Zemblanity

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  1. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
    You ain't from around these here parts, are ya stranger.
    That's not fair, Arcana, most player complains I've seen regarding the SSAs are brought by common sense and affection for the game's NPCs, not mere bickering. It should be a fair warning that there's something wrong with the writing if most of the player sample base didn't start voicing their complaints until the Who Will Die came out. Remember the Going Rogue - Praetoria forum, where thread after thread people were actually discussing the plot, not just pointing out writing blunders and plot holes? There's alot of interesting writing in this game. Who Will Die, however, was disappointing, and deserves criticism.

    Even if you insist on depicting us players as irracional children, logic would dictate that if you decide to take away our toys you better have a good explanation for it, that or good ear-plugs. Miss Liberty, Malaise, Statesman and Sister Psyche were all removed from the game, and if the reason behind it is "Jack made them and we hate him", it's to be expected that we at least demand their deaths make sense, and all we saw was the idiot-ball being passed around as they kept dropping like flies.
  2. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Golden Girl View Post
    Going by beta leaks, SSA2 will have missions set below 50.
    Thanks.
  3. I actually have a couple of questions about SSA 2's time-line.

    1) Assuming it takes place in the game-lore after SSA 1 ended, will it allow us to play at lvl 50 from arc #1, meaning, would it allow us to canonically play with the same character that beat Who Will Die?

    2) If the former isn't true, and early missions force us to exemplar to a lower level, are these new missions meant to be played by a freshly created PC or will they come with an explanation as to why the character that saved the world in Who Will Die would suddenly find himself / herself depowered?
  4. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Rockshock View Post
    We have EATS for Heroes and VEATS for villains, so I think the Preatorians need a couple too.
    PEATs would be pretty neat, maybe IDF Ranger for loyalists and freed Seers for resistance
  5. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mr_Morbid View Post
    He isn't as mysterious as Albert Maurer.
    http://paragonwiki.com/w/images//thu...enni_Adair.jpg

    "Albert Maurer" is simply an early draft of Jenni Adair (Special Agent Keith Nance's boss from the clone saga) that somehow sneaked into the live servers. This Taggard guy seems to be something different, though he could be a development artifact as well.
  6. The following would be very much appreciated:

    Assault/Armor
    Ranged/Armor
    Control/Armor
    Ranged Henchmen/Armor
    Melee Henchmen/Armor
    Melee Henchmen/Support

    ... also missing, but wouldn't really add much (IMO):

    Assault/Support
    Melee/Support

    In a nutshell, the game is missing solid, solo-friendly ranged ATs that aren't limited by a /support secondary (which tends to slow me down outside of a team). Part of this role is filled by EATs and VEATs, but only the latter are actually competitive (again, IMO) with the classical ATs.

    Paradoxically enough, a melee-only "Mastermind" AT with melee-oriented attacks and pets sounds very interesting as well (think of a samurai set, with katana-wielding minions fighting side by side with you), either with an armor or a support secondary.

    Still, if I could pick only one, I'd go for the Dominator Assault / Scrapper Armor combination, which offers the best of both worlds (it would resemble a human-form Peacebringer, only with much better ranged damage and a working mez protection that doesn't crash half your health and endurance every other minute).
  7. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Golden Girl View Post
    Dr. Aeon's already working on SSA2 - and was the mainw riter for DA - I donät think he's quitting anytime soon
    Good to know. I was thinking of re-subbing, but if all we can expect is more depressing content in line with Who Will Die, I won't bother.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Golden Girl View Post
    Incorrect

    The entire WWD storyline is built from the history of the game, including the comics and novels - it's one of the most lore-heavy arcs in the game, and it's shaped by the 7 years of content that came before it.
    I very much doubt Dr. Aeon even read the novels, or he would have realized that a flying, super-strong, bullet-proof, veteran martial-artist daughter of an incarnate would not simply shake her knees in terror and allow herself to be captured by the likes of Malaise and Darrin Wade without putting up a fight.

    Plus, all this monthly tragedy comes with the very obvious setback of not phasing out the deceased heroes. Yes, I know, the devs willl get to it... eventually. In the meantime, should we just wink-wink and pretend Statesman and Sister Psyche aren't really there? I actually have a suggestion to fix that problem - STOP KILLING SIGNATURE CHARACTERS IF YOU DON'T HAVE THE RESOURCES TO PHASE THEM OUT OF THE GAME!
  8. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
    I hope whoever came up with that damn depressing storyline gets dragged away from the writing table and is never allowed to write for City of Heroes again. Give them a job making maps or writing encounter scripts or designing NPC powers or something. Just stop putting the fate of what's left of our fictional world in their hands, because the systematic dismantling of everything that made City of Heroes interesting and unique is becoming physically terrifying to me.
    Echo...

    I confess that Statesman, Sister Psyche and Miss Liberty (Alexis) were by far my favorite Freedom Phalanx characters, as I got attached to them after reading the second COH novel. Part of the reason was their age, all of them have been active since at least World War II and probably shared a very different perspective of current events, as opposed to the much younger Synapse, Manticore and Positron, also considered veteran heroes. They also possessed some of the most popular powers in super-hero lore (flight, super-strenght, enhanced durability, psychic abilities, long lifespan), as well as countless ties to Paragon City history as described in the web-site's chronology, though their ingame depictions were weak and slightly bland, mostly because they barely made appearances in the game at all.

    In fact, I always felt that Miss L should have had alot more presence in the game (I don't think there's even a plaque mentioning her outside of Praetoria), and it was disappointing to see her introduced only to be killed two missions later. Still, Alexis wasn't a very popular character, so her death is more or less tolerable, if handled in very poor taste with her being executed like a dog without putting up a fight.

    On the other hand, killing States and Psyche was a terrible decision, particularly when the new characters the writers are introducing don't seem particularly interesting, lacking any sort of discernible role or background. Does anyone even care about the likes of Leon, LeoKnight, Grym, No Mind or Blue Spectrum? Dillo, Twinshot and Proton aren't as bad as the former, as they at least add some connection to the game lore, but they're not terribly interesting either.

    In the midst of all this we have Ms. Liberty (Megan) randomly rezzing obscure villains for no reason what-so-ever, showing us that the story-writers have no problem bringing back the dead or giving characters a happy ending, as long as they are working for the dark side, that is...

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
    Seriously, if ******* Silent Hill could include a rainbows and unicorns happy ending, why can't WE have one?
    Barring some upheaval in the last chapter, the setting that I used to love is forever spoiled for me, no matter how many frisbees they put up for sale in the market...
  9. SlickRiptide, If I were you I'd wait for chapter 7 - you might simply decide to skip Aeon's signature story arcs altogether if you're not into depressing stuff.

    Paragon Studios should be glad there isn't much rage against all these bad endings heroes keep getting. Bioware is facing a riot over the way Mass Effect 3 ended, and from the looks of it they had to give in and were forced to create free "good ending" DLCs to appease their rapidly declining fan-base.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M0Cf864P7E

    IMO, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realise that people only think they want bad things to happen to popular characters, especially things that can't be fixed. I know I'd much rather see a protagonist blow up the Deathstar and get a medal from a princess than have him tricked into murdering little children, then sliced in half by his former mentor and dropped into a pit of lava as the credits roll in...

    Just saying...
  10. Zemblanity

    Botched ritual.

    I followed the clues, and improvisation instinctively led me to blood shedding... what's wrong with me? Good thing there's no magic in the real world, I'd most likely end up a blood-mage
  11. What about reviving Miss Liberty, then? Did she die happily as well?
  12. Zemblanity

    Revamp the WST

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Oathbound View Post
    Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

    The goal of new currencies is to prevent people from just plopping down stored currency of the old type for the new stuff as soon as it comes out, then being bored/unhappy with the system again. (Plus the devs don't like to feel like their own work is being trivialized.)

    The only other option I can think of to accomplish the same thing (not trivializing getting the new stuff) is for the new stuff to have an utterly ridiculous cost to it, which would in turn make those stockpiling players feel specifically slighted. This would likely also necessitate dramatically increased rewards for higher end trials to let non-hoarders actually get the new stuff. Which in turn would likely require additional gating (Must be +3 to join, etc) for the new trials, so as not to trivialize earning the lower incarnate levels. Which would then also split the trial raiding population into multiple groups, making it that much harder to form and run any trial of a particular type.

    So, yeah.
    As they release new incarnate slots, new currencies might be required, but these should be progressively eliminated after a while. Having both shards and threads has become redundant, and at this precise moment getting rid of either of them would not cause any of the problems you raised.
  13. Zemblanity

    Revamp the WST

    Just get rid of either shards or threads.

    It would make sense if you could buy the Alpha slot at the Paragon store or something, but if *all* incarnate content is VIP only, there's no need to have two incarnate reward systems that do the same thing.

    IMO
  14. Quote:
    Originally Posted by SlickRiptide View Post
    I'm not the one who priced the story as if it was more valuable than an entire expansion like Going Rogue or any of the themed super packs we had in the past. If Paragon Studios markets their products at premium prices then they'd better deliver premium products. As customers, we need to take them to task if they fail in that duty to publish a product that delivers value for the dollar, unless we're actually patrons and we're just tossing donations at them and not really buying their product.
    Precisely.

    My whole interest in being a VIP is the monthly content additions, not the iTrials, nor the points, nor the tokens, not even the honor of playing in Exiled server. It's all about the content. Sadly, and to put it bluntly, I'm extremely disappointed with the hero-side SSAs.

    - Lenght - 3 missions/month that can be played in 10 minutes is extremely short;
    - Plot - overly predictable, overly depressing;
    - Characterization - hero missions portrait the NPC heroes as bickering, incompetent morons and keep sugar-coating every dumb move my PC character makes;
    - Tone - death, grief, failure, no sense of accomplishment whatsoever, hate it;
    - Outcome - I can't see this end well for heroes;
    - Soloability - not all characters are capable of facing bosses and Elite Bosses while exemplared to lvl 20, worse, only the leading character in a team will get to see the in-mission dialogues;
    - Rewards - if there are 7 different missions, the reward table should take that into account and offer 7 different rewards.

    On the other hand, the SSAs are quite enjoyable when played by a villain character. If it were up to me, I'd give whoever's writing red-side a raise, and whoever's writing blue-side the boot. If both writers happen to be the same person, put someone else in charge of blue-side.
  15. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Redlynne View Post
    There is a tangential point to all of SSA 5 that I'd like to point out. It's pretty clearly stated that "The Trap" used on Statesman is the same one which destroyed BOTH Imperious and Romulus in Cimeroran Times. Yet here, it's only being used to take out Statesman. There is no implication of any kind that Lord Recluse is simultaneously affected here ... meaning that once word gets out (because the player was THERE), old Lord Recluse will NOT be falling for the same trap!
    I didn't interpret it that way. Wade needed an incarnate's blood to kill another incarnate, and that's why he murdered Miss Liberty. Now, in the future, we players are also going to need an incarnate's blood to depower (and sadly, kill) Wade, which is where I believe Lord Recluse will step in, giving up his own life in honor of his friend.

    Who will die? I'm beginning to suspect it will be Lord Recluse.
  16. IMO, apart from Darrin Wade, the only person who passes as being somewhat competent in all of this is Mercedes Sheldon.

    - Every midnighter was too busy speculating about the reasons for the Rulaaru attack, and she alone had the clarity of mind to go the vault and check if anything was missing.
    - While every effort was being made to recover Arcanus' skull, she stayed behind and ran an inventory check to see if anything *else* was missing from the vault.
    - She realized the Dirge of Chaos was missing, and tracked it down to St. Martial.
    - She was the one who made the connection between the missing artifacts and Darrin Wade, the only foreign element that could have conceivably taken them when the Midnight Club was attacked.
    - She actually *helped* the player reach Johnny instead of going ahead on her own and making a mess of things.

    Now let's examine Ms. Liberty's actions.

    - She got into a fight with her grandfather at her mother's funeral (shared blame, but still tactless)
    - She kept Manticore separated from his wife while she was being threatened by Malaise.
    - She told Manticore that she would protect Sister Psyche, then changed her mind and decided to leave.
    - Instead of trying to find Statesman, she decided to crash the Brawler's secret infiltration into the Rogue Isles, alerting Arachnos and severely hampering the player's efforts to catch up with Darrin Wade.

    Heroes = Dumb, incompetent
    Vigilantes = Rash, rude
    Rogues = Reasonable, collected
    Villains = Brilliant, focused
  17. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
    To be fair, I actually was one of the people asking for pretty much this - that this be our story where we're the stars and the rest supporting cast. What I asked, and this is especially true post City of Villains, was that we stop being treated like extras in some NPC's story and be given the spotlight ourselves.
    It seems to me you're not asking to be the most powerful hero in a world that spins around you - you're asking to be the protagonist of your own story, which, IMO, sounds perfectly reasonable. Have the camera center on you when you log in, even if you're not top dog - maybe someone else is bringing down the Deathstar, but you're playing your part by taking down the approaching tie fighters. And guess what, it's also perfectly reasonable for you to want the spotlight, even if something else more important is happening at the same time.
  18. If revamped, I'd prefer to see the *new* Phalanx remain as an old-school blue hero team, no rogues, no vigilantes, don't kill policy, etc. And yes, they should contrast with the Vindicators, who're much more open to questionable moralities (Malaise, Ms. Liberty, etc). That said, there's no reason the Phalanx has to remain the strongest group, in fact it would be interesting to see them lose relevance, being constantly sidelined by the much more powerful Vanguard, Vindicators, Shining Stars and Dawn Patrol, not to mention the player incarnates.

    My favorites, apart from the Faultline Trio, would be Lillian Issan, Katie Douglas, Percy Winkley, Frostfire and Mercedes Sheldon.
  19. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
    Actually, this one actually did make me smile a little bit, and not because she's in a coma. Yeah, Sister Psyche came out bad, but at least she's alive and not taken over by the "I watch/read X-Men" disease, but I actually did get to stop Malaise's plan and FINALLY shut his smarmy mouth up. It's not exactly a victory, but we averted a major disaster.
    You realize this story-arc has the exact same outcome if you play a villain, i.e., Malaise always dies and Sister Psyche always slips into a coma? All we did was prevent Manticore from doing something he might regret, though unfortunately we failed to prevent his wife from doing the same.

    As to your proposed changes, I think they're interesting, but I wouldn't alter Statesman's behavior. For once, people are allowed to be a little irrational when their only daughter is murdered, and a little "screw the world" is to be expected. Also, IMO, while the timing could be better (it was Alexis' funeral, after all), States is right in saying heroes shouldn't be slipping out-of-jail cards to ex-villains they think might be worthy of reedemption. If said villain is innocent, let him prove it in court, or else let him serve his time in prison.

    Also, Manticore will never apologize for something he knows he had no control over, and he'd never, ever, ever let a little girl keep him from making sure his wife is safe, no matter how tactless he had to be. Sensitivity be damned, he was right, Malaise's plan wasn't over.

    Finally, hero players are getting way too Mary-Sue'd for my tastes. If the players "fail" a mission, the NPCs should stop sugar-coating it.

    Longbow guy - "How sad, Alexis died, but we're positive it wasn't your fault, because we ran a super high-tech quantum authopsy that pin-pointed her time of death to 19 minutes and 23 seconds before you walked into that room... you know, when you were valiantly disarming nukes without missing a single one, right? Right? So, anyway, good job, here's your hero merit. "

    Sidechick - "That Manticore is such a loser, how could he let my mom die? He's totally not like you, because while you also let my mom die, it's totally not your fault because you seem incredibly smooth and reliant. And it's so totally cool of you not to even tell me you're sorry you've let my mom die, that's incredibly cool and professional. Anyway, Manticore's totally wrong about Malaise, because he's, you know, a loser, and losers don't get to be allowed to protect their own wives. I mean, it's not like Malaise has an evil plan all plotted out and just outright threatened Sister Psyche, right? Right? Anyway, hugs and kisses, I'll head into a bar in Sharkhead while you question him. Oh, btw, did I give you your totally deserved hero merit for totally not saving my mom already?"

    Glacia - "Ooops, Statesman's dead, and there's a brown paper-bag running around with incarnate powers trying to bring forth the apocalypse, but I'm sure that's not your fault, you only had about 5 months and countless clues to figure it out. It's not like you were getting into bar fights with the evil teen squad instead of trying to catch up with the bad guy, right? Right? In fact, you're so awesome that I suspect Darrin Wade is scared ******** of your awesomeness, so I'm sure we'll be fine. Anyway, good job, here's your well earned hero merit."
  20. Quote:
    Originally Posted by MisterMagpie View Post
    That said, I have enjoyed feeling like the only competent person in Paragon.
    Are we, really? I'm not so much concerned about the Freedom Phalanx having a bad day as I am about them passing the "stealth" idiot ball to the player. Sure, we keep getting praised, but Arcs #3 to 5, what did we really accomplish?

    Arc #3
    Did we prevent Miss Liberty from being kidnapped? - No, she was taken despite our efforts.
    Did we neutralize the threat from the Warburg Nukes? - No, missed one.
    Did we rescue Miss Liberty? - No, she died.
    Did we arrest the person responsible? - No, the true perpetrator is still free.

    Arc #4
    Did we save Sister Psyche? - No, she's gone into a coma.
    Did we extract any relevant information from Malaise? - No.
    Did we figure out who's behind this Nemesis-like plot? - Yes, Darrin Wade. Wait, who?

    Arc #5
    Did we arrest Darrin Wade? - No.
    Did we foil his evil plan? - No, quite the opposite, he's more powerful than ever.
    Did we save Statesman? - No, he died.
    Did we accomplish anything worthwhile in the last 3 months? - No.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Malaise
    Do you really think you can change the story, [Player]? The story isn't yours to change, only to observe, to follow!
    Unfortunately, we didn't prove him wrong, so there goes the theory about shifting the weight of the world onto the players' shoulders. Keep in mind we're actually out-blundering the Phalanx on a bad day...

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Golden Girl View Post
    Well, heroes have to have some setbacks - especially as we've been doing so well in the war against the Tyrant and the loyalists, as well as saving the world on a daily basis
    Sorry, but this has long ceased to be a mere setback, it's an outright disaster! Statesman's dead, and so are Miss Liberty and Malaise, Sister Psyche is out of commission, Darrin Wade is running around with Zeus' powers trying to free the Rulaaru, and they're telling us only person who can stop him is the player, who incidently has been screwing up since pretty much the beginning of the story?

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Malaise
    You are looking for justice, but you will never find your justice. Alexis Cole-Duncan is dead, and, despite the miracle infested world we live in, she won't be coming back.
    I just can't see past this. Short of time-travel, there's no way we're ever going to set things right again. All we can do is try not to mess things up so much in the future.
  21. Zemblanity

    GOOD CoH Writing

    Praetoria - Moral choices with visible consequences.
    Vanguard - Save the world has such a nice ring to it
    Kheldian arcs - Words alone can't do these arcs justice...
    Marshall Brass - Time paradoxes, caged demons, sassy reporters, what more could you want?
    Positron TF2 - A league to beat Maelstrom sounds overkill to me, but going against a gargantuan pile of rotting flesh? Call the cavalry!
    Alignment missions - Very cool, particularly because you feel like you're only seeing half the picture when you pick a side.
    Matthew Habashy / Aaron Thiery - Beat the bad guys, save the hostages, resist the temptation to take the law into your own hands, basically the prototype of the flawless hero mission.

    If I could change one thing, it would be to reduce the number of NPCs in the game, and instead have them show up in more than just one story arc. If an NPC is created, don't shelf it right after the mission is done. Have the lore's characters tie more closely from one story arc to the next.

    For example, the role of reporter in Paragon City is shared between Deborah Rosenfeld and Lillian Issan, plus Jessica Flores in Praetoria and Amanda Vines in the Rogue Isles. They're all essentially the same character, only written by different people who didn't bother to check if a similar character already existed. Unless there's a pressing need to actually create a new NPC, it would be better if a particular role (like young reported, rookie police officer, petty swindler) was limited to one NPC with multiple cameos throughout the game. I know I loved seeing Tremblor and Fusionette again in Vanguard, and in no small part because I enjoyed the familiarity.
  22. Someone will surely come along and give you a thousand reasons why it can't be done, but I just want to sneak in and say that I would love to see that idea implemented
  23. This would be like pitting a hellion boss vs a paragon protector...

    Sorry, Flambeaux, but I'm rooting for Anette as well
  24. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Zombie Man View Post
    [/IMG]
    Doesn't it look like she's ready to pilot a giant mecha?