Zemblanity

It would, lol

Well, I didn't see it that way. While not an incarnate yet, since he was exemplared to lvl 40, my toon was anything but a lesser hero. Canon-wise, he had just arrested Countess Crey (Janet Kellum), beaten the Envoy of Shadows (Cadao Kestrel), put Nemesis on the run (Maxwell Christopher), and was widely regarded as perhaps the second most powerful hero in the city, right after Statesman (equal to other lvl 40 PC heroes).

Nova, my toon, was brought into this mission as a deterrent to foul action from Blitz, in fact Manticore basically says so. Something like, "don't try anything, you villain, we have Nova here with us!" It's more or less assumed that in a fight, of all the five people in that room (Miss L, Manticore, Malaise, Blitz and Nova), my toon was by far the bigger threat. Nova was thus given the most dangerous assignments, leaving the simpler stuff to Manticore (like recon, or escort missions). He was technically reporting to Manticore, but only as a courtesy granted to a fellow hero that had specifically requested his help.

The problem, I figure, was when Nova realized at the end of the first mission that Manticore was over his head. My toon should have taken charge, and let his instinct take over, that of a hero, not a vigilante. Prioritize the safety of a hostage over the completion of a mission, for example. Scriptwise, he wasn't allowed to do that, and it's frustrating that a set of out-of-character actions led to tragedy.

Perhaps blame is better directed elsewhere, starting with the bad guys. Manticore deserves some of the blame, as do Ms. Liberty and Sister Psyche for trusting Malaise. Alexis for putting herself in harm's way and failing to fight off her captors. But my toon won't accept any excuses, he was there and someone of his power and stature could have done better - should have done better.

Post mission, negotiations with Warburg failed, the hostage died and some of the nukes went missing, likely still in the hands of some very bad people who are now openly targetting Sister Psyche. No *bow* or medal for my toon in this affair. Far from it.

Pretty much, but delivered in a slightly less psychotic way

That's true.

One of my qualms here is not having a chance to sneak into Malaise's cell and drop a trip mine inside his toilet, to swap Blitz medication with vinager, to tell Manticore what an incompetent loser he is before putting him in the dentist. I am, after all, playing the role of a vigilante according to the script, deal with the impending doom and arresting the bad guys rather than rescue the victim, so at least let me act in character.

I'd also like a chance, in game, to apologize to Statesman and Ms. Liberty, which would have been pretty simple to code in.

Yes, it is.

If Alexis Cole is canonically as important as GG and H1, the writers have to demonstrate it. The burden of proof is on their side, not the players'. In game with phasing technology. An instanced mission regarding her memorial service, only accessed by those who've completed episode 3. By making an eulogy post in the forums. Releasing a comic book page in the web site. Something.

I don't think they will, because, to the writers, Alexis Cole is a minor character that never really had any impact in the game as presented to the players.

I'm sure. You still have to complete the Hero One memorial mission to access capes, for example. Galaxy Girl is a little different, but at least she had a town named after her (which was destroyed, granted) and you can still visit that town and all the plaques mentioning her heroics through Ouroboros. Alexis Cole doesn't have any of that.

PC Villains can, and often do beat NPC heroes. All the time. That's the whole premise of City of Villains, the bad guys win. PC Villains can also beat PC heroes in PvP, and vice-versa.

You're asking for something different, though, you're asking that PC Villains be allowed to beat PC Heroes in scripted PvE, moreso, you're asking for automatic success, to spice things up. How would you like it if my hero toon arrested your villain toon in PvE, and you were locked out of the game for a week because you were in jail?

Vice versa. If PC heroes were beating PC villains in scripted PvE missions, I'd be having the exact same argument.

GG she merely offers her opinion, which, while I often don't share, is nevertheless as valid as any other, and I wouldn't call it "her nonsense". This is a free speech forum, and of all the forums in the game, this For Fun - Suggestions is the one where you're offered the most latitude when it comes to speaking your mind. Would you gag me as well because you don't agree with what I'm saying?

Back to topic - More happy endings for the good guys!

She was important to the game characters. Gamewise she founded the Freedom Corps and got Hero One's sword during the Rikti War. She was a great heroine with a long history of defending Paragon City and the world, something we the PLAYERS (sorry for the caps, your idea), were not privy to, since we didn't witness it and there's barely any mention of her exploits other than spawning Jessica.

To the PLAYERS, or rather, to ME as a player, Alexis Cole is an obscure character mostly left of of the story by the writers. She made a cameo appearance during a villain story arc, she played a minor role in the Web of Arachnos novel (which I read, and she did nothing but act as a victim of Sister Psyche's city-wide madness tantrum), she was barely mentioned in the game's lore other than being Statesman's daughter, Jessica Duncan's mother and Patrick Duncan's wife. Who's Patrick Duncan? Do you know? I don't.

She never appeared in the comics. She never appeared in a hero mission. She never appeared in the game world. I can count at least 30 minor characters whose death would have had more impact. So, no, she wasn't an important character to the players, just the typical female prop meant to be sacrificed to mess up a major leading character and that bothers me.

To the PLAYERS, Alexis Cole is, UNDESERVEDLY, an obscure character that should have been much, much more fleshed out and developed than she was, and instead she was killed two pages after being introduced. I'm sorry, but barring further developments, I'll still believe her role in the game was that of a senseless victim pulled out of a hat for added drama, not that of a heroine.

Giving heroes adversity doesn't mean they have to witness the death of someone they cared about. Putting Katie Holmes back in the seer network was tragic, but at least it leaves the chance of actually rescuing her on a later date. It used to be there was at least a remote chance for a happy ending, so it was tolerable. Not here. Alexis is dead. Death of a character is final. There's no going back. These Signature Arcs are spoiled to me because of this, and it doesn't matter if we come up with a cure for cancer in episode 7. Another bittersweet victory for the good guys.

As I said, again and again, I wouldn't be talking about it if this was an isolated case, but it's not. Almost all the story-arcs for heroes since issue 16 (we're up to 21 now) are ending badly, and I don't like it. If we players must at all costs experience tragedy, at least the writers should bother to flesh out that tragedy. By making sure we, THE PLAYERS, care about who exactly it is that they're killing AND by making it our fault - even if the script allows for no other outcome.

P.S. Aggelakis, if this talk is bothering you, I can stop. I've offered to give it a rest, already, only to see the discussion carry on regardless, so I stepped back in because the topic interests me.

I'll acknowledge it when I see the same treatment given to this IMPORTANT SOMEBODY that was given to, say, Hero One or Galaxy Girl. Do you see the flags at half mast? Do see civilians dressed in black, or at least mentioning it on the street? Do you see heroes foregoing their capes in her memory? Did you hear the City Rep making a public announcement? Nacional holiday? Where's the memorial? Where's her statue? Mourning of any kind?

If I see any of it, I'll admit I was wrong and apologize, but it seems to me that this was all done to set up an NPC (albeit an important one) so that he can do something atypical in a future arc. Everyone else involved just doesn't seem to care. Well, I do, but since it's just a vendetta against this volume, just ignore me.

Edit: Besides, I agree with you. She is somebody important to her world, and would probably deserve the same treatment as H1 and GG. But to the hero players, she was killed 2 missions after being introduced, so it makes it hard to care much. And not caring about someone supposedly so important to this world, well, sucks.

If I fail in a mission where I can succeed, it's my failure. My responsibility. This makes me try harder or act smarter the next time around. And I do fail alot in these type of missions. I didn't manage to rescue the guy during the Roy Cooling affair. Villains won that round. I'm not complaining about that.

I can also redo the mission in Ouroboros. That's my prerogative. Most of the time I don't bother, if it's my failure then I'll have to live with it.

There's certainly alot more sympathy for the nameless hostages that don't die in a scripted cutscene.

My toon has failed in the past. Alot. Including faceplanting against Hellions and Vazhilok. This felt different, like I was cheated, the same unpleasant feeling of watching your sports team lose a game to a bad referee call. True, the season isn't over yet, but there's been a lot of bad ref calls lately, and it bothers me.

Take Spider-man. Failure to prevent a kidnapping? On occasion, though I bet he ended up rescuing the victim at a later date. Failure to apprehend a bad guy? Sure, but again, eventually the bad guy was put behind bars. Getting people killed in his watch? Other than Gwen Stacy and Uncle Ben, both of which were traumatic, life-altering events for Spidey, I don't recall. At least none where Peter would simply shrug his shoulders and say he's off the hook because it wasn't his fault.

But there's no story here either, no cliffhanger. Villains briefly fought Miss L in 1963, so they might deride some satisfaction from this. But blueside? Heroes were told to escort, then rescue a minor character that they'd never met and means nothing to them. They failed and she died. Meh. No satisfaction. No sense of accomplishment. No sadness either, since it was someone we didn't really care about and there was nothing we could have done to prevent it. Basically, a meaningless waste of time meant to instill a sense of tragedy in Statesman (an NPC). A player's natural response would be "Ok... Now why am I playing this when I could be farming Lambda and WST?"

I could be wrong, though, as many have pointed out. I'd like to be wrong. The story's not even half done. Maybe Alexis had more influence in the player's life than we believe, and we'll be made to care in future arcs. Maybe she'll turn out to be the mysterious letter writer from Ouroboros, and we'll eventually receive a note say "Dear friend, if you're reading this, then that means I'm already dead. Don't blame yourself, it had to happen this way, because..."

Maybe we'll eventually meet her past self, still alive and fully aware of what will happen to her by virtue of the pillar of flame and ice, and she'll explain that, while technically dead, her "actual" death will only happen many years into the future. Ouroborically speaking.

Or maybe this is one of those dumb Manticore plans, like in the comics, and she's not really dead. Maybe she was replaced by a Nemesis automaton. Maybe she was kidnapped by Emperor Cole and replaced by a clone.

Who knows? All I know is that I don't like where this is heading, so a big thumbs down to Episode 3 was needed. I want something good to come out of this, and it's getting harder and harder to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

It makes sense that the players would win in a hero game. Paragon City isn't the right place for a horror survival game.

That's fine with me. You're still leaving out PvP, zones and Arena, the "correct avenue" to shove it to the otherside.

These were very good, because they involved choice. No official canon outside of what each player sets for his own little world. Each player's world IS canon. The premise was different, anyway, you were stuck in a post apocalyptic world ruled by a supposedly benevolent tyrant, and you got to choose your path. You could even shape it to fit your own brand of morality.

There's a reason the Coyote never catches the Road Runner. He'd be eaten. If the heroes win, the world gets to survive another day. If the villains win, the world ends. Galaxy City is gone. Alexis Cole is dead. Short of a retcon, that's it. So a compromise was reached, villains only get to succeed to a point, and heroes sometimes get less than a flawless victory. There's plenty of examples of comic books that messed with that unwritten rule and started killing all of their characters for cheap sympathy ploys. They usually end up either retconned or cancelled.

Of course, City of Villains and Praetoria might survive the death of Paragon City, but for those of us who want to play heroes with any sense of accomplishment, that means game over.

Again, if you want to give heroes grief, try PvP.

True, but why does it look worse at lvl 50 than it does at lvl 1? That seems to indicate that the villains are winning, so for those of us who aren't interested in personal tragedy or self-inflicted pain, there's little motivation to log on a hero right now.

Villains got their happy ending in "vanilla" CoV, they got to beat every hero NPC and even shoved it to the big bad boss, "Hey dude, here's what's going to happen to your helmet in 5 minutes if you keep messing with me!" Heroes never got their happy ending. By the way things are going, they never will.

And as you said, phasing technology allows each player to earn their own accomplishments. Atlas park is still plagued by Hellions - UNLESS your hero decides to arrest them.

Right now you can choose to create your character in 3 different locations, Paragon City (where heroes are expected to win), the Rogue Isles (where villains are expected to win) and Praetoria (where everybody loses, apparently). If the writers let these three worlds collide outside of PvP and then start picking sides, they'll inevitably make some players unhappy.

That's exactly what I was saying. Or ranting ^_^

We all need some therapy, because somebody came along and said "hero" means soft on crime, soft on drugs, soft on corruption, soft on fascism, soft on defense, and we're gonna nerf you back to issue 6 because you don't need superstrenght to pull an old lady's cat out of a tree. And instead of saying, "Well, excuse me, you psychotic, bloodthirsty, goatee-wearing, cigarette-smoking sociopath, go wash your mouth before you end up copycatting the massacre of Columbine", we cowered in the corner and said "Please don't hurt me." No more.

Very well, I'll admit heroes were outplayed here. I'd prefer it if villain victories over heroes were limited to PvP (and vice versa, no arresting player villains either), but whatever. Well done. Still, let me quote one of my favorite lines of all time "You lost today, kid. But that doesn't mean you have to like it." And I'll be damned if I don't spend at least a dozen posts grumping about it

If there's only one path to follow, at least let it be a good one. In this particular one, villain NPCs (aka, a computer program) got to shove it to the blue players (aka, actual human beings) while they're happily playing Manticore's sidekick and shouting OHNOES.

They should have written heroes a different mission then, one that would eventually stumble upon this little tragic event. Instead, we were told to escort Alexis (failed, she was kidnapped), to disarm the nukes (failed, missed a few and don't know where they are), and finally to rescue Alexis (failed, she died). Triple failure. Good job.

I don't really care about their future plotlines, I rate each episode's enjoyment on its own. Blue side, this one felt like City of Lemmings meets Strategia della tensione, directed by Uwe Boll. As I said, I signed to be a hero, not a bystander, so count me out of the Signature Stories. Unfortunately, almost every other storyline released since Praetoria is also suffering from the same problem, heroes just can't seem to win anymore.

En/Dev blaster, equipped with a stealth cloak, I was invisible during the whole negotiations. A set of caltrops would have sufficed to slow pursuers until I got her out, no need to hang around.

Spoken like a true patriot. There's plenty of tip missions where you're offered a choice between rescuing someone or preventing a possible disaster. Hero tips always go for the rescue, leaving vigilantes to deal with the greater threat. And tracking her wasn't too hard once the nukes were disarmed, anyway. What changed since then?

En/Dev. Invisible. I started the fight with the old guy for no reason whatsoever when I could have just sped past him.

Agreed. If I'm not allowed to interfere then I don't want to play them. So I went to a Suggestions forum, and left my feedback - and suggestions to shape the upcoming content to my liking. Sorry if it upsets you.

Thank you, glad you agree.

P.S. It seems from the replies here that most people are satisfied with the current gritty feel of the new hero plots, and I realize I've overextended my rant. I apologize for being too forceful about this, if the community wants this, I'll step aside and shut up. Thank you for reading and sorry for wasting your time.

There's definitely a shift, though, and most blue-side missions launched after Going Rogue range from bittersweet to tragic endings. In fact, other than the Matthew Habashi storyline, I can't seem recall any blue-side mission ending well since Cimerora. Maybe when you freed Katie from the Seer Network... oh wait! Twinshot's arc ends badly. First Ward ends badly. Jenny Adair ends badly. Galaxy City ends badly. The whole Praetoria storyline in the trials is ending badly. I wonder if we'll even be able to save New Year's baby in the upcoming Winter event...

Heroes (NPCs) fail if you play a villain's story arcs. Heroes (PCs) fail if you screw up and faceplant on a timed mission, if you can't prevent an escort from dying, when you have to choose between being in two places at once. There's plenty of situations where heroes can fail. Scripted failure, however, is a new addition to the game. They should make it official, in fact, "Issue 22 - Mission Impossible - Heroes are not allowed to succeed from now on!"

Agreed.

I don't see a problem with this, in fact the game engine allows it. In Praetoria, you can choose whether you want to kill or spare Cleopatra, Schrodinger's cat and all. Would it be that problematic for a hero to have a different outcome from the "cannon" version? They do write both hero and villain missions for these signature arcs, so I don't see why they can't diverge eventually, particularly in a game that allows for multiple dimensions to coexist.

I won't play the rest. On hero side at least, episode #3 was my last. You're basically telling a bunch of kids playing cops and crooks that the cops have to lose, just because. And that if they don't like it, then they should just play the crooks instead. I just thought I should share that sentiment with the devs and the community, and either gather support for a different, lighter toned writing direction for the scripted blue-side missions, or stand alone and suck it up. It seems the later applies.

I couldn't care less about the trick, I care that the script forced my hero into a series of vigilante-like actions that break his character and culminated in the death of the person I was meant to protect. As you said, if I knew the episode was designed to be played by an incompetent vigilante meant to fail, I wouldn't have played it. That's not how they advertized it, though.

No, it's like playing Street Fighter 2 with Ken all the way to the last boss, only to find that Mr. Bison is scripted to be unbeatable. Afterwhich you're appeased by a text-box saying "Sorry, you have to play Ryu to beat this game. For plot reasons." Would you like that?

So make it happen outside my character's sphere of influence. People die. There's plenty of missions where we are sent to investigate murders. Only those murders don't happen on my character's watch. What was my character doing that was so important instead of rescuing the woman? Beating up an old man?

And I wouldn't mention it if it was an isolated case, but nearly every hero mission since the launch of Going Rogue has ended tragically for no apparent reason than to add to the drama. Katie Douglas. My alter-ego from Jenny Adair's arc. Alex Cole. Calvin Scott. DeVore.

Heroes and villains can both succeed, just not at the same time. I'm urging the writers to stop pushing villain accomplishments into blue-side missions, because there's no fun in playing a hero if you know you can't win.

If you play a villain and want to give a hero player grief, try PvP. In PvE, I'll demand at least a small chance to succeed.

This isn't a comic, it's a game, and if you involve a player's character you have to account for the possibility that the evil plot to murder a signature character might fail. Scripted victories might be boring if they're too easy, but scripted failures are totally unnacceptable and take away any desire I might have of playing this game.

Don't hold your breath.

There was plenty to do to prevent it. When negotiations turned sour in the first mission, we could have escorted her out rather than stick around and punish the Marshal for being wicked. Instead of going after the nukes in the second mission, we could have mounted a rescue operation first. And in the third mission we went for the Marshal before making sure Alex was safe, vigilante style. A bunch of wrong decisions that go against a hero's code of conduct, and eventually cost the life of the person we were meant to protect.

Sorry, I mistyped, Euro player, it was 6 AM when I wrote this. I just meant she was retired, not active. It'd be like announcing the imminent murder of a basketball player and then going after some obscure guy who played in the sixties.

There's a difference between stepping into a burning building to rescue people and just watching it burn. If my hero's involved, I expect something to come out of it.

Why not? My hero should be the main character in the game once I log in.

The Signature Contact refers to the 7 episodes as Book.

My problem here is that my hero character was a spectator in an episode where villains are rigged to succeed. Why can't we have it both ways? Play a hero, save the girl. Play a villain, kill the girl. That's what was so great about Praetoria, you could either save or kill Aria and Zane depending on your ambition and bloodthirst. The game engine allows this.

I haven't done Redside yet, Manticore's poison arrow wasn't dissipating, meaning I couldn't kidnap Alex. Admittedly, I'd have the exact same problem if my villains did manage to murder her only to have a textbox cutscene undo my work.

Point is, whoever it is that logs in should be the main character in the game, not a sidekick or a witness, and story arcs that are rigged from the start to fail should be avoided. Heroes save the day. Villains get to rule the world. Everyone's happy.

My mistake, I left Brawler out because he wasn't a Phalanx member. Doesn't really matter, though, we all know Statesman is the one who'll kick it in the end.

But my point remains, the writers are flooding the game with tragedy, drama and horror nowadays, what with the whole Praetorian storyline and these new signature arcs. My good old fashioned heroes are starting to feel neglected...

A) She's a retired heroin, not a hero
B) She's not counted as one of the 7 signature members of Freedom Phalanx who's about to die (Statesman, Manticore, Synapse, Citadel, Sister Psyche, Positron and Numina), just a senseless victim pulled out of a hat to add to the drama
C) She was murdered on my character's watch while he stood by doing nothing stuck in cutscene hell (new mez type, I gather)
D) It beats the purpose of doing missions if a dev will come along at the end and says "no you don't!"
E) I said I didn't like the way it was handled, not that I was shocked. The moment they anounced the name Alexis Cole along with a picture of Statesman crying over a dead woman's body (or tagged foot, whatever) you just knew she was going to die.

I find it particularly interesting that a dev (inadvertedly?) admitted that he finds knockback scatter to be detrimental to a power's effectiveness, and that he actually uses it as a balancing tool to limit AoE damage.

It explains some of the more bizarre decisions they came up with recently, like the massive knockback in Dark Blast's cone, Umbral Torrent.

They weren't drugged when they elected him, though, and I'd be willing to bet that if they ran a second round of elections this very day Cole would still win by a wide margin. And there is representation in Praetoria, a chamber full of sycophants calling themselves senators that give legitimacy to Cole's perpectual rule. Too bad they keep following his every whim. Why wouldn't they? After all, Cole controls everything, the police, the courts, the media, not to mention that the whole Praetorian workforce consists of clockwork that follow his every command.

Face it, GG, the problem with Tyrant isn't that he's withholding the people's right to vote, but rather that he and his goons have unlimited power and zero accountability, and have used and abused that power to perpectuate a system of absolute dependence from which the average Praetorian cannot possibly escape.

It's nonsensical to say that if you don't oppose Cole's regime then you're evil and part of the problem. A normal person without superpowers rightfully fears the Hamidon, the Destroyers, the Syndicate, he interdimensional invaders, and wouldn't want to risk his family's lifestyle without some sort of guarantee that the outcome will be better than the status quo. What would people do, just blow everything up, then pack up and head into the nuclear wastes?

Do you want to make a difference in Praetoria? Get the truth out, fight for a bill of rights, lobby for due judicial process rather than vigilante expediency, ensure adequate defenses to protect against the Devouring Earth and Vanguard/Arachnos/Longbow invaders, THEN hope that the next round of elections offers actual representation, not mere puppet shows.

Agreed. And I'd like the option to pick the first three powers (rather than just the first two) of those epic power pools as well.