This is going to take a bit of explaining, because it's the first time I've encountered this bug.
During the Imperial City Loyalist Power Arc (
Mr. G ->
Transmuter ->
Tami Baker ->
Praetor Sinclair) ...
The penultimate mission from
Transmuter involves an assignment to capture
Ricochet in an instanced mission. During the mission, when you're about 1/2 to 2/3 of the way to
Ricochet, you receive a communication that your Powers Division team have been ambushed and they need you to come rescue them.
You then get a choice ... to complete your assignment and bring in
Ricochet ... or to exit the mission and try to save your Powers Division people (
Aria,
Zane,
Stern and
Warrant).
- If you press on with your own mission and defeat Ricochet (as intended), when you get to your next mission (the last mission for Transmuter) ... ALL of your Powers Division people except for Riptide (who was assigned a different mission and thus wasn't on site for what went down) are ALL DEAD when you (belatedly) arrive ... because you "took your time" to defeat and capture Ricochet rather than coming to save them (quickly enough to save them).
All of them.
ALL DEAD. - If you abandon your own mission and defeat Ricochet, when you get to your next mission (the last mission for Transmuter) ... ALL of your Powers Division people except for Riptide (who was assigned a different mission and thus wasn't on site for what went down) are all DEFEATED BUT STILL ALIVE ... because you rushed to their aid quickly enough to save them.
Except for Warrant.
The killer made EXTREMELY SURE that Warrant would be DEAD when you arrived.
This choice in this (next to last for Transmuter) mission is going to be the crux of the bug report that I am making here.
When you finally reach the end of the story arc for Praetor Sinclair and have to confront Belladonna Vetrano, you get the moral choice ... Resistance or Loyalist.
If you abandoned
Ricochet and SAVED THE LIVES your Powers Division team (minus one) ... AND ... you choose Resistance:
- 3 waves of PPD Sergeants show up to arrest you and Belladonna Vetrano. Defeat them to complete the mission.
If you defeated
Ricochet and left your Powers Division team to DIE ... AND ... you choose Resistance:
- Stern, Aria, Zane ... who are ALL DEAD ... show up to arrest you and Belladonna Vetrano. Defeat them to complete the mission.
Bug report:The decision to abandon/complete the defeat and capture of
Ricochet is being "used correctly" in the last mission for Transmuter ... but it being "used inverted" in the moral choice mission for Praetor Sinclair IF the Player chooses Resistance.
What IS happening:
- Abandon capture of Ricochet
- Save Powers Division team
- Choose Resistance: Defeat PPD Sergeants for Mission Complete
- Complete capture of Ricochet
- Allow Powers Division team to DIE
- Choose Resistance: Defeat Stern, Aria, Zane ... who should ALL BE DEAD ALREADY
What SHOULD BE happening:
- Abandon capture of Ricochet
- Save Powers Division team
- Choose Resistance: Defeat Stern, Aria, Zane ... who LIVED thanks to YOU
- Complete capture of Ricochet
- Allow Powers Division team to DIE
- Choose Resistance: Defeat PPD Sergeants for Mission Complete
I figure that the root cause for this issue basically amounts to a non-fatal "typo" such that the IF-THEN condition for whether or not to spawn PPD Sergeants or Powers Division team in this mission is "being read inverted" for the purpose that it should be checking for (true=no/false=yes type of flip/flop).
I also wouldn't be surprised to learn that this (non-fatal "typo") bug has persisted in the code for this long simply because it could only be found by Players who would be repeatedly leveling through Praetoria and deliberately making different choices (to see how the story and events would change). Since most Players "don't have the kind of patience" needed for that level of regression testing, this particular bug could potentially linger FOREVER ... particularly since it's non-fatal (it just spawns the wrong Foes in a single player Morality Mission at the end of a story arc).
Hopefully, the fix for this is going to be as simple as "flipping the parameter" interpretation (swap a + for a - kind of difficulty). The hardest part would be tracking down where this controlling decision point is in the scripting for the Moral Choice mission, since everything is Working As Intentional™ up until that point.
