Mercedes Sheldon and Arc Completion

I worked on Mercedes Sheldon's third blueside mission arc last night, "The Crown of Glory." I got to the third mission, "Recover the Crown of Glory," and pasted Hector and his Warrior buddies. Just before Hector died... err... was arrested, he summoned Memnon and Paris, whom I quickly dispatched as well. Once that was done, the mission was not completed. So I ran through the ship, and defeated the few stray Warriors I encountered. The mission was still not completed. So I ran through the ship two more times, and there was nothing there. No more Warriors, and no glowies or something for me to click on. I exited the mission, and then dropped it. The mission arc was complete, but I did not receive any mission arc completion bonus, and I only received two reward merits. I hope I received the mission arc souvenir as well, although I forgot to check.

Is the mission "Recover the Crown of Glory" bugged, or did I somehow overlook something?

You should have gotten a lot more boss ambushes than that. Sounds like Menelaus didn't spawn on Hector's defeat or you didn't find him. In turn Menelaus summons a couple more guys to aid him.

I've always thought that mission was a bit buggy. The ambushes have a nasty habit of showing up right on top of you and when they don't they sometimes don't aggro on you and end up standing around in odd places. I've never had what you had though. I've always been able to find them all and complete the mission eventually.

According to the wiki the arc should award 4 merits. I finished it just 2 weeks ago and I remember being disappointed but not exactly how many I got.

I will have to say though - Mercedes is one of my favorite contacts. All of her arcs have some imaginitive mechanics... I especially like the Magic Man's finale.

A few issues ago the mission rewards were changed to: If you fail to complete the last mission in an arc (or fail the mission if it is 'fail'-able) you get half reward merits. I'll see if I can find it in the patch notes.

Here it is: Patch Notes 2/10/09

Just thought I'd throw in that I did this a couple weeks ago and had same problem. I "auto-complete" the Hector mission, then did another mish (can't remember the name) and had same issue -couldn't find the last guy(s). I thought it was just me since it happened twice in one night.

The Mercedes Sheldon arcs are excellent, but a lot of them do depend on ambushes spawning in. I had similar issues with the Crown of Glory one... it didn't work the first time through, so I had to do it again. Even then, the ambushes didn't run to me: I had to find them.

I don't know if I bugged it, but if no one has, be sure to toss it out there. I may throw this Arbiter Kim's way, to make sure he knows about it.

Known issue:

Another issue with this story arc:

I just did it via Ouroboros, while working on badges - was going for Inhibited and Daredevil badges on this go-around (lvl25-29 Flashback arc with no Temp Powers, and while debuffed, respectively). Completed the story arc just fine - but no badges rewarded at end. Anyone else experienced this? Does it actually award badges for this story arc as though it were 20-24, even though it's in Ouroboros as 25-29 (I believe without Flashback, the story arc is given out from levels 20-25)?

Yes, there's actually quite a few arcs that don't award the badges matching the section you find them in Ourobouros. Origin of Power, Introduction to Vanguard, Welcome to Ourobouros and i believe Daedolous's first arc come to mind. Running a character through to get all the challenge badges i found a few screwy ones.

Just a heads-up regarding this issue - I just received confirmation from Avatea - the fact that Mercedes Sheldon's story arcs on Ouroboros are not granting Flashback badges IS a known issue, though it is not currently listed on the Known Issues page. She said that the Known Issues list should be getting updated soon, with this addition.