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The Giant Monster events are cool, adds a threat when moving around a low level zone (jumping into the area with three Paladins in KR is a real reminder to pay attention) and for many of them a small team can handle them.
Rikti and Zombie invasions can be fun, and you can enjoy them in whatever size team you've got, including solo. The only real downside to them is if you've got a hunt mission (defeat 30 Crey in Brickstown) and the streets are cleared because of an invasion event.
The one event I'd be thrilled to see leave the game forever is the banners (or at least only show up during the Halloween season) - It requires so many people to accomplish anything that an impromptu clearly rarely breaks out. -
The worst part is that this could be solved with a compromise. Specifically:
We are giving them away on Twitter, for free, during the months of July and August.
On the first Tuesday of September, we'll add them to the paragon store.
Still plenty of incentive to try to win the contest. It's free, meaning no money and you can spend your points on other stuff. And you get it before most people.
But those who don't win the giveaways still know there's a chance coming up, whether they try their hardest to win every time codes are posted or for one reason or another can't/won't try, don't feel frozen out.
And... Paragon Studios gets money from the sale of the aura. -
Quote:I've written code using the Twitter API, mostly for auto posting picture links from a gallery. The Twitter API is a lot more straightforward than the Facebook API. Writing a routine that searches for all tweets with "@cityofheroes" and "#gimmethataura", remove duplicates, and slowly send out DMs to the owners is reasonably straightforward. (The tricky part is trickling out the DMs so you don't hit the caps on the API usage.)Yes, we're trying to grow another outlet. There's strategery in them thar hills.
The "code generator" wasn't generating anything at all. It was pulling from a static database of codes. It was also programmed by a third party and was a standalone tab on our Facebook page. Something we don't have the option to do on Twitter.
Alternatively, one could create a site where you link your Twitter account to it and it just displays the code for you after you do the linking. -
Quote:This is what happens when internal code names go public. It creates unrealistic expectations, it opens the team up to mocking, and forces the team to come up with yet another feline code nameyou know, i really have to throw in with olantern here. It was probably meant as a nice way of saying they are looking at some qol fixes. but saying "fix everything"? that is asking the tangentally rational to make unrealistic expectations and going on a 12 page rant the next time they find a typo. I like the ideas discussed and thing it will be a good thing, but you kind of armed the insane with this title...
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I'm not big on raids.
But here's what I'd suggest considering:
Lock the current legacy code and make all current bases "legacy bases". Barring a real game destroying bug, no more base changes, no fixes, no changes.
Create a new base system from scratch. Prices way down. Decorative rooms are essentially free and elements are free.
Add in personal areas for members (an elevator that you click on and go to the level for that member). In personal areas, a little storage, decorate at will, display the souvenirs you picked up in your career, mannequins with your various costumes.
Kill "control", there's only power to charge functional rooms.
Other times from the wish lists we've had for years.
Once the system is in place, the red star leader of the SG can go to registrar and convert the base. Whole lotta prestige back, get a base with an entrance and a "legacy vault" holding all items stored in the old base.
Hmm, great minds think alike. (edit) -
Quote:I stand corrected. Based on statements I'd heard from others, there was no such warning.YOU ARE WARNED before unlocking what licenses you need. Don't spread misinformation, please.
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Quote:If it's earnable in game - it's free. Merits are cheap and easy to get, friends can drag you through the unlock quickly, etc. They might as well just remove the invention license or drop the permanent free Invention license to tier 2.So what do folks think of the idea of being able to earn IO license time in game via just playing the game (and getting merits to unlock them, or as part of end of missiong/story arc bonuses)?
And it's clear that this is something the devs don't want to do. -
Quote:Except one must ask oneself - why did Paragon go to the trouble of introducing a Premium group of F2P, and add F2P at all? Presumably, one of the goals was having players who were players and quit for one reason or another to come back, give the game a try, and continue playing either as a resubscribed VIP or a Premium player buying points to buy some things here or there.You're still over complicating the basic facts here. What is available to you now as a subscriber compared to what was available to you as a subscriber before F2P was introduced is exactly NIL. You are not getting anything LESS by subscribing under the F2P system than when the F2P system didnt exist. In fact you're getting a whole lot more because of all the things that have been introduced for subscribers since then.
So I really have no sympathy at all with people that say "when I subscribed I had all this stuff, and now I have to resubscribe to get it back". That kind of attitude really does beggar belief, quite frankly.
What Twilight is saying is that the user experience for that returning player, who wants to say "OK, what's it like to play CoH now", stinks on ice. You choose a character to unlock, using one of your few slots, and surprise it's unplayable. You do manage to get a character unlocked and playable, jump in the game, and the character is weak and easily killed because it effectively has no enhancements - and the answer is "well, pay money to try this game that you decided not to pay money to play and decided to try again because Paragon said you could do so for free, or spend a half hour or so making that character workable"
And a lot of the potential long-term contributing and paying players just say "screw this, this is no fun at all, let me find a game where I can have some fun."
But if the devs made just a few changes, either "If you use one of your limited character slots to unlock a character, you can play it" or at a really base minimum "You get warned if you're unlocking a character you can't play" and "The character you unlock has its enhancements somewhat functional so you can just jump in and play", a number of them will say "Yeah, this is fun, I'm here to stay".
It's not about "but I want it all", it's about "I want to have fun" -
Quote:The reason Controllers and MMs were treated definitely, from what they said, was the pets. One of the most cpu intensive parts of running a zone on the server is keeping track of where everyone is, who can see who, who is reachable by an aoe, etc. For those calculations, One Mastermind with six pets out = 7 Defenders in terms of burden on the server, one fire controller with the three imps out = 4 Defenders. Whether that justifies locking them or not is left as an exercise for the reader, but that's the explanation given and it seems reasonable.Yes, I had them unlocked before Freedom. Not sure if I can make new ones since I'm out of slots and I'm not willing to delete anything.
If I recall, the reason for gating Controllers and MMs given was because of "performance", as if they would be too rough on the servers or slow everyone's computer to a crawl to allow totally free players to use them. That always felt a bit like a wall-banger because Defenders, Dominators, and Corruptors are all still available and would cause similar performance issues and they're not too hard to permanently unlock. And there was no trouble with any of them pre-Freedom either way (though I suppose if all the NPCs in gang war had capes, Thug MMs would have a portable lag hill from the ITF). -
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Quote:It's better, but I think it's only sneaking up on the problem.Pulling this out as a suggestion:
why not give every freemium players access to FREE regular non setIOs/Common IOs and FREE access to a THIRD build? (the one that only unlocks with Incarnate content?)
what do you all think?
The problem is that premium players, coming back to try the game, find their characters are incredibly underpowered due to effectively having no IOs, and the process to do something about that is time consuming and boring (and potentially wasteful). If the character build is mostly common IOs with just a few sets, that solves it, run and go, but if most of the powers are slotted with set IOs, it's the same problem - those powers effectively have no enhancements.
There are a couple of "simple" fixes that remove much of the demotivator aspect, let you log in, unlock your character and immediately jump in and have fun (and hopefully decide, yeah, I'm back to stay).
Simple Solution #1: Slotted IOs continue to function. You can't slot new IOs if you haven't unlocked the invention system, but the ones in your solution continue to function.
Simple Solution #1.1: The first time someone logs into Freedom, they're given a 30/60/90 day "license" that allows slotted IOs to function. When it runs out, the player must decide to buy Invention Licenses, replace enhancements, or leave the game. It kicks the unfun boring part back a while, so it's no part of the returning experience. UI question of how to explain it to the affected characters and show a countdown so players know when they have to fix things. It seems overly complex both from a coding standpoint and customer understanding basis, but if they are hide bound on "slotted IOs without invention license are completely disabled" gets around the entry experience problem.
Simple Solution #2: Slotted IOs degrade without the invention system, but not to nothing. Maybe they just drop to common IO level of boosting but all set bonuses/procs shut off, maybe they drop to SO value (single attribute enhances 33%, dual attribute enhances 16.5% for each attribute, triple attribute enhances 11% for each attribute). There's still an advantage to having an Invention License, but the characters are still playable and effective immediately.
The need (and having talked to a number of returning premium players trying out, yes, I'd call this a need) is that old characters are playable and not so weak and underpowered to not be fun without the unfun fixing process.
Given complete control, I'd go further. Reduce the tier at which IOs are permanently unlocked to Tier 6, maybe as low as tier 4. Or keep the IO unlock where it is, add another unlock at Tier 3 where you can use and slot IOs but not make them (so VIPs can make influence selling IOs in the auction house to premium players). The Invention system is such a core part of the game, stretching through the reward system of tasks and more, that it's more a demotivator to say "screw this, I'm outta here" than a motivator to say "Yes, I'll pay to get that."
But that's something on which reasonable people can disagree, and it is their game and their call. The only thing I'll say is absolutely broken is "a slotted IO enhancement is effectively like an empty slot" in terms of gameplay and encouraging returning players to stay. -
Quote:From what Twilight says, you are correct. Worse, you are not warned of this before unlocking a character whose AT is not unlocked.I thought that it was the other way around... in that you lost access to the archtype *full stop* if you were not of a high enough tier (or you hadn't bought the archtype unlock before unsubbing).
"You may unlock up to four characters, please pick one."
"I had fun with MyIllusionController, unlock him."
"You have unlocked MyIllusionController. MyIllusionController is not playable because the AT is locked. You may unlock up to three characters, please pick one." -
SteelRat, you assume TwilightPhoenix would have resubscribed, but she hadn't.
The F2P elements of CoH have two main advantages, convincing old players to come back and give it another try, and convincing new players to give it a try.
When an old player comes back, they start on a journey to two destinations. "Oh, yeah, I remember why I played this game, I'm back, cool (and I'll dump some money into the game as a subscription or buy points)" or "Oh, yeah, I remember why I quit this game, I'm outta here (and if anyone asks my opinion of the game, I'll explain why they should give it a pass)". It serves the dev's purposes and the other player's purposes for the returning player to end up at the "remember why they played".
In this journey, the making a decision, it's pretty simple. Fun stuff pushes you to staying, unfun/frustrating/boring stuff pushes you to leaving. If you have existing characters of a high level, the issue with IOs adds a bunch of unfun/frustating/boring parts to getting back to playing those characters. Even if we know "well, they could just create a second build and then go through all the levels of training and then find a store and buy SOs to slot it out and then have fun"... (a) the second builds aren't a highly promoted part of the game, externally or internally, and (b) it's a somewhat long process of not-fun even if they perfectly remember their old build of what they like and how to slot them.
Is the game DOOOOMMMEEED if this lousy out-of-box experience continues? No. But assuming we'd actually like to have a lot of people playing the game, things that turn people off are not good. -
Quote:To be honest, I think using your existing IOs for free is not an unreasonable thing. Put creation of new enhancements behind the high tier unlock, completely fair. Put the slotting of new enhancements behind the same unlock or another unlock, also fair though I'd argue the ability for VIPs to craft for others could be a fun additional twist.Is there an acceptable solution to your IO problem that wouldn't involve you getting to use them for free?
Or if that's a complete non-starter, have them degrade to DOs/SOs based on level. No set bonuses, no procs, so probably would be less effective than a pure SO build, but at least it's playable. The game may not require IOs, may be balanced around SOs, but it's definitely not balanced around "effectively, all your slots are empty". Worse, if there's the possibility you will subscribe again, replacing all those IOs with SOs is incredibly wasteful and going the second build route is boring and time consuming. Boring and time consuming is NOT the experience you want players who have just returned to the game saying "hmm, maybe I should get into this again" to have.
It's not an issue for me - I renewed my subscription when Freedom launched for all the new stuff and have no expectation to cancel, even if I were to let it lapse I've filled out the tree so can use IOs completely. But I've had some good friends who left the game who might be tempted to come back at least to see how it is, and this IO issue is a bad "box opening" experience, the experience of just getting back in. -
Quote:I'll agree with that, and I'd add an unlock in Tier 3 or tier 4 to use IOs. The higher unlock becomes the unlock to craft IOs, get salvage and recipe drops, etc.For me, I would done the "slot unlocks" as unlocking that character *full stop*. So even if it was a locked archtype, you could still play that character... but if you didn't have IO access, you would have to use one of your builds for SO slotting.
You would still be locked from making a *new* character of that archtype even if you deleted your existing character... but at least you would still have the opportunity to roll around on your character getting your feel back for the game. -
While we're being nostalgic about funny, I present Flagg's Archvillain sagas.
http://gotga.guildportal.com/Guild.a...&TabID=2017756 -
OK, feedback time.
I've enjoyed the Heist on any team any character that got there. The gladiator part...
(1) It really drives home the problems with the Team Up Teleporter. When I join via the TUT on my corrupter, 9 times out of 10 I get a team with no aggro control, at most a stalker for melee. And so there are not 10 badges to get, but 11 as I work on the debt badge. The small team size, the opponent makeup and powers they were given, and the comparatively low level we're brought to means lots of face planting. Worse, too much face planting against the first foe, the crowd turns against you permanently and so you don't get the last foe.
(2) Level 29? Really? Three problems with this (admitted based on me running my level 50s on this):
The better powers that could let us compensate for poor team makeup given us by the TUT isn't there. Even if you want to say "no incarnates", 40th (or 44th) level lets us use the full breadth of our character's capabilities.
By being exemplered that far, our enhancements are significantly weaker, and a lot of set bonuses shut off. My Corrupter can fly while fighting with no endurance problems at 50, but at 29, she's gasping for endurance as she goes.
My Corrupter is still filling out some IOs in her build, got some 30 and 35 level standard IOs that I haven't replaced with 50s. But the salvage that drops during the event (and recipes) are in the 30-40 range. OK, I'll just go to a merchant and sell all that low level salvage. I don't have them all memorized, unfortunately, and get info doesn't show "this salvage is for enhancements in levels 30-40" (which it should).
I've spent a fair amount of time getting my characters to 50, developing attack chains based on the powers at 50. Being exemplered once in a while for a TF you missed or helping out a friend with a mission is one thing, a trial you have to run daily for a week or longer to get all the parts of a set is another. I'm not saying "well this sucks and it's no fun at all" - but it would be more fun if I could play my 50 as a 50.
Finally, about the set - please make sure they can be put on the market for the next similar trial. And, if possible, can you make the rng for "which enhancement do you get" weight the odds to enhancements you don't have? -
Murders that result in a good side effect does not make those murders "mean something". The only way a murder can mean something is if people respond in a way to make sure it never happens again.
That said... the knowledge is value neutral, lives can be saved. And the fact is, if it's seen by someone who recognizes its value, it won't be destroyed. It may be passed quietly to some researchers to verify and then present it as their own. It's worth remembering that if we trace many areas of scientific discovery back in time, we'll find experiments that would shock our conscious if done today and we don't close our eyes and pretend we don't know what was discovered there.
Even now, some accepted scientific practices are controversial in some eyes, such as animal research, but those who wish to stop it haven't suggested we burn the research accomplished through it.
The argument Venture makes for destroying the data, of encouraging a future insane butcher to commit crimes for the credit of a scientific break through, doesn't hold up for me.
First, it assumes that there are a bunch of scientific discoveries and cures just waiting to be found by someone willing to commit mass murder for it, and that those willing to commit that mass murder have the skills to find them. To call that an "edge case" would be an understatement. Most gaps in our scientific knowledge are not just needing some vivisectionists to go out and get the data.
Second, it only makes sense if you believe such mass murdering scientists are motivated by "Yes, I'll be arrested and found out and imprisoned or executed but my work will survive!" Barring a few moments of insane rage or revenge killings (the father shooting the murderer of his child in the courtroom), criminals generally don't expect to get caught. Whether they have really been clever and come up with a plot that is likely to escape detection or done something where the average 10 year old could say "He did it", they think they'll get away with it. (It's also the argument against the death penalty as deterrent - thought it's remarkably effective and reducing the recidivism rate.) More, the kind of people with the knowledge to actually discover something of worth in their slaughter are those who would be more deterred by the idea of prison should they be discovered. Those who would be sufficiently civic minded to say "I don't care what happens to me so long as this disease gets cured" are the type who are least likely to say "so let's go kill a few hundred people". -
The revised arc has Anti-Matter doing it to get stuff done faster (perhaps an attempt to keep up with Neuron, it's been a while). The Pre-GR arc did have Neuron doing it.
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Quote:They provide events to weave into arcs. Instead of being sent to mountaintop in the rain where Cimerora once stood, Cole is put to work debriefing Vanguard scientists on what he knows about his Hamidon, learning about Primal Hamidon and how it applies. There are groups that are angry about this, willing to break the law to impose their own justice, you have to stop them. Maybe you get picked as the lucky guy to try Cole's strategy to end Primal Hamidon once and for all.Questions of morality and culpability aside, the question that I'm most interested in is this:
How does the game benefit from the "redemption" one or more of the Praetors or Cole himself or even a minor character like the Duray twins? (There were two at last count, I think... I suppose that theoretically you could have an army of them.)
And if the devs need a deus ex machina to finish off a story, Cole busts out and sacrifices himself. -
Quote:There are questions of jurisdiction of punishing the Tyrant and Praetors for acts against Praetorians in Praetoria. If a new civilian authority was established in Praetoria, presumably Cole and the Praetors would be put on trial by them, but right now anyone in Praetoria is focused on getting out of Praetoria. If a government of Praetorian ex-pats is created, they might have jurisdiction, but would they be allowed to do so, and would we be sure that the elected government would hold the Resistance line as opposed to Loyalist? Who will the Praetorian civilian blame for the destruction of their reasonably comfortable life and being forced to leave the world they've lived in all their life?That's not the way accountability works
As the supreme ruler of Praetorian Earth, Tyrant is accountable and responsible for the actions taken by those under him - especially those he has personally appointed to positions of power, and allowed to keep their positions even when he knew they were carrying out crimes against hiumanity.
The whole feeble "maybe he didn't know" defense collapses at once when the scale of the crimes committed by his underlings and the length of time they were allowed to go on for becomes clear.
All the Paretors are bad people, but Tyrant still gave them all the important roles in his dictatorship - where they kept on being bad people for years and years, while Tyrant did nothing about them.
Plus, there's also things like the invasion plans revealing that Tyrant was not only aware of the planned genoice on Primal Earth but had actually given the order for it, along with him telling ex-loyalists escaping to Paragon City that he has blood on his hands.
Tyrant is fully aware of, and responsible for, the suffering of the Praetorian people under the loyalist dictatorship, and the planned war crimes against Primal Earth and the rest of the multiverse.
As for Primal Earth - In most of the battles that take place in Primal Earth, the invading forces are apparently taking more than reasonable care in getting civilians out of the way, a lot more than taken by most real life armies. Yes, they'll blast metahumans with happy abandon, but I'd argue that we're the soldiers in this war, and coming to Primal Earth to attack metahumans is the same as metahumans going to Praetoria and slaughtering the Praetorian combatants there. The Praetorian War, at least as expressed in the Incarnate Trials, is in some ways a throwback to World War I warfare, where two armies fight it out and try to leave the civilians out of it. There are some missions from Maria Jenkins or Tina Macintyre that take place in civilian areas, but even so, they aren't herding the civilians into groups for mass execution or taking them back for experimentation.
Contrast that with the Rikti, which slaughtered civilians by the thousands - and we're busy trying to make peace with them.
All that said, I have my doubts that there would be any legal niceties like a trial involved with Cole or the Praetors. It's not like Wade got a trial. Longbow, Vanguard, Arachnos all show a willingness to do "what it takes" to deal with those they perceive to be threats, regardless of the law. Which dims the line between them and Malta, doesn't it? -
Quote:Well, I've written some fan fiction on the redemption of Tom Riddle, so yeah, I think it's possible to be redeemed. In our own world, there are those who have created horrible crimes and found a change of life in prison. There's a reason that executives are granted the pardon power and we have parole boards.I have to assume that Venture is the only one taking the conversation seriously. I can’t honestly believe that there are people who believe beings that are directly responsible for the murder, kidnapping and torture of hundreds to thousands of people or at the very least have supported the same are redeemable.
But again, redemption doesn't mean "Hey, that stuff you did, it's all OK". Those acts remain, it will affect what restrictions they live under for the rest of their life, it will affect how people view them and treat them for the rest of their lives. It just says the story isn't over. The dead cannot change, but the living can.
And it's too easy to say "they're a sociopath, might as well throw them against the wall and shoot them." There are those with a real mental deficiency, unable to generate any concern for others, but it's rare. Far more common are those who for one reason or another never learned to care, had fatally flawed world views, or other reasons. And those are treatable, changeable. Not easily, change is hard, and most won't be redeemed. But it is possible. -
I'm going to go with this. I think it's a serious mistake to equate in-game Statesman/Marcus Code and his analogs with game developer Jack and a bigger mistake to assume the devs equate them. At the VERY most, they have been wanting to shake up the story by killing off the game's biggest hero and assumed enough time had passed that it wouldn't be taken as a slam at game developer Jack (and if so, they were wrong).
These are serious people who care about the game, they spend countless hours and want to be proud of it - and at an absolute minimum, it's what puts food on the family tables. I can't see them being that petty. If they wanted to be petty, they could always write him into tip missions to mock him. -
Agreed it should be changed. First, it's boring. Second, the old argument of "it's the only way to get this incredibly rare and powerful reward, the respec" just doesn't hold any more. So what to do?
#1 - Dump much of the current story. Stage one is take back the control rooms, free hostages, click glowie in the control rooms. Fight down the corridor, and face an AV in the reactor room. Defeat the AV to win. If it's considered necessary to gimmick it up, add glowies in reactor room that must be periodically clicked to avoid empowering the AV, but I'd argue against it. No radiation damage, no red bubbles, no healing powers to claim. Kill him.
#2. Dump, or at least completely rework, Terra Volta. Damnit, some rookie heroes failed to stop the reactor from going up. Fortunately, the damage was able to be contained. So create three new trials involving the new reactor. Trial one is setting the stage for the rebuild, there's some important gear in the destroyed reactor that must be gotten before the sky raiders get it - find the macguffin before they do! Trial two is protect the workers who are building the new reactor from the attacks of the Freakshow who think the must leet uber base would be a destroyed reactor with all that good gear for the taking. Trial three is the reactor is about to be brought online, but there's a problem - Malta has kidnapped the lead scientist and They Have Plans. (The Rikti have a full zone to themselves, let's show the crazed fascists some love.)
Or dump Terra Volta altogether, and build the respecs around the DE which certain have a storyline about characters changing. -
Quote:Absolutely. Harry Truman and the crew of the Enola Gay are over that horizon. Jimmy Doolittle too. Is Jean Gray over the horizon, or is not being in your right mind an out?Hell no. Good people aren't forever good, they can trip up easily. As for bad people, it depends on how bad they are. Like it or lump it, there is such a thing as a Moral Event Horizon and anyone who has murdered thousands of people has pole-vaulted over it. That includes Tyrant and his cronies, no saving throw.
The cold hard truth is that, with remarkably few exceptions, war criminals are the guys that lost the war. Had the final Praetorian trial ended with the destruction of Paragon City and the annihilation of the Portal Corp program, our player characters would have been the war criminals. How many Praetorians have we slaughtered in the intro to the trials? I hear there are even criminals who do nothing but continually go to the Magesterium, slaughter the defense forces, and withdraw.
I'm not denying that there are acts while are inherently evil, and the Praetorians have committed them. But as much as we'd like to pretend otherwise, there's a line between waging war and committing war crimes but it's not as wide as you're implying or always so clear when you're in the middle of the war.
In terms of redemption, one aspect is going to be the why. "I killed them because I love to hear them scream" is not a good candidate to redeem. But let's talk about one of the examples that have been thrown around, Magneto. Of course, one of the problems is he's been written by multiple groups and originally was the paper thin "I do these crimes because I are a bad guy" type who named his group "The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants". But when put in the hands of more competent writers, he lived through an experience of seeing a vile out of control government try to wipe a race of people out of existence. Now he sees at many governments trying to wipe out his people, mutants, and he's fighting back. His path to redemption was seeing a different way to protect his people from being wiped out.
Also, when it comes to the Praetorians, no one is talking about Going Rogue "do the right 22 missions and you're a squeaky clean hero" redemption. The only way any of them are joining the Freedom Phalanx is if the Battalion has wiped out just about every powerful super on Primal Earth and dammit we've got to stop them. They will spend the rest of their lives under suspicion and under restrictions and hated by a good portion of the citizens of Primal Earth (and refugees from Praetoria) for what they've done. It's more an internal redemption, a change of heart, a sense of remorse. (And then probably some permanent sacrifice - dramatically speaking, redeemed villains don't have long life spans.)