Eva Destruction

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  1. Quote:
    Originally Posted by EU_Damz View Post
    Just remember that any TF revamp has to have the original be placed in Ouroboros
    I'm trying to think how many times I've done the original Posi through Ouroboros....nope, can't think of any.

    The only reason I don't do new Posi more is because I don't like being exemped that low, and I don't alt much. I'd be all over a revamped Citadel, Manticore or Numina.
  2. Quote:
    Originally Posted by SlickRiptide View Post
    In that case, the vision is either a good one or a poor one. I'm reminded of the transition between Fallout 1/2 and Fallout 3 which took an entirely different tack from its predecessors. People who liked the gameplay from the first two games and expected or wanted more of the same were finding their expectations challenged. Whether this was a case of evolution in action or a case of designers forcing players to adapt to a new design for the sake of vanity or vision is open to debate. The mixed review of Fallout 3 reflect the mixed feelings of a playerbase that got something other than what they had desired to get.

    Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and the measure of how much of a game-changer Fallout 3 is may be that future games follow its design or don't follow it when faced with their own decisions about how to evolve a venerable RPG series.

    In the meantime, if you wanted more Fallout, then you had no choice. You were forced to accept the gameplay that was offered to you in Fallout 3. I believe that this is a better example of what Sam is considering than any particular thing in City of Heroes might happen to be.
    Meanwhile, if you wanted more classic Fallout because you enjoyed the gameplay of classic Fallout, you couldn't get more Fallout. You got a post-apocalyptic Elder Scrolls. If you didn't enjoy the gameplay of Elder Scrolls, you got nothing.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by MajorPrankster View Post
    Comfort and fun are, of course, terribly subjective.

    To me, it is either fun, or not. If it is not fun, then I won't continue to do it.

    As for comfort, there is nothing in any video game I have ever done that has made me feel what I would refer to as discomfort. Some things are not fun or entertaining to play, but none of them ever made me uncomfortable.
    This, I think, is more important than forcing or not forcing people out of any kind of "comfort zone." Games have to evolve, and introduce new things, or people will get bored. Some people will try new things just because they're new, but some people will be intimidated by the new things, just because it's different than what they're used to, and for those people there need to be incentives to try the new thing. But ultimately, the new thing has to be fun, or people won't do it.

    Now what with "fun" being such a subjective thing, no, games shouldn't force people into anything. Yes, they should definitely encourage people to try the new thing, because some people will like it once they've tried it. But if you've tried it, and don't like it, "forcing" you to do it, however you define "force," just leads to frustration.
  3. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Organica View Post
    Absolutely agreed. Given that many people will run multiple smashing/lethal enemy radio missions one after the other on purpose, I've never quite understood the hostility to Citadel. Yeah, it's a whole string of Council maps with Council enemies. So? My scrappers FEAST on Council! Running a Citadel is like a relaxing walk in the park -- I can zone out, flip the kill switch to "on", and go to town.
    If I wanted to run multiple Council radio missions back to back I'd just run multiple Council radio missions back to back. Radio missions represent the absolute minimum of what can passably be called content in this game. Task Forces should be held to a much higher standard.

    Quote:
    Citadel typically takes us 1 hour to 1 hour 30 -- but it can be done in under an hour. Synapse is longer, has more defeat-alls, and you have fewer powers. Still, you can run it in about an hour and a half or so... and the ambush and final mission are bonuses.

    Dr. Q has become a new favorite TF of a friend who likes to run 2-3 TFs in a row anyway. A Dr. Q can be done in under 3 hours 30 minutes, so it's about the same as running 3 other TFs, and you don't have to stop to recruit new people in between. But I'm quite sure that's a minority opinion, and not everyone can run it in under 4 hours. ^_^
    How fast you can get through a TF is a measure of its quality now? I don't know about you, but I'd rather spend two hours doing something fun than an hour doing something just to get it over with.

    Of course once you get to the point where your butt goes numb halfway through the TF, that's a good sign that it's too long. But shorter doesn't necessarily equal better.

    Quote:
    I have few problems with Numina or Manticore. Sure they're not epic, but you can run both of them very fast if you know what you're doing. Naturally, if all the legacy TFs got updated like Posi, I wouldn't complain. But I run these all the time, it makes me laugh when people refuse to run them. ^_^
    I don't run them because I don't think they're fun. I'd imagine a lot of other people don't run them for the same reason, since it can't be that they're hard, because they're not. I don't see what's so laughable about not wanting to run content you don't like.
  4. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Blue_Mourning View Post
    Yes, but you're also belittling them. They don't not matter, because when you're in a world where if Cole goes down you might be seeing a reinvasion of the DE. It's not a question of "Are the thought police okay?" it's a question of "Do we have to suffer the thought police because if Cole goes down he is the last and only line of real defense against certain existential threats."
    If he was fit to lead he wouldn't need thought police. If he was the only line of defense against Hamidon he should be going out and fighting Hamidon. When he's too busy building up an army to invade us instead of fight Hamidon, keeping the people in the dark about this "so as not to provoke panic" is not so much a choice made for the greater good, it's a choice made to preserve the status quo, even knowing full well it's corrupt. It's forced and it feels very much forced, like many of the "moral choice" missions do.
  5. Quote:
    Originally Posted by White Hot Flash View Post
    They had a system that could have been released with GR. They tested it in the same Betas as GR, but it wasn't working like they wanted, so Positron decided to pull it back and rework it. That in no way implies the Incarnate system and Going Rogue weren't meant to synchronize around a common story.
    They system worked fine. People just wanted something to do with their newfound power, so they system was pulled until they had time to create content to go with it.

    And really, does anyone need a bunch of story arcs to establish that not everybody in Praetoria is grrr rargh take over the Multiverse evil? I would think that would be obvious. It's also completely irrelevant to the Incarnate storyline, since we're right back to fighting the same evil goatee Freedom Phalanx who kidnapped Statesman way way back in i1.
  6. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Blue_Mourning View Post
    That's fine. But telling the story how you want to tell it isn't exactly the story they want to tell.
    No, it's pretty obvious they're in love with their evil goatee universe and will stretch it out as long as possible, safe in the knowledge that most people don't care what they're fighting or how long they have to keep fighting the same guys over and over as long as they get their shinies.
  7. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Blue_Mourning View Post
    He (she?) does have something of a point though. People have been complaining about the Praetorian content pretty much constantly, while also complaining that the have stuff unfinished in this game. What do they propose? Completely dropping the Praetorian stuff in favor of...what exactly? I want them to finish up this content and if that means spending another couple of issues on this, or whatever, that's fine. I'd prefer them to be done with this eventually then have the story not move on it for a really long time.
    They could finish it NOW. The BAF, Lambda sector, some crap with Anti-Matter's reactor, those are filler. Storywise, they're incidental strikes added in so they can stretch out the story for a few more issues. If i18 was our intro to Praetoria, and i19 was the beginning of their invasion, i20 should be us taking the fight to them in a major way, not just stopping some lamebrained mindwashed prisoner plan, and in i21 we should be taking down Tyrant. Meanwhile, people not involved in the Incarnate storyline, like, I dunno, level 20-40 people, should be dealing with all the other stuff that hasn't gone away just because an evil alternate Statesman decided to take over the multiverse.
  8. Quote:
    Originally Posted by je_saist View Post
    Right. Because there were no storylines dealing with the Coralax, Marcones, Mu/Oranbega, Wailers, Council, Devouring Earth, etc etc in i6 and i7. Even some of the Arachnos storylines weren't really about Arachnos; members of Arachnos just happened to be major players, such as Scirocco's second arc.

    Quote:
    Issue 9: Breakthrough: http://www.cityofheroes.com/news/gam...akthrough.html

    Unprecendented?

    Um. No. Excepting Issue 8 which was mostly filler to bring City of Heroes inline with City of Villains adding Police Band / Safeguards, and the revamped Faultine...
    Oh right, the revamped Faultline. Which only included Arachnos because heroes had no opportunity to face them before, outside of PvP zones. The storyline was not about them at all.

    Quote:
    For two years after the CoV expansion, major storyline updates focused on NOTHING but the Arachnos. Leaving people who don't care for that enemy or storyline out in the cold for a very very long time, with no end in sight.
    Right, except when it didn't.

    Quote:
    Get over yourself and run any of the other countless story arcs, missions, task forces, that have nothing to do with Praetoria. Or better yet, make your OWN story arcs in Architect Entertainment, and write the content YOU want to play.
    Already did. Will again. Want more. Want more that is worthy of my newfound Incarnate power. There isn't any.

    As for using AE to make my own, um, yeah, I do. You do NOT want to get me started on all the problems with AE, and why it is NOT a substitute for good and varied dev-created content.
  9. Quote:
    Originally Posted by AzureSkyCiel View Post
    We can't make the hoodie, baggy tops really don't have the texture to emulate the front pocket, or the zipper (which is a real shame since all it would take it a texture) and most of the hoods are too heavy looking, or distinctly arcane, not to mention there's not hood that works for 'open jackets'.
    I would really really love a hood that isn't huge or arcane-looking. The existing hoods, aside from the magic pack hood, look stupid on smaller characters.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Aura_Familia View Post
    I might be alone in this but the first things that came to mind when they mentioned even "MOAR PRAETORIA" is "DO. NOT. WANT."
    No, by now it should be pretty obvious that you're not alone.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by je_saist View Post
    The developers have intentionally set up Marcus Cole and the Praetorians as the main Incarnate Content Storyline, and for the forseeable future the Incarnate Content will continue to be about fighting the Praetorian menace.
    Newer low-level content that has nothing to do with Incarnates is also about the Praetorians. There is no good reason for this.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by je_saist View Post
    What storylines do you feel are not wrapped up within the game?
    This has been discussed to death. Shadow Shard, Dark Astoria, Merulina/Leviathan, Shiva, etc etc.

    The Praetorian storyline has already been the focus of i18, i19, and i20. That in and of itself is an unprecedented focus on a single enemy and a single storyline, leaving people who don't care for that enemy or storyline out in the cold for a very very long time, with no end in sight.
  10. Quote:
    Originally Posted by White Hot Flash View Post
    In case you missed it, they did say that they'll continue adding in content for the lower levels all throughout the game, which is exactly what you seem to be wanting.
    And it will involve Praetoria. He doesn't like Praetoria. How does new low level content that involves Praetoria help him?

    So merging the server lists...wild speculation....could cross-server teaming be on the way?
  11. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Blue_Mourning View Post
    Form equals function. You can't divorce design from the writing because the writing is more than just writing stuff down on a page, just like reading is more than just reading something off of one (you acutally have to understand and engage with the content, something I've been trying to get my students to learn).
    It's a question of priorities. Are the missions a means to tell the story, or is the story just a vehicle for the missions? It used to be the former, and the missions weren't used very well. Now it's the latter and the overall game's story suffers for it. How is your clone in any way relevant after you've completed the arc? What questions does this arc answer? What questions does it lead to? In that sense it isn't engaging, because there isn't much there to engage with. You finish it, and it's done.
    Quote:
    For instance - I still have absolutely no idea why you think Apex is badly written. It tells a concise story and it is well presented and makes sense. What's wrong with it? Seriously? Tin Mage is similar - okay a lot of people don't like Malta's presence, but when I ask people what they don't like about Tin Mage they're like "I don't like Malta being there". Malta is only there for one small part of one mission. There are 2 other full missions in the TF. Why are they badly written?
    Well they do make more sense in hindsight, with that "Tyrant is sharing the power of the Well with his goons" thing. Malta being there still doesn't though, and neither do the Rikti in Apex. Aside from that, it's a pretty concise "fight off the invasion" TF. It is well-designed as such. It's just nothing more than that.

    Quote:
    Not to mention there's nothing inherently wrong with "These guys have an evil plan, go stop it" as long as that evil plan makes sense to want to stop and isn't "giant carebears attack Paragon City!!! Again!!!!" I've never had a problem with any part of the story of ITF.
    There's nothing wrong with it per se, but if that's all there is you end up with a pretty shallow game world.

    The ITF is time travel, and going there inevitably leads to trouble. If you're going to go there anyway, you need to decide how you're going to handle time travel, and by tying it to the flashback system, then including the implication that you can alter the future by altering the past, while showing that you can't, it makes a mess.

    Quote:
    But by saying that that's not a valid storyline means that you're hamstringing the devs in their ability to put forth a storyline about cloning the main character - an arc by the way that puts your character squarely in the center of the action in a way that simply hadn't been done before. In other arcs the heroes are incidental to the storyline. Here they're completely entrenched within it.
    But why do they have to have an arc about cloning the main character at all? That's what I'm saying. The only thing you get out of it is the reveal that Protean is alive (so what? Is he going to show up again?) and that Burkholder has defected to the 5th.
  12. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dante View Post
    And now we come to the Incarnate content. And suddenly all of that freedom, all of that creativity gets stuffed back into the box and we get shoved down one very specific, very limiting storyline that dictates where our powers are coming from. I agree that the Lore slot is the worst culprit here, the others at least can be passed off as orbital cannons or new techniques but there's very little wriggle room for creativity and that's what I'm finding stifling. I don't mind running certain arcs to gain new shinys, I'll happily spend an hour blasting through the ITF for my Roman armour. But this is a long, ongoing story that I have no love for while other, potentially better stories go neglected (or get hideously retconned into the 'new lore' - Vincent Ross, I'm looking at you) and I doubt it's going to be over anytime soon. And that's what makes me sad.
    This. A thousand times this.

    Quote:
    Personally, if I ever get to meet the Well, I'm going to toss a whole load of sodium down it, just to make it pay for putting me through this.
    I'm gonna stuff it full of Trip Mines and Poison Gas Traps so that instead of giving people cosmic power it's going to cause uncontrollable vomiting, and then you explode.
  13. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Blue_Mourning View Post
    Not everyone can agree on what good writing is. For instance, I've seen you many times say that the writing has really taken a hit in this game, yet the new Posi makes a whole lot more sense than the old posi, the FSBA arc is pretty cool, Ray Cooling's arc is a great vehicle to have form equal function, I enjoyed Apex and Tin Mage and thought that the quality of the writing on these far far surpasses a lot of the writing when you look at the older content - especially the content of the original Task Forces. They do a much better job explaining what is going on to the whole team instead of just the team leader.
    It is better designed, yes, I will definitely agree with you on that.

    The new Posi is pretty much the same thing as the old Posi though; the Vahz still want to use the dam to pollute the water supply, the CoT still want the dam to power their ritual, and the Clockwork want to blow it up because....well they actually have a reason now, even though it's a pretty stupid plan considering. It's the same basic story, just told in a much, much better way.

    When you separate mission design philosophy from the actual content of the story itself though...Roy Cooling's arc lends itself to plot holes you could drive a truck through, and has Malta introducing themselves to newer heroes rather than snatching them in the middle of the night, brainwashing them and holding their families at gunpoint until they do what Malta says. The FSBA arcs and their villain counterparts are nothing but an excuse to use Doppelganger tech, which would have been cool if it was just Protean impersonating you but is seriously overused here, and they had to go and bring things like clones and extra-dimensional counterparts into it. Other people have already gone into the "I'm a robot and I can't be cloned" arguments, not to mention that anyone who has every read a comic book knows that cloning rarely ends well.

    Apex is fun to play, and Tin Mage is fun to play, and the ITF is fun to play, but they're not all that well written. On the other hand, there's Justin Augustine, which tells you a lot about Rularuu and the Shadow Shard, fascinating stuff, but is the worst-designed Task Force ever. You can have both. The design philosophy has moved away from eight-hour slogfests and filler and time sinks and towards neat surprises and more condensed arcs, but the reason for doing these things has moved from "unravel a shadowy organization dedicated to controlling every super on the planet" or "discover how an ancient order of magicians sold their souls for power" to "these guys have an evil plan, go stop it."
  14. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Blue_Mourning View Post
    No, but it does mean that you're willing to ignore that stuff for your own, playable reasons. You can ignore that you become a member of Vanguard to get the Vanguard Merits? Do you ignore that the Vanguard HVAS is a Vanguard HVAS instead of a robot you create? There's a certain point at which the complaints become ridiculous in a meta-game way.
    The Vanguard HVAS is a temp power that I earned from Vanguard by helping Vanguard. I can choose to get one, or not, just like I can choose to get a Shivan or a Warwolf or Von Grun's bees. They are rewards given out for performing specific tasks, and make sense given those tasks. They are all also temporary powers. They are not the PPPs. They are not Incarnate powers.

    Joining Vanguard or the Midnight Club is also optional. Not doing it doesn't prevent character advancement, it just locks you out of certain content or rewards, and the only rewards that have an actual permanent impact on your gameplay (the Incarnate components) can be earned in other ways. They're not the Arachnos patrons: if you want an armor for your Corruptor you must work for us. They are not the Well: if you want to advance beyond 50 you must do so through me.

    Quote:
    These things aren't meant to supercede your character. They explicitly don't rewrite anything, and even more than that, they don't rewrite anything in a less intensive way than they already have with something as key to your character's development for enhancements - and by the way - they do make you go through an arc to buy SO enhacements over lvl 30 blueside (save for in the RWZ, and Cim).
    They make you go through a mission because otherwise the contact won't sell to you, not because you can't actually buy or use the enhancements until you do the mission. There is a fundamental difference. The mission just represents a change in the way you interact with an aspect of the game world, just like joining Vanguard or the Midnight Club does. Just like every single mission in the entire game, right down to "Defeat Archon Bellagio and Guards." That's kind of the point of having missions.

    Quote:
    We are not the storytellers of this game. We are the players. The story tellers are the developers, and we're playing in their sandbox. You can choose to ignore stuff, but once you do so once you can't come back and complain later that "I can't ignore that!" You've already ignored stuff that affects your character in a much more intricate and entrenched way than simply gaining more clickies.
    Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I don't want to ignore it. I want something I don't have to ignore. I want better writing. Full stop. Until I get better writing, and there's no indication that I ever will since everybody else seems fine with hackneyed explanations for shiny new mechanics as long as the mechanics are shiny enough, I want to be able to easily ignore, handwave, and pretend the stuff I don't like doesn't exist.
  15. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Blue_Mourning View Post
    Given all that you've said though, how do you justify enhancing your powers at all? If you're a natural hero you get to slot SO's that have names like "Military Speed", to say nothing of the names of some of the Invention Origin Enhacements. Do you refuse to slot something called "Mako's Bite" because you never trained with Mako? Or Scirocco's Dervish? Given your complaint - and I don't completely disagree with it - you would be hamstrung already in this game.
    And if you're a tech origin hero you get to have three hearts. Those are just names you have to ignore. If I slot a Mako's Bite in Storm Kick, am I biting people with my feet? Slotting Mako's Bite doesn't turn my Storm Kick into a bite, it makes it a better Storm Kick. And I can slot Mako's Bite without going through an arc that tells me how I trained with Mako.

    It's pretty hard to ignore a pet following you around, or the ability to suddenly shoot fire. And I don't want to ignore it anyway. I want something I don't have to ignore. I don't ignore the reveal that the first Rikti War was a Nemesis plot, even though I don't like it. I don't ignore the time-**** that is the ITF. I don't have to actively ignore them, I can just choose to do them or not, because they are in no way tied to game mechanics and participating or not participating doesn't change anything about me, and their very existence doesn't alter the fundamental nature of the way the game world works. I don't become a Nemesis plot by going through the RWZ storyline and I don't become a Roman by doing the ITF. The RWZ being retconned into a Nemesis Plot doesn't suddenly make everything else a Nemesis plot, and one megalomaniac going back in time doesn't suddenly make everything else a result of one megalomaniac's meddling with the timeline.
  16. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Olantern View Post
    This, more than anything else, convinces me that non-TF missions are (or at least were at the time) tested with solo characters or small teams on the default difficulty. I suppose the attitude is, "If you raise it, it's on your head," which doesn't seem too unreasonable. It does, however, cause sudden difficulty "jumps" when you run into something like this.
    Considering how many RWZ missions are pretty much guaranteed to fail if you bring more than two or three people along, I'm inclined to agree with you.
  17. Quote:
    Originally Posted by BrandX View Post
    I was hoping with the tip missions, that that's what they were trying to do. However, to make it interresting at all, they need to be more than Boss rank.

    Named bosses just don't have the same impact as Recluse and his LTs or Statesman and the rest of the Freedom Phalanx.
    Why is that? Is it because they need to be dangerous to you in order to be considered dangerous?

    What about the Center? He's such a weenie you never even get to fight him, but he's far more of a threat than some of the big bad AVs he sics on you. I mean, what has Maestro ever really done besides order some experiments and try to beat you up?
  18. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Fiery-Enforcer View Post
    Why hasn't this ever been a problem before with epic powersets? Before GR, villains were bound by the different patron power pools and heroes by the different elemental pools. Even to this day, what epic power pool goes thematically with an Invuln/SS Tank?
    The Patron power pools have always been a problem for a lot of people. Or have you forgotten the complaints about sharks? Heroes at least got pools that matched most of their powersets, with a fairly generic "Forces" option for the ones that didn't get a perfect match. Even an Invul/SS tank always had the option of two powers from Body Mastery that are generic enough to suit anyone.

    Quote:
    It has been known for a while that incarnates get their power from the Well and now that you're becoming an incarnate, you're complaining that you're getting your powers from the Well. It doesn't make much sense to me. The only point I can agree with is about the Lore slot, but even then you're not going to make everyone happy unless they're fully customizable.
    I'm not getting MY powers from the Well, I'm getting the powers the Well chooses to grant me, and that's the difference. The Alpha slot was the Well augmenting my powers, or me augmenting them on my own and using the Well as a means to do so, and to an extent Interface is too. The others have nothing to do with my powers at all, they're the Well's powers, and Lore is just the most blatant expression of that.
  19. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dr_Mechano View Post
    From an RP standpoint the Well storyline can be just as ignored as the Origin of Powers or the Dr Brainstorm stuff (which...I think 90% of RPers actually do).

    Unfortunately the Devs seem to really want to go out of their way to shove it down our throats and making it as hard as possible to simply shove aside.
    That is the problem. The Origin of Power and Dr. Brainstorm stuff could be dismissed out of hand as self-serving propaganda from unreliable narrators. You didn't have to do the arc anyway, if you didn't want to. If you want to progress in the Incarnate storyline though, you must do Ramiel's arc, which ties you to the Well. If you want more powers, you must take them from the Well. Why can't my Judgement slot look like a Footstomp? Because the Well says so. Why can't I have a pet that isn't Praetorian? Because the Well won't give me one.

    I should not have to ignore every new development in the game in order to keep playing. Game lore should be written so as to encourage people to want to incorporate it into their personal lore, not to force increasingly convoluted mental gymnastics to explain how it isn't relevant to you. At that point, they might as well have written "Tyrant is bad. Go beat him up."
  20. Quote:
    Originally Posted by BrandX View Post
    From an RP stand point, was any of this anything your character knew to begin with?

    Some character that was so powerful, they knew how everything was before, this was added in?
    No I didn't. See, I thought I was badass because I'd learned how to dodge that Rikti sword before it took my head off. I thought I was powerful because I had learned how to channel the forces of nature to obey my whim. I thought I was smart because I built a better suit of power armor. But nope, I was wrong. I wasn't badass or powerful or smart after all. The Well just deigned to share some of its all-prevading awesomeness with me.
  21. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Blue_Mourning View Post
    Hence my saying "It's extremely hard to GM a villains game in an MMO".
    I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm disagreeing with the guy who suggested the story writers should assign motivations. We don't need motivations to prevent the Coming Storm, we just need to not be allowed to cause it. Those of us who would be motivated to actively prevent it already have their reasons.

    Besides, the last time story writers tried to assign me a motivation for my villain, I nearly destroyed Sharkhead and got eaten by a giant shark-monster because a disgruntled former Legacy Chain member said it would make me badass and a disgruntled demon said it would be ok. Before that, I was narcissistic enough to allow clones of me to exist. I'd rather keep my own motivations and fail than do something potentially idiotic and succeed through sheer dumb luck, narrative convenience, or somebody else being a bigger idiot.
  22. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Blue_Mourning View Post
    To be fair, in an environment like an MMO it's a lot hardre to GM a story like that than it is around a tabletop environment without giving some hint at motivations. If you happen to play a villain that specifically wants to get drunk on power and destroy all he/she can (because they're a nihilistic anarchist or whatever) it would be patently impossible for that character to participate in the storyline because their motivations are incompatible with the world continuing to exist.
    It would be impossible for such a character to succeed in their goals, yes. Then again, in a game that needs to maintain a certain status quo it's impossible for villains to succeed at any goal beyond the amassing of wealth or becoming personally stronger.
  23. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Blue_Mourning View Post
    To be fair, that's only because he's the villain of the moment. When the Rikti were invading for an issue all the new systems and rewards were about them, it just wasn't "endgame" content. This is just a longer storyline than we're used to.
    When the Rikti invaded, they were the big bads for one issue.

    When the Rikti invaded, we weren't told to just drop everything else, even though their invasion was more visible than Tyrant's, with zone events that encouraged everyone to participate.

    We have been warned of the possibility of another Rikti invasion since release. It wasn't a one-off storyline suddenly coming to the forefront.

    And most importantly, the fundamental core of our characters and how they relate to the game world did not change in any way due to the Rikti invasion. If you took a Natural origin Martial Arts/Super Reflexes Scrapper through the RWZ arcs, they came out of it still a Natural origin MA/SR Scrapper. You didn't Riktify yourself to beat them, you just learned to dodge that Rikti sword and kick them in the face harder. The storyline didn't change they fundamental nature of what they were or what they did, they just got better at it. This storyline is changing the fundamental nature of what you do. In order to beat Tyrant, you have to become more like Tyrant.
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by BrandX View Post
    Ooooh. So it's not really Statesman who's the Mary Sue, it's Marcus Cole.

    Or does everyone else just like to think of them as the same person?
    Yes, it's Marcus Cole in all his incarnations. He's being made so important that our biggest threats are alternate hims.

    Quote:
    Ialways thought the original powers were linked to the Opening of the Well, so them being linked to that, doesn't seem new at all.

    If they hadn't found the well, there wouldn't be any super genius tech creators, or mutants, spirits would still be locked away, aliens would skip over our planet, except for the occaissional Area 51 sighting.
    They found the Well in the early 20th century, and the history has established that super powers existed before that. Mu and Oranbega used powerful magic, Giovanna Scaldi was probably a mutant, and the Kheldians existed in ancient Rome (stable time loop or not, they did exist on earth thousands of years ago. This is why you shouldn't mess with time travel.)

    Linking super genius tech creators or natural origin "I'm just that good" Batman types to the well only serves to diminish them. You're not smart enough, you're not determined enough, you can never work hard enough to be super on your own. It all has to come from an outside source.

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    And, would you have felt better about it, if they had picked someone else, or created some new to be all powerful? Same thing, except it isn't Marcus Cole?

    They need to make the badguy for Incarnates super powerful, that would be the only reason to justify having 40+ heroes/villains teaming up to take one entity down.
    They did not have to tie the bad guy into character progression storywise.

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    We do that for Hami, is Hami a Mary Sue, being so powerful that we need to team up to take it down, and even then it's not even considered permanent in in game canon as I recall. It's more like you're driving him back untill he returns (so you can't even defeat him fully).
    No. Hami is just Hami. He isn't the be-all and end-all of super powers. He is the culmination of his own storyline, not an attempt to make all other stories irrelevant.
  24. Quote:
    Originally Posted by MajorDecoy View Post
    It looks like this might be a valid concern, since it looks like the nukes have a 90 second recharge.
    And therein lies the danger of handing out new powers. They must be awesome, since they're end-game powers, and if they're not awesome they won't be worth the trouble. But now everyone's getting the same ones. Rather than make your character better at whatever it is you do, you now get to do the same thing as everyone else does. Everybody nukes. Everybody buffs. Everybody debuffs. Everybody controls pets. What's next, everybody gets an AoE control? Everybody gets a tier 9 godmode with built-in taunt?

    And what is most galling about it is, our best powers will no longer come from us (assuming we choose to ignore the Origin of Power nonsense.) They come from somewhere else. Epic = flashing lights and pretty colors and huge numbers and all our individual characters getting lost in a mass of flashing lights and pretty colors and huge numbers.
  25. Quote:
    Originally Posted by BrandX View Post
    Why?

    I think the term Mary Sue is only used, because it's someone elses character and not the players

    The gave CoH their Superman...happens to be Statesman.

    If Statesman is a Mary Sue, I can't help but think ALL the signature AVs would be Mary Sues. This includes Manticore and BaBs and Sister Psyche and Mako and the list goes on and on.

    If this is about the stories written early on, like tossing a Rikti Mothership. Eh. Would sound more like, I want to toss a Rikti Mothership too!
    It has nothing to do with power level and everything to do with the storyline shifting to be all about him. Our characters are being turned from individuals doing whatever it is they do for whatever reason they have for doing it into soldiers in a war against evil Statesman. He is so important right now that we don't matter unless we're fighting him. All our new powers come from fighting him. The source of all our new powers, and (by retcon via Origin of Power) all of our original powers, is now linked to him.

    Statesman is taking over the freaking multiverse, through a sudden, ham-handed power-up that basically comes down to "he's uber powerful because we said so." They're changing the rules of the game world to suit him. That's why he's a Mary Sue.