Samuel_Tow

Then you misread. What was in the mind of the original poster was "If I'm reading this right, this is incredibly stupid. Please tell me I'm reading this wrong because I hope the developers are better than this."

Pointing out storyline inconsistencies works about as well as pointing out text errors - no-one cares, no-one does anything about it. The Khaan TF still exists, does it not? I have no illusions that I can affect any lore contradictions in the game, at least not before I die of old age, so my only hope is that the lore, as stated, is actually correct and there's just something I don't get. Because it won't get fixed either way.

I really don't know why that is. Text changes do not take long to make. A few days ago I decided to resurrect an old arc of mine, and I went through what was probably 20KB of text in the form of briefings, clues, system text and objectives in the span of around half an hour, and that spanned a huge 5-mission arc. When I /bug, say, Maria Jenkins' "Ask about this contact" bio because it makes no sense and is riddled with typos, that is a change doable in five minutes, yet those are five minutes which have not been spared in SIX YEARS.

Forgive me if I hold no hope of anything I say affecting existing missions in any way whatsoever.

And I still don't understand why we were surprised that Praetorians wanted to invade us when we knew that at level 20.

That actually happened. There's a reason I bought an electric stove to replace it, and then had to replace a door that slammed shut hard enough to shear a locking bracket out of its frame. Memories not fun.

On topic:

I hear SteelClaw is composing a list of all lists ever made. When this is done, I hear he is planning to make a list of all such lists ever attempted. What he tries after that may or may not force causality to recursively fold back onto itself.

This sounds convincing. It still seems that a "carnival" of psychics would stand out far too much, while we already know there is a whole network of clandestine operatives, but it's not like the Crusaders don't stand out like a sore thumb already.

It does make sense that Vanessa would be the leader of whatever these psychics are organised as, however, this much I agree.

Vanessa DeVore has no psychic powers of her own, she gains her tremendous powers from the porcelain mask that has Giovanna Scaldi locked inside it. To redesign her character with inherent psychics and no Giovanna is a very, very, VERY abrupt re-write for what is ostensibly a signature character, and I just don't see that happening. That said, it's quite possible that Praetorian Earth Giovanna wasn't such a jerkass and is actually a kind soul helping Vanessa do good.

Based on the quality of writing in this arc, my stated reason would be "because they didn't want to bother to change it." They did drop out a mission or two, like looking for Clockworks in all the wrong places (Psychic Clockwork Earth), but they left this one in for seemingly no reason. It's a plot point that serves no practical or dramatic purpose, which makes it feel as much like a cop-out as it does like a legitimate plot point.

At the end of the "Carnival of Light" mission, Calvin Scott contacts Tina and tells her that the Carnival of Light is working for the Resistance, and she asserts that this is why they were attacked. We are out-and-out told this. This, then, makes me wonder why a paramilitary underground resistance movement would host a Venetian carnival, but we've been over this already.

So you want a new game. Are you willing to wait another couple of years and pay another $50?

That's a good way to put it. Having read the official Carnival of Shadows backstory (which I didn't know was there), it seems that I was half-right about the Primal Earth Vanessa DeVore. She started out with noble intentions, fielding vigilantes, but ended up a figurative vampire, ruling over an entire empire built around the sole purpose of feeding her hunger for psychic energy, decadent entertainment and honest-to-God power and control. This is only partly the result of Giovanna Scaldi's decadence, and in perhaps equal part to Vanessa's own greed.

Interestingly, bringing Mother Mayhem into the story draws a good parallel. On Praetorian Earth, it is Mother Mayhem who has built herself an empire of decadence, if one more appropriate to a totalitarian world. She exists amid an army of psychics whom she recruits, trains, controls and eventually feeds on, and given their state and fates, apparently eventually kills, though perhaps indirectly.

Primal Earth's Vanessa DeVore's motivations and characterisation correspond very closely to those of Mother Mayhem, and because Vanessa's true self was formed by choice and conscious effort, she does indeed appear to be the counterpart not of Praetorian Earth's Vanessa, but to Mother Mayhem, herself. I don't know enough about Sister Psyche to draw a cross parallel, but I could write it off, either.

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I'm still not sure where the Carnival of Light figures into this, however. Praetorian Vanessa is essentially the brood mother of the Resistance, apparently more than second in command to Calvin Scott. She already has a "carnival" in the face of all the Resistance Fighters. This begs the very legitimate question of why she would need another group of followers, why those would be harlequins who'd stand out like a sore thumb, and what would happen to the Resistance without her considerable power to hide them.

Those are not actually criticisms of the lore, as there appears to be more lore to be revealed. I'm just interested to know these things. And any story, be it in a game, movie or book which can make me want to know more gets my support. I'm still largely dubious of the details, and largely because I know why they exist, but I can see how they could be cleaned up. Will they be? My magic 8-ball says "Don't count on it."

OK, I can buy that. Giovanna does show up as your run-of-the-mill Carnie boss, but that could be explained as Vanessa shaping her mistresses to resemble giovanna. I have some degree of doubt that renaissance Italy popularised ultra-short miniskirts, but that's easy to gloss over as artistic license. If we assume that Vanessa's appearance and that of her minions are both shaped by Giovanna Scaldi's influence and tastes, then I can see a good explanation of why both versions would end up looking patently ridiculous, and why their minions might, as well.

This turns my doubt into curiosity as to how a travelling circus can be explained in an environment that really doesn't support the concept. And, yes, I'm aware that other cities exist, but I'm also aware that the environment, what with Earth being mostly taken over by the Devouring Earth, doesn't really lend itself to a travelling anything. It'd be interested to see how those can be explained.

It'd also be interesting to know why absolutely nothing on Praetorian Earth is an exact copy of its Primal Earth counterparts BUT THIS DID. The PPD are different, the Clockwork are different, the villains are different, the heroes are different, the signature characters, even when their names hold true across dimensions, are still different... Yet Vanessa is almost exactly the same, only good? Why? It'd be interesting to see how they justify this... If they ever do.

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In largely unrelated news, something has been bugging me about Tina's arc, to the point where I have to ask about it - what is the point of that entire story? In the old arc, the point was discovering and eventually averting an invasion from Praetorian Earth. This new story seems to have me discover the same thing. Anti-Matter is constructing an instant army with which to attack Primal Earth, and Tina acts like this is the first time she's hearing about "an invasion from Praetoria."

Here's the thing: My character brought the news of an invasion when she swapped over to Primal Earth at level 20. In the process of hunting down Metronome, he led my character and James Noble to a factory where War Walkers were being produced, and they became fully aware that Emperor Cole was preparing an invasion. I was under the impression, both from Calvin Scott and the Dark Watcher, that the point in sending Praetorians over to Earth was to warn of the Invasion and prevent the war. I know for a fact the Dark Watcher know, who would have taken it back to Vanguard, who would have brought it to Tina, considering the Warcher shares other equally important information with her.

So why am I suddenly surprised that Praetorian Earth is getting ready for an invasion? If ANY plot point in the entire arc deserved a ho-hum "Oh, that? Yeah, we knew about that already." response it would be the invasion angle, since the world of Primal Earth ought to have known about this since level 20 and been preparing all the way up to 50. So why is this treated as the big surprise that it isn't while Vanessa's true identity is treated as no secret despite it not having been revealed yet?

What am I missing here?

*edit*
Here's the one sentence which really got to me, from Tina: " If the Praetorians are planning any incursions into our world, we need as much warning as we can get." Lady, I warned you about the Invasion 20 LEVELS AGO! How much more warning than that do you need?

That is his first mission, yes, as all of his other missions depend on the knowledge gained from that one. It's very similar to Maxwell Christopher's first mission where you get him the undiscovered Nemesis intelligence that he keeps referring to in every. Single. Mission that he has for you from then on.[/quote]

I do believe so, yes. Leaving a nameless Carnie boss or a named Carnie boss or even some kind of special Carnie boss would have been far superior, and would have made the mission feel ever so slightly less like a kludge. Why does Vanessa care about my incursion at that particular time when she hasn't shown up ever before? How can she keep me from fighting HER, but not any of her minions? Why did we need this cameo? If it were just a straightforward "Go see if they know anything more." mission, I'd have probably rolled an eye or two, but not really been that bothered. It's filler, which is boring more than it's infuriating. It's when that turns into filler which stomps on established timelines that my left eye starts twitching.

I actually don't remember all of it. Everything I've said so far I've quoted off memory, so I may be forgetting things. I do know she was remembered as a famous person, but not as a famous VILLAIN, that much I know for sure. I may be misremembering what kind of famous person she was remembered as, but I do know for a fact that Harvey would not send heroes to her party if he knew who she REALLY was.

As I recall, Vanessa's jaunt in the Rikti war wasn't as mistress of the Carnival. In fact, the way they're introduced, they feel like they just showed up one day and started hosting parties, which in the 40s would put them at "some time recently." I believe Vanessa's heroics in the Rikti War were genuine and the result of her own will before she came under the influence of Giovana Scaldi, which seems to have tainted her mind.

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Also, remember that Vanessa DIES at the end of To Save a Soul, enacting a violent version of the "Her soul left her body and has stolen some of your endurance." trick. At the end of To Save a Soul, Vanessa's soul leaves her body, leaving it dead and, if I recall correctly, leaving her own original porcelain mask as the souvenir of that arc. I'd have to check if I remember right, but I do know that the final thing she does as she is defeated is a death rattle Psychic Wail with... Pretty grim wording on its combat spam.

More or less. The problem with a lot of the newer TFs is that their basic design assumes multiple people, so even letting them scale doesn't always help. Take the ITF, for instance. Even ignoring the fight with eight or so EBs, you still have Romulus, who I've no reason to believe will be very killable even as an EB with just one player. The tactics I've been employing recently is to have one or two people taunt and "hide" his Nictus while the rest of the team hills him without support, but this physically requires multiple people in a way that is not doable solo.

Asking for TFs to be allowed to scale is a good idea, in my opinion, but a lot of TFs simply wouldn't scale well, and asking for anything more than that is no longer reasonable, considering even just letting them scale down like Ouro TFs is quite a request.

I keep talking about story arcs because I want encounters and stories written with the assumption that the player is solo or possibly has help, rather than that the encounter involves Task Force Something working together. As we've seen, these can still be pretty epic, such as Time After Time and indeed be so slated that they encourage teaming, but are still designed with a single player in mind.

In short, I would love to see soloable TFs for no reward, but would not want this to come at the expense of purpose-designed story arcs.

*edit*
Granted, that's not precisely what your idea is, but I just don't think that anything short of story arcs will really cut it here as far as a complete experience goes.

The thing that bugs me most about inspirations isn't really that the game is balanced around them, but rather that certain encounters seem to be balanced around medium or large inspirations which have no good way of being acquired. I don't mind EBs who need inspirations to fight. I can just pop out and visit a contact, the Arena, Pocket D, the Architec or, as of I19, a Field Medic or a Nurse. Or Mender Snidley Whiplash in Ourobors, if all else fails. If I fail, it's a simple matter of visiting them again to restock and try again.

If, on the other hand, I burn several large inspirations, screw up and die anyway, those are GONE. I really hate one-shot deals like these, and I doubly hate rare consumables.

That's a very one-sided way to look at it, Claws. Some of us are well aware of what work and cost mean, and play these games specifically to get AWAY from those real-life concepts. In real life, I'm a wimp. I COULD spend hours and days and years training up to become a professional athlete, but I'd just fail in the end, so instead I load up Prince of Persia where I can scale walls, vault between flagpoles, leap great distances and heal by drinking the water I'm standing in with my dirty boots. I play video games to get what I can't get in real life because I'm not good enough.

I don't try to tell my boss that I should be paid more because it's unfair that those more skilled and driven than get paid more. I don't complain to the state that the bus fare is unfair because I feel I shouldn't put forth the effort to make enough money to buy a ticket. I don't do these things because that's just how life works. But I just happen to not very much enjoy how life works and I wish that, at least in my pretendy fun games, I didn't have to be the one who sucks and the one who never gets anything simply because I don't want to put in the "work" in an activity that I engage in to get AWAY from work.

You cannot ignore or "fix" some people's desire to get back home after a hard day and sit down to relax with a game that lets you fly around and blast zap people in the balls, and where you don't have to deal with the stresses of real life. For some of us, we want this game to remain just that - a game. Not a job, not a sport, but a game.

Furthermore, I highly disagree with the notion that "It is the effort that makes it that much sweeter," to quote Farah. I know what I want. The things I want have a certain value and a certain cost associated with them. Quite on the contrary to the belief that the higher the cost, the higher the satisfaction, the higher the cost, the less an item is actually worth, because the higher its value has to be for that item to be worth it.

People always examine these situation from the viewpoint of already having put in the work. Once you've paid the price, OF COURSE whatever it is you paid it for will feel very satisfying, because its cost is already past and it's only the value remaining. I always look at these things from the other side of the shopping window. I want all the good toys, obviously, but before I even consider what it would be like to have them, I need to consider if I can, in fact, afford them. Most of the time, I actually can't. Every time I see FLIR camera footage, I remember I want to have one. Man, it would be SO AWESOME to have one of these... Until I remember that these things cost multiple thousands of dollars, which is multiple dozens of times more than I can actually ever conceive of paying for something that has this little practical use to me, personally. Would it be cool to have if one were given to me for free? OH HELL YES! Would I want to PAY for one? I wouldn't, because I couldn't.

Real life can be unpleasant sometimes, but the point of games is that they AREN'T real life. Even if real life isn't as pleasant as I'd like it to be, my games can always provide the kind of pleasant fantasy that makes the harsh reality of life more appealing. Facing situations in my games where I have to either work my *** off or go find a game for babies does not motivate me to try harder and excel. It motivates me to throw my hands in the air and go away. And I don't like it when games make me do that.

I was joking

You had both right, as they're pronounced like you'd pronounce the name Samuel and the word Tow exactly as you described it. I just tried being cheeky for a bit

Which isn't helped by the fact that the map for Carla Brunetti's first mission has been bugged for about four years now, and isn't actually the lost city of Ornabega but rather a run-of-the-mill blue cave. It's almost embarrassing to see the entry pop-up talk about worked stone and pillars when I'm in a natural erosion cave slash 1850s coal mine. And, yes, I've bugged this. Repeatedly.

However, the new Posi is not the first to offend in this manner. The Hollows did this way back when it first came about in I2. Back then, the final mission from Talshak the Mystic (before the Caverns of Transcendence) sends you into the lost city of Oranbega without so much as making a point of saying this is anything out of the ordinary. They've been practically unable to keep their own story straight very much from day one from the moment they started adding to it, when I think back far enough.

Remember the Shadow Shard cop out teleporters? Sure you do! Everyone who goes there does. Remember the Mole Points? No? Well, apparently, neither do the developers, because they've apparently forgotten that the contacts in there are talking about how they're planning to set down another Mole Point further in in a few months. That was six years ago. Hell, it took them a year just to fix the invisible interior in the Mole Points, and no, I will never let this go.

Sum-Uu-Elle Tau

Whaaat?

One thing I never got was why Praetorian Earth Vanessa DeVore was dressed in this ridiculous outfit. I tend to want to "get" things that are presented to me, and this I simply don't get.

Primal Earth Vanessa's outfit is an extension of the evil carnival she has created, a sort of ring mistress in her evil travelling circus. It makes sense for her to look like she does because this is only natural for someone who created an organisation like the Carnival of Shadows. Effects follow causes in this way. Primal Earth's Carnival of Shadows represent a kind of mystical entertainment because Vanessa feeds on the decadence and simplicity of modern society.

On Praetorian Earth, however, effects precede causes. Primal Earth Vanessa DeVore is dressed loud enough to shatter glass, therefore Praetorian Earth Vanessa DeVore needs to be dressed in ridiculous colours and absurd short skirts, too. Why? Well, we're not sure yet, but we know this has to be like that, other wise, well... How would we know that's her? We have the effect - Vanessa's mannerisms and clothing - but we lack and cause for this. And this instantly makes me raise an eyebrow and ask "Wait, why?" This is never explained, and even when it is, it will just sound like a cross between a cop-out and a ret-con.

They built the world of Praetoria around "reflections" or Primal Earth characters but just... Never really got around to giving justifications to all of them, it seems. If the original City of Heroes followed a story bible that made it feel like there was a hidden plot behind every little event, no matter how insignificant, the new City of Heroes feels like there isn't enough plot to make even the stories we're seeing, and they're slapping the threads together ad-hoc. Which really isn't a good vibe to be getting from what could be a good story.

This I will actually buy. Not only CAN Vanessa leave her "psychic fingerprint" on her minions, she does that as a means of controlling them. Each porcelain mask a Carnival of Shadows wears actually contains a fragment of DeVore's soul which serves to both control the mind of the specific minion as well as to grant that minion psychic powers, or increase the minion's psychic powers if she already had those. We are never really led to believe that any of the Carnival ever had psychic powers of their own, and indeed most don't show the presence of any, only that it's Vanessa's own massive psychic powers that manifest through her minions.

In this you have a point. If the clockwork are capable of identifying psychic signatures, which given the Seer programme's success they probably are, then it makes sense why they would target the Carnival of Shadows based on Vanessa DeVore's mind being present in all of them. So this explains at least one problem in a way that's actually well consistent with established lore, grounded in precedent and without contradicting any other stories I'm aware of. This is GOOD!

It still doesn't explain why I'd bother picking on a random Carnie warehouse in a random part of town even though I know ahead of time they don't know anything, but we'll leave that for another time.

For now, thank you for showing me this angle. I really like it

Yeah, this is basically a level cap increase, and it should be treated like it. I don't really claim to want enough story arcs to get me from the first to the last Incarnate slot all filled in with very rares (though that would be nice), but I still want to see at least a few places where my Incarnate power is relevant outside of team-only content.

I turn back to the diminishing power effect, where now that I'm so very strong... I suddenly can't do anything which actually requires that strength on my own. Sure, keep the BIG events for the BIG teams, but let me have a few solo adventures as a godlike being on the side. Maybe go to another dimension to stop a world war, maybe go to Tokyo to fight Godzilla... Just SOMETHING.

I actually have to agree with the Geko's general stance here, because this is something I've always been a fan of. Missions, arcs, tasks and encounters which are difficult not simply because they throw bigger numbers at you, requiring even more math, optimization and investment in a built to head-butt your way through, but such encounters which require the player to actually think, be observant of his environment and react to events as they occur.

I HATE the fight with Protean, just for example... And yet I LOVE the fight with Protean. It feels like I'm actually doing something. It feels like, if I don't watch what he's doing and avoid his Power Syphon, I will lose and get beaten down like a dog, but that if I avoid that one power, I can beat the teeth out of his head. The Syphon is slow enough to give me time to react, but still fast enough to not let me ignore it, and it adds an interesting dynamic to the encounter.

That's the sort of thing I enjoy far more than... Well, Reichsman.

See, this is actually a very interesting point to work on, if not for one small problem: Vanessa is working with the Resistance. This doesn't change between 20 and 40, because this is what Calvin Scott tells Tina McIntyre after the mission in question. The Resistance themselves are modelled after the Freakshow in terms of general theme - they are chaotic, free-spirited, unstructured rebels who seem to enjoy action more than they enjoy culture, which is one of the points levelled against them.

The Carnival of Shadows, on the other hand, seem to have an entirely different thematic and motivation behind them, Fat Cat City notwithstanding. They appear to be a mixture between the decadence of high society and the rustic charms and wonderment of the old travelling circuses. This is a very unique thematic which only really becomes relevant in a free society of consumers, not one rigidly structured and with culture strictly controlled.

Were Vanessa DeVore a free agent out to employ her own brand of revolution through freeing the spirits and desires of the people of Praetoria, rather than through inciting anger and resentment (a hippie, in other words), then this would be a legitimate move. However, for whatever operational mandate, EVERYTHING on Praetorian Earth has to subscribe to this heedless duality between Resistance and Loyalists, much in the same way as all heroes get lumped in with Longbow and all villains with Arachnos. Vanessa is not, in fact, a free agent, but is instead one who answers to Calvin Scott directly, as do all of the Resistance, which limits the extent to which I can accept her freedom of action and association. There's this underlying "You're either Nexus or against us." mentality that serves to undermine the Resistances' otherwise good guy position and draw them into moral ambiguity which serves to counter the potential a Vanessa DeVore with less ugly hair can bring.

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I actually hope that - slightly off-topic - the duality of Praetoria will be loosened up quite a bit, allowing for third factions more easily. This would leave room for the Syndicate and their associates, for the Devouring Earth, for members of other states and other cities, for rival revolutionaries and, indeed, for Vanessa DeVore as a free radical leading her own resistance group unaffiliated with the capital R Resistance.

This would make for a far better story.

Or when the Rain of Fire will kill them before they can run out of its are of effect, which it will do with enough slotting, buffs and Fireball and Fire Breath beforehand.

An ITF cannot give you 8 shards. The things you defeat in it will do that, which is no different than if you'd done regular content or street-swept.