2018, 08:12:08 PM
Quote
When the Mission starts each player will have to check a total of 10 Prisoners. The 11th prisoner will be Uru Gal

Oh wow I can't believe I never thought to try and find this pattern. You should highlight and bold this part, that's definitely info that is not well known!

Angeles2099

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Re: A Fistful of Sand - Finding & Maintaining the Protector
Reply #13 on: October 01, 2018, 11:13:37 PM
No problem guys and yeah ill Highlight it.

MSE_Karen

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Re: A Fistful of Sand - Finding & Maintaining the Protector
Reply #14 on: October 02, 2018, 01:09:22 PM
Hi, Angeles!

Thank you very much for your advices, I'm sure the newcomers will find this guide very helpful!  ;)