Dispatch’s automatic fail checks are driving me mad

I like to plan ahead. So when I started leveling up heroes in Dispatch, my immediate instinct was to make some of them more well rounded — give Coupé some extra charisma so she’s not limited to mobility missions, for instance, or let Golem be prepared for more than just defensive jobs. I ended up with distinct sub-teams, one for handling brawny tasks and another better-suited for intellectual issues. It worked for a while. After playing through Dispatch Episode 5, it turns out that was a bad idea — for an incredibly annoying reason.

Out of the blue, some missions start including skill gates that cause an automatic mission failure if you pass them, and those gates are low. Surprise, super villains are good at combat. Pretty much everyone except Prism starts with at least a few points in that stat, and the defensive Vigor stat is too useful, too often to ignore. These fail checks are usually set at eight out of 10, which is impossible to stay under if you’ve invested more than one point in the offending stat or are just sending a single hero out.

By this point in the game, it’s almost essential to use multiple heroes for a mission. Success rates depend on much higher skill levels than they did in the first four episodes, and almost every “disruption” event, where you solve a problem using a skill, requires eight points or higher in the relevant skill. If the idea was for players to lean into each character’s strengths and specialize, then a little blurb on the subject earlier in the game would’ve made a big difference and fit perfectly with Robert’s role as the team trainer. I guess the SDN training budget just didn’t stretch that far.

Even if it were properly telegraphed, skill gates still make little sense in the context of what the Z-Team is doing. They might be (barely) reformed villains, but they still have control over their powers and know when to use them. It’s completely intentional when Flambae makes something explode, for example, and Coupé’s whole thing is rigidly disciplined movement. I can’t really imagine a scene where any of them just whoops, accidentally punched through someone’s head or lifted a box with so much unexpected oomph that it’s on the moon now.

Image: AdHoc Studio via Polygon

There’s no way to respec in Dispatch, not that I’ve come across anyway, so I’m just in a perpetual mess for the rest of the game I guess. One consolation is that I picked Waterboy to join the team in Episode 4. His complete dearth of real-world experience means his starting stats are all low, which is usually enough to help bump a mission’s success rate without the risk of being too proficient. I’m holding off investing his skill points, so the poor guy’s just gonna be a rookie forever at this rate.

He’s just one hero, though. If he’s on a mission and another distress call with a fail check comes in, there’s a high chance I just won’t be able to do it. I’ve started skipping calls instead of failing them, which is fantastically irritating considering, up to now, I replayed chapters to get a 100 percent success rate. Yes, your performance as a dispatcher doesn’t matter in the game, but dammit, it matters to me. I guess at least I know what not to do for my next playthrough.