Casino Heist is like a four-man version of Ocean’s Eleven.
The aim: To rob the Tyrant’s Palace Casino for all it’s worth.
Players get to choose from four roles in the Theatre Lobby: The Grifter, The Hitter, The Hacker and The Thief by clicking on a movie poster glowie.
This awards a temporary power that describe the role in detail, so that new players have an introduction to what they’re supposed to be doing when they get inside the mission proper, before the time starts counting down.
When people were new to the event, players took a bit more time here to explain and describe what to do. By now, most people in PUGs automatically just look at where people are standing and take the roles that aren’t already taken. Clicking on a movie poster will indicate whether the role is available or is already in use.
Once everyone enters through door 1, signaling their readiness, a cutscene begins. This serves as both a short introductory narrative of the movie as well as more explanatory exposition to elaborate on what each player needs to do.
The Hitter – Part 1
What it doesn’t tell you is that Hitters are able to help the Hacker as well by taking on the patrol that walks around the hacker’s target room. Paragon Wiki suggests it, and I concur.
As long as I’m on a character that can do quick heavy hits, I like to take a left into the hacker’s room before the hacker even knows it and stomp on the two casino security patrols. This saves the hacker from needing to wait on the third computer, which is where the patrol usually ends up pathing around.
Then as the hacker is clicking on the first computer, I’m out of there and headed right into the power generator room to click the four power generators.
The Hacker – Part 1
The Hacker is the one role that is given an extra temp power of Stealth. His objective: click three computer glowies without killing the patrol in the room.
As mentioned, his job is made much easier if the Hitter bothered to care. If not, the patrol starts on the left side of the room and it’s a matter of giving the patrol a little time to walk away from the leftmost computer to click on it.
(Come to think of it, one might be able to click on the rightmost computer first, then go left, but I haven’t tested this. I tend to like to start from the left, then middle, then wait for the patrol to walk away before clicking the last computer on the right.)
Worse come to the worse, if the patrols start shooting because you’re clumsy (and I am clumsy), there’s always just eating a purple for enough defence to click the computer without being interrupted. Then run out of the room and the poor AI is dumbfounded by this.
I’m sure it’s a limitation of the mission system that no major alarm or cascade failure is set off by this, but I think it works out well for the casual PUG nature of it.
I don’t know if a control character is able to just hold the patrols and get on with it, or if any attack on the patrols is allowable, but it might be interesting to try one day to test the flexibility of the limits. The only issue is the group dynamic nature of the event, which makes one feel obliged to do it perfectly in the way that is learnt/taught/explained and not inclined to experiment, in case other people get upset they don’t get their badge or something.
The Grifter – Part 1
Lots of people try to snatch the Grifter’s role. It’s all simple clicky “talking.” No sneaking required, no heavy navigating.
The one thing I’m not so fond of is that I think there is one set ‘good’ solution to the Grifter’s role in Part 1.
At least, I haven’t experimented yet, but the option everyone is told in order to get the Perfect Grifter badge is to first “flirt” with her, and then “say something crass.” Wait a few moments, and then “say something even more crass.”
This becomes an exercise in meme-spreading and memory work. Everyone do it this way. End-of-story.
It’ll be nice if it turns out that the other options are also possible and work to get the badge. But it doesn’t appear that way.
The Thief – Part 1
No one seems to like being the Thief. Or at least, I end up playing the role 60% of the time when I wait for everyone else to choose first. Not sure why.
It was the first role I learnt and it’s not really that hard. It’s just a number of varied tasks.
In the first part, you’re alone upstairs in the office, and there are nine desk glowies. Three of them can be clicked simultaneously by walking up to the desks and clicking on each in turn, as long as you don’t move or twitch or somehow interrupt your own clicking action.
Somewhat randomly, each glowie may yield a desired item that increments the progress bar for the Thief forward until you find all three necessary items. Just keep clicking until done.
Battle Phase – Part 1
Once everyone has executed their roles perfectly (or not, as the case may be, and the timer runs out), everyone gets teleported back to a warehouse where there is a standard minion/goon fight as a warmup, and then Sylvia Rexson as the AV boss battle.
The AVs in Casino Heist are not really that hard, which I do like, for appropriate immersion purposes. They’re humans. A little tougher to beat on, but they don’t really have flashy OMG Ultimate Power gimmicks as opposed to either the Incarnate Trial bosses or even the Time Gladiator bosses. They reflect a believable power level.
The only thing is Sylvia has some phenomenal regeneration going on (may be her powerset) so someone with some -regen is helpful, or one will have to lay on the damage with a thick knife. She defeated my poor stalker’s attempt at soloing naturally without inspirational aid, but a stalker and scrapper duo worked fine.
On her defeat, we enter into Part 2.
The Hacker – Part 2
Same as before, just without the Hitter’s potential help. Avoid patrol, click on computers, done.
The Thief – Part 2
So here’s where I confess to roleplaying. I habitually dismiss pets if I’m playing a class with them, and turn off any flashy toggles before I click on the vent.
I don’t think the game actually cares, but it just doesn’t make immersive sense for my character to fit into that vent with 5 clanking robots of various sizes trailing after him. (I guess it’ll make a great comedy movie.)
It also helps (my peace of mind, at any rate) when I navigate this series of laser alarm-like things which come after the vent.
There are three sets of them, and a fixed safe path through. I’ve never tried tripping them on purpose, so I don’t know what happens. I suspect you simply don’t get the Perfect Thief badge.
Those safe paths only exist, by the way, if the power generators are down. One of the notable differences/consequences that the mission’s scripting was able to generate – as I found out when we attempted with three after one player crashed and we decided the least necessary might be the role of the Hitter.
The movement inhibition power also slows you down to a terrible crawl.
I discovered a little late that it may, just may, be possible to sneak past via the absolute sides of the corridor, but i didn’t make it very far because I was too slowed and paused for far too long to stare agawk at the laser display.
And lastly, once into the vault, one simply waits for the grifter to obtain the passphrase and the keypad glowie to light up, before clicking on it to ostensibly key it in and make off with the loot.
The Grifter – Part 2
Which brings us to…
This is the segment I like from the Grifter. It’s a conversation segment with choices, and you pretend that you’re a reporter from some magazine or other.
All the options work. You can pick any one of them, and Ted will eventually say all the words that get the Thief into the vault. So there are two benefits: one, you can actually roleplay a little and express the most suitable line your character would say, and two, you can experiment safely (without fear that people will curse you behind your back) to find the most efficient option.
What I find most amusing is that most people are scared to experiment. They have been taught by example to pick the most “officious” response and they follow it slavishly because hey, it works. Don’t break what’s working, right?
It turns out that that second option, the officious, “pieces on high-profile security experts” one is actually the slow route. It takes Ted the better part of three conversation dialogues for him to say the final word to the passphrase.
By gutsy experimentation earlier on, I found out that the very first option, the “casino-focused interior decorating” magazine, the first question will get him to say the phrase much faster, without having to ask him a second or third question.
I’ve been using that option since, because I feel obliged to be a speed freak when someone is waiting on me in order to click their glowie. Some day, I’m going to have to experiment with the last magazine option, I really want to want to see the NPC’s conversation as well as find out if it’s faster or slower.
The Hitter – Part 2
Now this one, I don’t like. It is clued into the subsequent prompt captions that show up for the Hitter that one of these options may work better than the other two.
It’s the spectre of the “only one good solution” again. This one, I was watching when others chose differently, and I can confirm you don’t get the Perfect Hitter badge if the Hitter makes the wrong choice and picks, for example, the High Roller.
You MUST choose the disheveled drifter and teach him to count cards if you want the shiny badge award to be enabled for all.
So yeah, follow the walkthrough, kthxbai. Else you screwed some poor alt out of their badge and the player might grumble a bit behind your back (if he’s polite enough to keep it to himself) and wait the next day for “a better team who knows what they’re doing and plays the way they’re supposed to” to go get the badge. (Lucky it’s just a badge. If it was mission success contingency and the shiny reward awarded or not, I can just picture the bad-tempered screaming at each other now.)
Then what was the point of the poor mission writer putting in all that conversation content for the other two options? For the first people to trial-and-error it by penalty and for all subsequent people to ignore, inflicting on themselves less variety to a mission they’re going to repeat for the shiny regardless?
Battle Phase – Part 2
When done, the second part of the fight begins. Again a standard goon/minion fight, followed by two AVs, one of them Ted Dubois.
Once defeated, everyone is teleported back to the Theatre Lobby where each person’s performance in the role is tallied up and the Perfect (Insert Role Here) badge awarded for everyone as long as the person in the role did it “right” by the mysterious badge rules.
Once you pick up all four badges (it can be through multiple event runs), the “Roleplayer” badge is awarded as a bonus.
Which ultimately is what the mission is trying to achieve, I think. Sorta kinda.
It’s a bit awkward in that roleplaying is hard to do on a time limit, with one ‘correct’ solution in places, and lack of room for self-expression, what with folks relying on you to perform cooperatively and speed them through. But it’s got the willing suspension of disbelief and giving you a role to play at immersing in portion.
Still, it’s a very creative new use of the new conversation choices, mission and trial mechanics, and I’d like to see more come out of it.
Why I Game 