Samuel_Tow

I'm not trying to burn the guy, honestly. Here's the thing, though - if it were JUST the Statesman, I could see that. His daughter died and he's mad as hell and he can't take this any more. Fine, I can dig it. But it's not JUST him. It's every bloody member of the entire Freedom Phalanx that's doing this. It feels like the entire world was made dumber and more capable so that I could shine without actually having been elevated in anyway, and it's not working.

Having Statesman botch? Fine. Having Manticore botch? It can happen. Having Synapse botch? He's a cocky her. Having Psyche botch? Malaise got under her skin. Having the Midnighters botch? Eh, their club got invaded. Having them ALL botch, though? It's Botchamania 199!

Having one person act irresponsible can be attributed to that one person just being heartbroken and not thinking clearly. Having EVERY person act irresponsible, on the other hand, can only be attributed to the writers' invisible hand godmodding all smart decisions away from otherwise capable heroes' minds, and it just comes off as meanspirited.

It actually reminds me of Frank Miller's the Dark Knight Strikes Again. Make Superman look bad so you can make batman look good. In other words, make the Phalanx look bad so you can make us look good. But it leaves a bad taste in my mind to have risen to prominence over the ruined reputations of the Freedom Phalanx, ruined specifically and intentionally so that I could take their place. It makes me feel like my heroes are villains. Or Power Loyalists, at the very least.

That's part of the problem, Tenzhi. I never cared about the Freedom Phalanx as people before, because we were never given a chance to know them as people. And no, I didn't read the books or the comics. I'm going off of what's in-game. All we had to go off of was that these are the premier heroes that everyone looks up to and who saved the world way back when, and who are too powerful to get involved into the game until right at the very end.

To my eyes, the way to make me care would have been to show me these people's actual personalities off-duty, to see the person behind the mask and the goofy name, as it were. That didn't happen. Instead, we get to see their personalities bleed through into their work, and it's exactly those personalities which cause them to fail, and fail repeatedly. Essentially, they succeed as heroes but fail as people. And I'm supposed to care about them after that?

I want to hijack your post for a second to drag it into a different direction. Psychic powers are like the Force, in the sense that you really, REALLY shouldn't explain them. They work because they work, and how they work isn't fully understood. The last thing we want is to introduce Midichlorians as a scientific explanation for psychic powers, because not only would that degrade the flair behind most canon psychics, but it would be Origin of Powers all over again.

You're quite welcome Story writing and character design are some of my passions, and I like bring those up as often as I can.

Again, I want to point out that I don't mind the SSA story much at all. It's a bit convoluted, but it's a chessmaster's plan, so that's par for the course. It's also a good test of mettle for the heroes, and that's always a cool story thread.

The problem is that the heroes utterly fail their test of mettle in every way that's possible to fail, as well as some which are essentially impossible, to mis-quote Dr. Breen. The story is decent, but it's the characters that let it down, because the plot requires everyone to be incompetent. We can argue about WHY they're incompetent till the cows come how, but the simple fact remains that they are. They make obvious mistakes, they act like ******** and they fail at their life's goal of being super heroes.

The Freedom Phalanx characters deserved better. They deserved to be treated with more dignity and respect. They deserved to be the high ideals we should all strive to match, so that when we finally do, the accomplishment of it is worth a crap.

That's a very, very good point. What David did and is still doing really is head and shoulders above the whole rest of the game development community in general, at least speaking of major companies. Yes, there's been a lot of talk about giving us what we want, but very, VERY little talk of actually ASKING us what we want. Until David Nakayama did just that. He's the guy who came to the forums and asked us what we wanted, then worked with us until we could come up with something which is workable, then did that. He's the guy who came in with enthusiastic suggestions that we rebuffed almost wholesale, and he just shrugged, adapted and found what we wanted.

As far as I'm concerned, involving players in "all things art" was a major step in getting us what I want, to say nothing of a PR miracle like I haven't seen before. Involving us in other parts of game development - such a story writing - would be a very good next step, but I'm not sure if anyone else can do it like David can. Synapse has come pretty close, though.

Actually... I'm told of an interesting story from an old Beta. Pre-Live, Keith Nancy was written as some kind of disgruntled official who hated our character and was just looking for an excuse to order us killed. And he used an army of invincible ninja to do it. It wasn't until much player outcry that this is a horrible idea that he was changed into the sort of passive-aggressive, untrusting yet lovable deadpan that we have today. And it's exactly this kind of angst, moral ambiguity and degrading of what it means to be a hero that I'm seeing all over the SSAs. And I really don't like it, because it mars what could have been a compelling story.

That's a very good way of putting it, Oz. I'll remember that. And you're right. I suspect that this is just a fundamental misunderstanding of what players want when they ask for their characters to be more capable, but by this point, it's starting to feel like a backhanded insult towards our intelligence. "There, now everyone sucks except for you! Happy now, Ms. Mary Sue?" No! Not at all. I wanted the world to keep its great heroes. I admired these guys. I wanted to be like them, but you wouldn't let me!

I wanted to be more like the Freedom Phalanx. I didn't want the Freedom Phalanx to be more like me. Or more like what the writers apparently think I am.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen, essentially. It's sad, and not just because these people were the icons of the game who are now demolished. It's sad because this has become a serial practice. Ever since Going Rogue, the people in charge have systematically defaced the entire game, tearing down everything that was iconic, beautiful or great, and stomped on it in the mud. The Freedom Phalanx were pretty much the last of the old guard of elemental heroes who stood their ground DESPITE being just human, and now they're reduced to squabbling morons, just like everyone else. We may have stopped the invasion of Praetorian armies, but we failed to stop the invasion of Praetorian storytelling and characterisation.

You know... When I first started playing City of Heroes, it was a positive, uplifting game. Sure, villains existed, people got killed and bad stuff happened, but at the end of the day, we helped make things right and everyone lived happily ever after. What, really, was wrong with that? Why did we need go through the 90s of comic book history all over again and make the whole world suck? What did that accomplish, aside from putting us in a grim and gritty world where there are no more true heroes left, and the only relics of the old time are ineffectual when they're not outright self-destructive?

The "Who Will Die?" storyline could have been told in a way that uplifted the Freedom Phalanx and finally showed us exactly what it was that made them the world's premier heroes, with us right alongside them, proving that we are now their equals. Instead, all this showed is that the Freedom Phalanx are not worthy of being the world's heroes. They're not strong enough, they're not cohesive enough as a team, and they're ******** to top it all off. It's to the point where I start to wonder how exactly they became so famous in the first place, and what sad, sorry state of affairs the super hero community must have been for THESE people to be the best.

And that's a HORRIBLE way to look at the Freedom Phalanx.

Again, though - I personally don't really mind Leifeld's artwork or even the... "Bulk" of most of his characters. I'm quite partial to that style, myself. Especially the big guns. I just really don't like his taste for costume design. Like I said before, his tend to be very visually busy, and it ends up sapping their identity in the long run.

A complex costume is not the same as a busy costume. Thor movie Thor has a fairly complex, intricate costume, but it's still iconic in its own way. Bayformers movie Transformers are so busy I can't tell them apart. Literally CANNOT.

This part actually is explained, somewhat. Blitz teleports away from the conference room and barricades himself inside a fortified, heavily-guarded building. However, he's the governor of just one small island, and it's clear to everybody that Longbow, let alone the US military, can break through all of his defences and kill him. It'll just take time. They can't bomb the place because Alexis is still in there, presumed to be alive and held hostage, which is why the player character is sent in, instead.

But "Paragon City" is at war with Warburg after that stunt, make no mistake. We start raiding their missile silos (again, why just NOW?!?) and planning to overthrow their governor. If Blitz had died in the fight, no-one would have mourned, but he didn't, and executing prisoners of war is bad practice all around, so he's taken for trial.

What makes somewhat less sense is why Manticore doesn't just kill Malaise when he attacks. It's been suggested that the player character would have stopped Manticore, but really? It's a fight. The guy's trying to kill you. If you shoot an arrow through his head, it might look bad, but it's a mortal fight. **** happens, people get dead. The public will understand. And again - I was never under the impression that my character did anything to stop Manticore. If I'd brought a rifle, I'd have shot at the guy with it.

Whether this is Leifeld's own work or not, it's a Leifeldian design. To be honest, I never really minded Leifeld's work, the one complaint I can agree with most people on is that all of his designs are visually so busy that in a group shot, it's hard to tell where one character ends and another begins. Rather than characters having their own colour schemes or sharing one overall colour scheme, they are all an unpredictable mix of multiple colours and shapes that, rather than give them identity, just makes them all look the same, because none of them have truly iconic looks.

I wouldn't go as far as to compare Penny Yin's costume to something like Youngbloods, but it is busy in a similar way. My beef with it really is the overwhelming complexity of colour on that outfit. I could see her costume work if it were complex in terms of surface texturing, but simpler in terms of overall colour patterns, or maybe complex in colour patterns but simpler in base design.

But think about this for a moment - take her costume and colour it all white. All of it. OK, you can't, but try to imagine it being all white. Wouldn't that still have plenty of detail to be an interesting costume even that way? AND, more importantly, would it not be far more memorable?

Detailing is not the problem. But smaller details need to work together to create larger shapes that the eye can easily trace a simple picture over that's easier to remember. Most people - myself among them - are not that good at remembering complex patterns, and a costume is much more memorable if it boils down to a small collection of more basic concepts.

*edit*
Nevertheless, for your reference, Youngblood:

In other words, instead of lovable jerk Batman, we have The God Damn Batman, huh?

Pretty much, yeah. I want two things, in this regard:

1. That the story my character goes through feel like it's shaped by that character's actions at least somewhat.
2. That this character be put over strong and not be made a fool, a wimp or a loser.

Neither of those required the disgrace and humiliation of the Freedom Phalanx. In fact, #1 fails right out the gate on the villain side of things, since it's all Darryn's plan and our villains are just tagging along mooching for generic-term "power." But it's still HIS plan, and we're still HIS pawns.

Even hero-side, though, look at how things transpire. My character is the only capable person on the team, and the only one not afflicted by the third act stupidity, so it seems like I'm doing a lot, but I'm really not. I can't make up for the incompetence of the WHOLE team, "affected" as they are, so I mostly fail and can only measure up to people nor worthy of setting an example. Now imagine if this were the Freedom Phalanx at their prime, facing a threat that, even when they play to their strengths, they still can't defeat until our characters intervene. Imagine how much stronger of a build this would have been. Instead, they're all compromised, they all suck, and anything we bring is the most useful, because it's better than the nothing the Freedom Phalanx contribute. Especially Manticore, who does more harm than good by a fair margin.

I get that this is standard booking. The good guys are stronger in a straight fight, but the bad guys keep winning by cheating, until they're finally put in a no disqualification match at Wrestlemania where the bad guys can't cheat. But for this to work, you need to get the impression that the good guys would have won if the bad guys hadn't cheated, and I don't get that sense with the Freedom Phalanx. Instead, I get the sense of a group on the verge of collapse, staffed by people who can't stand each other and are just looking for an excuse to either take off or pick a fight. I wonder how they survived this long.

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.

Having seen how that came out, I stand by my position, but find myself having to attack an addendum: I want to be the star of story full of people I can either admire or respect. The heroes I admire as the ideals I strive to meet and eventually exceed - and that last part is what counts. The villains I respect as the credible, serious threats that I strive to hold back and eventually defeat entirely. When I and others asked for our characters to have have a more respectable place in their own missions, we asked for our characters to be elevated, not for everyone else to be dragged through the mud. That's the fine print which I honestly assumed was implied in everything we suggested.

Like you, I can't speak for everyone, but I never got the impression that people who wanted more for their characters out of the story - people like me - actually wanted to destroy all the signature characters. I'm convinced that we wanted quite the opposite, to be given the opportunity to proceed past where the signature characters stop.

This is the benefit to having ideals in a video game - unlike in real life, these can be achieved. They give us a greater goal in our gameplay than just the next fistfight and just the next glob of Merits. They give us a measuring stick and a perspective of progress. When my villain stands toe-to-toe with the Statesman, the undefeatable hero built up for the past 50 levels, I feel a certain sense of accomplishment. That's not because HE is a bigshot, so much as because it means I have become a big-shot like him.

Without ideals, all we have left is to waddle in the mud ourselves. We improve, yes, but but there's no scale to progress along. We were the only competent people before, we're the only competent people now, and nothing has changed. The benefit to having a consistent, persistent world is lost if this world has nothing to offer us as we progress through it.

In relation to the Incarnate system, I have said that once we become Incarnates, we are no longer rookies and should not have to be relegated to menial tasks. I argued that we're the demigods who should be the raid bosses, the movers and shakers, the heroes of a story no-one else is good enough to tackle. But that's AFTER level 50, and AFTER we have gone beyond where all signature characters before cap out. I never wanted to see my own progression take the form of the regression of anyone else.

---

City of Heroes needs heroes, that's the bottom line. For the longest time, the Freedom Phalanx were these heroes, the ones we all measured ourselves against. My ultimate dream when starting a new character is to one day be on their level, even exceed their level, and with tasks like the Mender Silos TF, I could already do that. Now that they have been defaced, that particular TF is so much less impactful. What is so interesting about fighting or siding with the people who were defeated when one man caused their whole group to implode?

Yes, they're just people. But here's the thing - the people of City of Heroes should be stronger than this.

Huh... Hair higlights as opposed to dying the hair? Yeah, I can roll with that. I suppose I either misread or misunderstood what David meant with his explanation. I just think it comes off as less rebellious than one might think from reading about it, because to me, it just looks like black hair, even from up close. I mean, I get that it's not, but the highlight is so subtle it gets lost in what is an otherwise very busy, in-your-face costume.

I should hope not, but I'm clearly biassed. Never was a fan of unnecessary costumes and pretentious names. The guy's done pretty well for himself using his real name and his common clothes. I can see him getting some nicer ones, but I just don't see the logic behind a villain costume. His powers aren't costume-derived.

And the last time a canon villain renamed herself, she chose the name "Sorceress Serene." I'd rather people used their real names, in light of that

First of all, it WAS his fault. He got beaten and lost her. "It was too tough" is not an excuse. He even admits it was a mistake in those exact words, yet refuses to apologise for his mistake like a stubborn little kid.

Secondly, he's arrogant, dismissive and horribly insensitive to a person having suffered a great loss BECAUSE OF HIM. That makes him a horrible person. He's twice as horrible because at no point does Manticore seem interested in actually protecting his wife. He mentions her once as a ticket to get in, but when he shows up later, he's happy the Dirge is playing. The Dirge which is the reason his wife is put in a coma. He's not there for Psyche, he's there for Malaise. And that's just being a jerk.

And finally, he was right about Malaise's plan AFTER he got Alexis killed as part of said plan. That doesn't give him a lot of credit to order people around.

I can excuse the rest of the Phalanx. They make rookie mistakes and bicker, but at least they have redeeming qualities. I can sympathise with their plight even despite all their failings. But Manticore is the REASON this whole thing goes down as it does. He's the linchpin around which the marry-go-round of fail revolves. Manticore does NOTHING redeeming the entire time, say NOTHING anyone can sympathise with and only serves to cause trouble for everybody. If the point of the story was to make me hate Manticore like I hate Westin Phipps, then job done!

*edit*
And I realise I'm being very hard on Manticore, but the truth of the matter is I'm losing my patience with the characters in City of Heroes. They are all so "realistic" that I'm growing tired of forgiving them for the ever-lengthening list of shortcomings that they simply cannot overcome. It really does feel that my character is the only capable person left in the game, as well as the only nice one, with the proper choice of dialogue options where applicable. And while I don't mind being at the top, I wish that top stood a little taller.

Those are simply the situations where people show their true colours. It's easy to be a hero and do the right thing when everything's hunky-dory. It's when the **** hits the fan and personal tragedy strikes that we sort the real heroes from the fair-weather heroes. Real life cops and soldiers have people to replace them. Heroes don't have that luxury, and being able to step up even in the face of tragedy and hardship is what makes them the icons we want to respect and admire.

You're excusing the story because they're just real people, but these are real people who have no business being the premier, greatest heroes of their world. They are not competent or committed enough, and their breakdown is just the end result of a flawed group composed of flawed people to begin with. If these were the Shining Stars or Faultline and Fusionette, I could maybe see that. They're all struggling to survive. But the Freedom Phalanx were the face of heroes for many years. They have always been the ideal we strive to meet and surpass.

Well, no longer. Now they're just the same kind of flawed, weak, horrible people, just like the rest of them. Congratulations, you have made it so that we are now better then them, but at what cost? We no longer have an ideal to aspire to. The Freedom Phalanx represent nothing at all. They're just a bunch of supercharged powerhouses that represent nothing that's worth emulating. They have no unity, they have no ideology, they no commitment to the cause, they don't even have the basic human decency to put others before themselves. Why, really, do we call them heroes any more, if they fail at heroes so horribly, and apparently have always felt the way they do and acted the way they do.

The Freedom Phalanx is no longer an ideal not because they failed, but because of HOW they failed. Because at the time when they needed each other the most, they instead chose to bicker, fight each other and run off. Because they failed at even the most basic use of their powers. Because their failed as friends, as heroes and failed as a whole. I'm sure I'd feel so bad about it if it weren't entirely their own fault. And not only are all the deaths and personal tragedies the Freedom Phalanx's own fault, every person who dies to Rularuu, to Daryn Wade or anything else that comes of it, every one of these deaths will be on their hands.

I believe that if a person takes on a responsibility, then that person needs to be committed to it. If no replacement is available, then that person simply needs to grin and bear that responsibility. Being able to do so vs. breaking down and failing miserably is the dividing line between the hero and the wannabe. And the Phalanx proved to be the wannabes, after all these years. I no longer have any respect for any of the people that have shown up in the SSAs thus far, and the more you explain how they're justified to suck, the less respect I have for them overall.

The sad truth is that City of Heroes in general no longer seems to hold any ideals, and is actively tearing down the ones we have for the sake of gritty realism or however you want to call it. Because real life is harsh, sad and devastating, so should our game be, and so it has been in recent years, truth be told. Dark, depressing and gritty. People die, people lose their innocence, people break down and fail. This isn't why I came here. Back in 2004, this isn't what sold me on the game. I didn't hear that bombastic narrator read "City of Heroes, where YOU are the hero!" and think to myself "Yes! A game where a hero's will is going to be broken as that hero is proven to be just a man and not up to the task."

You act as though strong people don't exist in the real world, when they do. Maybe no often, maybe not close together, but they do. A strong Freedom Phalanx defeated DESPITE their best efforts, rather than BECAUSE of said best efforts, would have been no less realistic than what we got. It would have simply been realistic in a fictional universe. A Freedom Phalanx made up of people I want to aspire to be like is no less realistic than a Freedom Phalanx made up of people I want to slap. The latter is simply more common, but no more realistic.

You know what I'm fixating on? She has a belly button. When can I have one of those?

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. And SisP has spent years in a coma before. She can be cured from this one, in time.

Honestly, when I first played SSA4, that scene at the end of SSA3 was in my head. "You, dear! You're next!" I was sure Malaise was going to mindrape her and kill her, or worse, and I wouldn't be able to do anything about it, but no! I actually get to help the poor woman, and in a pretty big way. Again, it's not a total success, but considering how I utterly failed to accomplish anything interesting in SSA3, killing Malaise and saving Psyche's life was an accomplishment.

Heh, good point We may not have helped much, but that's more than can be said for the Freedom Phalanx, whose every move makes everything worse. We're making massive differential progress here!

Sure, I'll bite. From the hero-side point of view:

SSA1: It transpires that the Lost are up to something, but we're not sure if we can trust the Pariah who's giving us this information, and we don't know about the Obelisk. We never learn who they're targeting, but we find something disturbing out - "someone" has tipped the Lost off about the Obelisk, and has given them a magical artefact a: A Slow Field Generator. This artefact generates and almost invisible forcefield that saps the kinetic energy of anyone who crosses it, slowing them down considerably. Suddenly, it becomes clear who they're targeting - the one hero whose primary super power is enhanced speed. We try to call Synapse, but he's not answering. It turns out he went to investigate massive build-up of energy, never suspecting the Lost are laying a trap.

That way, we have Darryn Wade acting smart by pinning the blame on other people. We have Synapse acting to his strengths - the situation requires immediate action, and he's the only one fast enough to respond. Synapse also loses not because he sucks, but because someone counted on him to play to his strengths, and thus laid a trap for him. Everyone comes off competent.

SSA2: When Darryn Wade shows up to "help" the Midnight Squad, Midnighters immediately attack him on sight. He tries to explain why he's here, but they're determined to put him in a cell first, THEN have him explain himself. He pouts and leaves, leaving the Midnighters to fight off the Rulu Shin. When it's all said and done, the Midnighters IMMEDIATELY set out to investigate the full scale of thefts that occurred, and immediately assume some or all of those thefts were done by Darryn Wade. They can't track what's missing and who took it, however, because the chaos left behind by the Rulu Shin has obscured any clues. The rest of the arc plays out like it does now.

Here, again, Wade comes off smart. He feigns help, as though wanting to let bygones be bygones, but has the moral high ground of having been chased off. The Midnighters know he stole artefacts, but because he has the reputation of a nuisance and a petty thief, they assert that he merely took advantage of the Rulu Shin raid, rather than orchestrating it. This way, he has a reason to have been there, rather than leaving the question of what he was doing at the mansion open. And, no, he was obviously not there to help, that much is obvious even to the untrained eye. The Midnighters, in turn, don't leave like idiots. They know Wade was there to steal, they know he took something, but they can't be sure which threat is the more pressing. A proper investigation takes time, and the more immediate danger are the Rulu Shin. Wade has thus counted on the Midnight Club to be competent and address the greater threat and assume his to be lesser.

SSA3: Blitz sends a secret message that Arachnos are on the verge of overrunning his positions and ceasing control of the Warburg missiles to use for themselves. He offers to surrender himself and the missiles to Paragon City, but only if Alexis Cole-Duncan is present to negotiate his surrender. He doesn't trust anyone else to honour his requests, claiming that any other hero will just kill him as soon as he surrenders for all the missiles he's launched at Paragon City. Only Alexis can be trusted to actually negotiate his surrender terms with him.

This would be smart of Blitz to do. It gives him a plausible reason for why he's surrendering that a hero could buy. If Arachnos catch him, his dead, so he wants to save his own skin and surrender to the heroes, instead. He has no plans to surrender, obviously, but it's a plausible explanation why he's broaching the subject in the first place. It also gives him a plausible reason for why he needs Alexis there, and not Manticore or Statesman or anyone else who might put indignation before justice. He needs someone who doesn't want him dead. It's smart to phrase your request like this, because then the heroes aren't asking why Blitz is doing this. They might be asking why he's REALLY doing it, but at least they can't discount the possibility that he's honest.

SSA3, redux: I don't have a good reason why the whole Freedom Phalanx can't be there. Can we think of one?

Let's roll with the idea that only Manticore can serve as security. He's more than capable enough, and he has a very large Longbow force with him, probably enough to occupy the island and easily enough to handle any potential trap. Only it turns out there's a mole. A disaffected Longbow Commander who's been applying to become a Warden for years but keeps being rejected has found a different way to gain that kind of power - Wade's magic artefacts. He's the one who cuts Longbow's communication right at the worst possible time, allowing Arachnos forces to take them down in a number of small skirmishes without ever raising a general alarm. Without a coordinated defensive strategy and no communication, the entire Longbow force is taken down before Manticore and Alexis even know something is going on. They both take their planned escape route, only the traitor Commander has set up a massive ambush on the way. Manticore is overwhelmed, but explains how Alexis kicked off her high heels and fought off a whole squad of Arachnos soldiers, but was eventually overwhelmed.

This, again, makes Wade smart, because he works by proxy. He gives artefacts to the traitor, but no-one can tell where they came from. For all anyone knows, it was Malaise who gave them to the guy, having bought them from the black market. Manticore, Longbow and even Alexis come off as competent and effective, but they lose because they were betrayed by someone they relied on. They were taken down not because they suck, but because overwhelming numbers of Arachnos soldiers swept the Longbow positions room by room, taking on small groups of Longbow one by one without them being able to raise an alarm. Without his Longbow backup that he counted on to have, Manticore isn't strong enough to protect Alexis, but he still comes off as smart for having to be betrayed from within to fail. Alexis, too, doesn't come off like a damsel in distress. She fights for her freedom, but ultimately fails, selling her as a legitimate, if retired hero.

SSA3: Again. Malaise show up, admits he masterminded the whole deal and claims he brainwashed and manipulated Blitz into everything. He taunts Manticore to kill him repeatedly, forcing Manticore to make a choice and take the Batman high ground of not killing him and becoming like him. At one point, Manticore decides to kill Malaise anyway, and the player is forced to talk him down and, if necessary, fight him, but only until he drops down to about 90% health.

Again, Wade comes off smart. He works through Malaise, who's both evidently crazy and comes off like a Mastermind himself. It appears that he killed Alexis for no reason other than to mess with Manticore and put him at odds with his wife, so he could then mess with Psyche. Malaise has a reasonable motive. He could even say that's what he wants, and he'll still have the crazy excuse. Manticore, in turn, has not just reason to not kill him, in the "I won't do what you're asking me to do!" sense, but also because the player ACTS to prevent it. He doesn't come off as smart, but he at least comes off as a person. Manti is still a dick for not having told Statesman and Liberty, but Blitz has threatened to launch all his missiles, and they can't be trusted to not overreact. It's a mistake, and a fairly obvious one, but it still happens.

SSA4: We start with Manticore apologising to Ms. Liberty about the death of her mother, but she's angry with him and doesn't want to hear it. Manticore is worried about his wife, because he's the Batman and he knows something bad will happen, but Liberty suspects that he just wants to kill Malaise, so she stands her ground. In the follow-up conversation, Liberty explains that she's sorry she went off on Manticore, and that she's still shaken up from her mother's death and from the argument she had with her grandfather about it, and she took it out on Manticore. Still, she doesn't know what to think about him any more, she doesn't exactly trust his judgement and she's worried he's distract Sister Psyche, so he can't be allowed inside. In the meantime, the Statesman is convinced there's something more going on, and he has brashly went ahead to investigate on his own, believing that the Freedom Phalanx are strong enough without him. He's been talking about stepping down and trying to help his friends step up, so he thinks they're ready.

This gives Manticore a reason to want to be present - to help his wife in case something goes wrong. It also makes Manticore not an ******* by trying to apologise and accepting Liberty's anger, knowing he deserves it. This has the unfortunate consequence of putting Liberty in the wrong for yelling at him, but she has her reasons - her mother died, and she got into a fight with her grandfather. It's not exactly perfect, but it's understandable. It also gives her a reason to want Manticore out beyond just being pissed off. She doesn't trust him to control his temper, especially after trying to kill Malaise once already. It also gives the Statesman a better reason to abandon his team - he believes they're strong enough to do without him, and this one is personal for him, so he needs to deal with it on his own. He's not stupid and brash, he just knows that what he's going to do to the one responsible, his friends shouldn't be associated with.

SSA4: Redux. The Dirge starts playing and won't stop. An alarm is raised, and Manticore shows up with cops in tow to help out. He's told to back down because the dirge will affect him, but he's determined to help his wife. He quickly comes under the control of the Dirge and the player is forced to fight him. After receiving a call for help back at the cell, the player finds the psychics struggling as the Dirge wears down their mental barriers. At this rate, Malaise will break through any second. The player is asked to knock him out, but Malaise breaks free, leading to a brief fight until Malaise is at 50% health. Following this, he collapses, unconscious. Just then, Aurora collapses, as well, losing the fight against the Dirge, and you're asked to fight a pawn or two of phantoms as you lose your mind to the dirge. Out of all other options, Sister Psyche absorbs all the negative energy from the Dirge, saving the player and Aurora, safe in the knowledge that Malaise is too unconscious to be a thread. However, Malaise's head glows and he is forced back into consciousness, thanks to a new technique Wade taught him. He then enters the mind of the now-weakened Sister Psyche.

This makes Manticore even less of a jerk. He's there to help with the emergency, but walks into a trap not meant for him without realising it and before you can stop him. His motivation is thus pure, and he's not protected because no-one expected him to be there. It's a mistake, yes, but a mistake in the name of love, not in the name of being an asswaffle. Psyche, too, is shown as confident, realising when they're outmatched and resorting to knocking Malaise out. Beyond this, she is forced into lowering her defences and absorbing the Dirge to save her friend and the player. Malaise is also proven to have been clever. Expecting that a simple and effective method for controlling a psychic is to knock him unconscious, he trains to bring himself back to consciousness. Manticore is proven to be both decent AND competent, but walks into a situation that's beyond him, Psyche is proven to be beyond competent, but loses to unforeseen consequences, and the player actually has a use in the mission beyond failing to do anything, even if it's a failure ultimately anyway.

I've not played SSA5 yet (I need a character over level 40, and my Scrapper is level 37), but that's what I'd do to the story arcs if I were forced to change them wile retaining the existing arc and mission structure, with only minor text changes and an event here and there.

This is a cop-out and you know it. "They're just human" is such a broad excuse it can be applied to any and all situations. Why did Manticore stick his own arrow up his nose and pierce his own brain? He's only human. How was he supposed to know you're not supposed to pick your nose with arrows? Why did Sister Psyche walk out naked into the street yesterday? She's only human. She just forgot to put on clothes in the morning. How could statesman forget to breath and die? Oh, he's only human. It's more interesting when he has flaws.

Humans are not idiots. Humans whose entire profession revolves around meta-human affairs, whose very survival depends on understanding and dealing with other meta-humans, are DEFINITELY not idiots. If that's how Manticore operates, he should never have been allowed into the Phalanx to begin with. If that's how capable Sister Psyche is, she should never have lived to be as old as she is. Again, you don't get to be the premier hero in your field by making rookie mistakes. And, no, just being human doesn't excuse it. Professional soldiers are just human, but they don't continuously make terrible decisions over and over again. If they did, they wouldn't have made it out of boot camp. And if they somehow did, they wouldn't have lived long enough to be the best of the best in their field.

I expect the Freedom Phalanx to be competent, as is expected of their position. You can weave a story as to how they were completely unprepared in every way imaginable and how they did exactly the wrong thing in every instance where a choice was relevant, and I'm sure you can make it stick. But that doesn't make it a GOOD story.

All you've been doing so far is defending how the story makes sense, and it can make sense. But that doesn't make it a good story. You've gone on to explain how the Freedom Phalanx can make mistakes. But that doesn't make them competent. You've explained how the various members may have issues, but that doesn't make them any less horrible as people. Because everything they touch fails, every decision they make is wrong and everything they attempt just makes things worse, to the point where I'm the only one seemingly capable of doing anything at all.

Fine, put me over, I don't disagree with it, but all this does is utterly BURY the Freedom Phalanx to the point that not only are they irrelevant and ineffectual, but they're an embarrassment to the super hero community at large. Such is their sudden ineptitude, in fact, that it's almost as if an invisible hand is twisting the plot so that they always fail... Which is exactly what's happening, but I'm not supposed to notice that.

*edit*
I should point out that the core story is not bad, even if I might have slipped into sweeping generalisation and said so a couple of times. The idea behind it is solid. It's just executed in such a way that it simply murders any interest I might have had in any of the characters involved. So far, the only members of the Phalanx (and, yeah, that apparently includes BABs again) that I actually care about are the ones who haven't taken part in the story, if only because they've embarrassed themselves less than their peers.

*edit*
And another thing! There are many ways to "humanise" otherwise super-powered people, and many of them don't involve having them screw up like rookies. I mentioned this many times before, specifically in my Tender Moments thread, but it's worth bringing up here again - making characters appear more human is best achieved by giving us a glimpse at their lives when they are not engaged in whatever they have become an icon of. If we want to give super heroes depth and humanity, this is best achieved by exploring their lives outside of super hero work.

The SSAs don't do that in the slightest. It's work, work and more work, because these people apparently have no private lives that aren't part of their work. Giving them flaws doesn't make them more human. It makes them just as one-dimentional as before, only now they're unreasonably crap heroes where before they were unreasonably perfect heroes. It's like turning Samus Aran into a winmpy, insecure, ineffectual klutz in an effort to give her character, which just serves to make people hate her and the people who wrote dialogue for her, too.

Exactly. I want to stress that I really don't have a problem with the storyline in the broader sense. It's an idea of good facing some very hard times at the hands of a very capable individual. I can buy Darryn as that guy. Sure, he looks like he's small fry, but his ultimate goal is "to bring Rularuu to the here and now" and he has "walked on the backs of giants." I can see him being awesome.

But if the Freedom Phalanx are the best our world has to offer, then I really feel no accomplishment in surpassing them. My capabilities haven't increased, it's just that everyone who was competent aside from me has become stupid and ineffectual. It's not necessarily a BAD angle, mind you. That's what Half-Life is ostensibly about - one weak scientist having to deal with a monster invasion because all facility security got eaten. But it does nothing for the actual Freedom Phalanx, and it fails at what I assume is the goal of the story - to push the players forward. Far from doing so, everyone else takes a step back.

It's like trying to make one character stronger by nerfing everyone else. Not only is that character not actually stronger, but everyone walks away weaker for it.

I actually wanted to write about this, but completely forgot. Warburg threatens PARAGON CITY with missiles. Not the US, not the American continent. Just Paragon City. Apparently, Paragon City is the most important target on USA soil. Forget New York or DC. Marshal Blitz hates Paragon City in particular. I get the sense that if we evacuated the city and set charges on all the buildings, international crime would cease with no object for their villainous hatred.

But whatever. Blitz is crazy, and he hates Paragon City, which is on US soil, with missiles. So? That's one island, and a rogue nation at that. Nuke it! Bomb it! Invade it! Send heroes in to disarm the missiles exactly like I had to for that specific arc. If I can just walk in with two Longbow SpecOps and deactivate Blitz's missiles, why was this not done before? I always hate stories that pull off a plot point where something has to be done immediately and solves all the problems, but never bother to explain why it couldn't have been done last year. Red Faction: Armageddon is amazing about this. For three years the atmospheric processor remains destroyed, and when it transpires the aliens can be killed by oxygen, Alec Mason just goes there and fixes it. And you couldn't have done that three years ago because?

But, OK, we can't stop the missiles because because. Suspension of disbelief flag to half mast! So why not just shoot down the missiles? What was that whole damn Star Wars defence system all about that I've been hearing for the last 10 years? Wasn't that intended to shoot down ballistic missiles? It's the future, people. You have attack satellites, you have ground-based smart missile systems, you have ICBM countermeasure. And, failing that, you have a ton of super heroes who can stop missiles with their bare hands. Hell, States took a nuclear missile to the back of the head once. I assume he can stop the much smaller ones that people steal from Warburg.

No. We can't stop Blitz, we can't protect ourselves from Blitz. We have to parlay with Blitz, on his soil, bringing a specific person he requests. And we can't send a Phalanx member who's actually capable because reasons. Actually, wait, I do have a reason. We can't send a Phalanx member who's actually capable because there IS no Phalanx member who's actually capable. Except for Positron, maybe. Turns out he was the one who put them all together, or so Sister Psyche says in one of her memories. Well, OK, so send all of 'em. Send an army.

Or, even simpler, do nothing. It's an obvious trap. Blitz is a madman that's been bombing the city for years. All of a sudden, he says he'll stop, but won't say why and will only do it under very specific circumstances that put a very famous person ripe for the taking. Here's an idea: DON'T fall for his trap, States, and you won't lose your daughter.

Why did he need to be dead to do all this? Ha!

Malaise isn't actually dead the whole time, though. His heart only stops when Sister Psyche destroys his mental projection from inside her head. It's true that he never really intended to survive the journey and go back to his own body, but that's more because he had no way out of Sister Psyche's head afterwards, more so than because he killed himself.

Why Malaise needed to go through with the whole capturing and killing Alexis and helping Wade is also somewhat explained. It's clear he wasn't powerful enough to get into Psyche's mind just on his own. He needed the Dirge of Chaos, and not JUST the dirge, but he needed a song for it that was particularly powerful. Johnny Sonata, whose singing is backed up by infernal magic, was apparently the only one good enough to record that, and convincing the de facto governor of an Arachnos-controlled island to record a song for you was beyond Malaise's clearly limited repertoire.

That's one plot where fridge logic actually makes it BETTER. This is a case of Wade using Malaise and Malaise using wade to a mutually-beneficial end that neither could have achieved on his own. Involving someone who would cause so much trouble for the Phalanx and who would sew conflict was a brilliant move on Wade's part, and facilitating this is what Wade does best.

It's when you start getting into the "how" of it that things break down. Why involve Malaise with Alexis? Why not just have him walk up to Sister Psyche somewhere secluded, play the Dirge and go about his business? Without Aurora, it would have been that much easier to get into Psyche's mind. But even if we assume that stunt was necessary, how did either Wade or Malaise know that Psyche would make such a rookie mistake? They were counting on it. Without this, neither man's plan would have worked. And it's not even something you can predict, like "Oh, I know Psyche is likely to absorb negative energy." No, it's a mistake she shouldn't have made, but they KNEW she would make anyway.

I get that it's a gamble. I get that they're relying on her to be brash, but you know what? Being brash means knocking Malaise out so her and Aurora can be free to help me with the Dirge. What Sister Psyche does is effectively the "Watch this!" event most Blasters do when they get their first nuke, then proceed to go nuke a spawn and get killed for it. It's a rookie mistake that she shouldn't have made.

I'm not a psychic. I'm not knowledgeable with these things. But the moment she said "I'm sick of this!" I could see the future, and I knew exactly what would happen. She'd do something stupid and it would turn around on her. She should have known better.

---

This sort of story can work. It really can. But this sort of story must also be handled with care, and one way to mishandle it completely is to make everyone incompetent, hostile towards people trying to help and outright stupid. And it doesn't have to be this way. People can make mistakes. Even veteran elite professionals can make mistakes. But they got to where they are by having a track record of not making many stupid mistakes and being able to recover from the ones that they do. Heroes who have the habit of making horrible, frequent mistakes either don't live long enough to GET to that point, or otherwise retire early.

When I plan ahead for my characters, especially my villains, that's always at the front of my mind. Ask Nuclear Toast some time how many times I've said something along the lines of "Yes, that makes him evil, but it also makes him wrong. I want him to be evil for a reason he can defend." or "Yes, he screwed up, but I want to be argue it wasn't his fault." Because it's those nuances that matter.

Resolving a fight between a capable, prepared combatant and an inept, surprised one is easy writing. The better combatant wins, and you don't have to worry about how and why. Actual, believable fights between near equals are much harder to write because you have no easily-discernible victor, and they are thus harder to explain the result of. It's harder, but not impossible, to explain why the heroes were perfectly competent and yet they still lost. And the writers simply didn't bother to do that.

Here's a question for you: Why did Manticore and Longbow lose to Marshal Blitz's forces? "I've never botched an operation so completely" says the Longbow agent, telling me that Manticore and Longbow just sucked. The heroes never stood a chance, and the kidnapping of Alexis was just a matter of time. How? Why? What went wrong? How did Longbow and Manticore do the right thing and yet still fail? Give me some explanation of what happened other than "they failed." Because that's what the heroes seem to be doing all the time lately: fail for no adequately explained reason.

Seriously, heroes don't need to be idiots for villains to score a victory. Sometimes, villains can be awesome, too.

That's really the crux of it for me. I mean, I enjoy the elevated status of being surrounded by idiots, but I just feel it was the worse step to take towards making us feel more important. All this does is lower the bar and hope we feel more important for it. It's empowering, but not in the best way.

Not true in the slightest, and on two counts:

1. My presence there could easily have been explained as necessary through events beyond the control of the characters. You're right, in the situation as it was presented, I wasn't needed. The solution to this was to make the situation worse, not make the characters less competent. Again, this is a question of presentation. This could have been told in a way that made the Phalanx come off as competent and yet still failed just because they'd been outsmarted.

Raise the danger, don't lower the bar.

2. They make incredibly obvious, entirely predictable errors. I think it was either LaserJesus or LaserJudas that said "I don't need to be kicked in the crotch to know I don't like it." This has never been more true than it is here. Sister Psyche should have been not just a capable psychic, but a capable heroine, as well. She has lasted this long and put so much adventure to her name she HAS to be competent. She can make mistakes, of course, but she shouldn't be making ROOKIE mistakes.

Again - it's well possible to not present the Phalanx like bumbling fools and still have them be defeated.

I think you're the one not giving Wade enough credit, actually. If we wanted to put Wade forward as some kind of Nemesis-level Machiavellian mastermind, then pitting him against capable foes might have been a good start. But Wade didn't win because he "did his homework." He won because the Freedom Phalanx screwed up. If he were fighting more capable individuals, he would not have succeeded, but because he fought FOOLS, he won. That's not nearly as prominent a point on his resume as it might appear.

Secondly, Wade's achievements would have been that much more impressive if he'd planned on how to defeat the Freedom Phalanx, rather than just knowing they're incompetent. Again, examples abound. If he really does know the heroes this well, then he should have been able to plan around their weaknesses, rather than their mistakes. Then the Phalanx wouldn't have had to make so many dang mistakes. Take the Nemesis, for example. The eats, drinks and dreams convoluted plots, but his always work because he counts on the heroes to be capable and plans on how to turn their victories into defeats. He doesn't just sit by and wait for them to screw up.

Again, we are lowering the bar here, and this only serves to diminish both Wade's prowess as a planning chessmaster AND the Freedom Phalanx as legitimate heroes. Instead of making everyone seem stronger, more capable and more threatening, we put the entire City of Heroes character roster on the short bus.

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. Personally, though, I'd rather get my second eye back than poke the eyes off everyone else.

And that's why they suck. And that's why Wade's achievement is that much less impressive than it could have been. I get the impression that the Phalanx would have imploded even without Wade's interventions if they'd just been left to their own devices. Wade dealing them a deathblow comes off more like a mercy kill than anything else, and that's not a good way to sell your premier hero organisation. Seriously, compared to the Freedom Phalans, Recluse's four lieutenants come off like a cohesive team.

This costume is... Weird to me. I can't say that I don't like it, because it Is a very interesting design, but at the same time, there are a few things that bug me, even with David's explanations. Let me see if I can articulate why.

First of all, things I agree with. I like the blue hair. It makes sense for Penny to dye her hair and use that weird hairdo. I mean, I was once her age, I wanted to have blue hair. Hell, I still do, but I can't achieve that for fear of destroying my hair. But I'd personally have gone with a hair colour that's more obviously blue. As it is right now, the blue comes off more like a highlight colour to depict depth, like you'd see on an older printed comic book (part of why Batman looks blue so often) than an actual hair colour. I met a girl with blue hair recently, and hers was blue like the forums background here, like one of the Freakshow mohawks. If we wanted hair that's dyed blue to be rebellious, I'd have thought it would be a lot more blue.

I like the midriff, too, or at least the reasoning behind it. As a fashion-conscious young woman with a nice body, yeah, it makes sense for Penny to show off. I'm not sure what the belts are for, but I can deal with them being there just for decoration. or possibly so she can't suffer a wardrobe malfunction.

Now for things I don't like... The underwear on the outside of her pants is a BIG thing. Penny is essentially wearing panties and stockings, only they're not REAL panties and stockings, they're just panties and stockings painted/sewn on her tights. Why? I mean, I get that "underwear over your pants" thing is a super hero "thing," but it's a parody more often than something played straight. Occasionally you'll see it with guys, but with girls, it just comes off as sleezy, to be honest. I mean, put her in panties and stockings if you can justify it, I can accept that. But this seems like wanting to get the look of panties and stockings without the social stigma of essentially pantsing your signature character.

Then there are the high heels. Why? I can kind of see the panties and stockings painted over her tights. I don't like it, but I can see it. But why the high heels? Why do all female super heroes need to wear high heels unless they have a VERY good excuse to wear something else very specific? Not only high heels, mind you, but thigh-high heels. There's fashion, and then there's putting your ankles at risk. Yeah, OK, she's not a fighter, but it's just... Why? When we first see penny, she comes off like a regular kid. She wears pants, sneakers and even a baseball cap. Then all of a sudden, she's dressing up a fashion model. It just seems like a big swing in character. Maybe I've been misreading her all along, I don't know.

Then there's "face junk" which I just don't get. I mean, I can see how the face plates might enhance her psychic abilities, but what are they being held with? Double-sided tape? And why does she have red stripes on her cheeks? It seems like someone's been obsessed with painting red stripes on women's faces ever since First Ward. I could see face paint OR the face plates, but both just comes across too busy, like someone put EVERYTHING on the costume, making sure there's something in every category. If she's supposed to be a fashion-conscious, rebellious teen, why not give her a small tattoo somewhere? Or is that going too far?

Then there's the costume overall. I like the look, but I also don't GET the look. I know City of Heroes moving forward has tried to pile on the fidelity, but this costume just confuses my sense, especially in terms of colours. I don't get why the items have the colours they do. I can kind of see her fake underwear being red, so the red corset, panties and stockings, but why the black and white? Why are her pants white but her top black? The stretch of white fabric just looks out of place, since it's only in that one small area of her upper thighs.

Maybe it's my screwed-up sense of balance, but I'd expect that if there is white on her pants as a secondary colour, that this white show up on her top as a secondary colour, as well. Instead, because of how the costume areas are swapped around, her top's primary colour becomes black and the secondary red. So you have a bottom that's red/white and a top that's black/red, and this confuses me. Yes, white does show up on her top, but only as a detail colour, and that's not the same thing. And red shows up as a detail colour, too.

---

I look at this costume, and my brain sees a quilt. I look at this costume, and I fail to remember anything about it, other than that it has black and red. I have the costume open in another tab as I write this, and I have to constantly keep checking back on it because I am incapable of keeping an image of it in my head. It is complex, but it is complex in a way that doesn't feed into a singular "look." There is no one character hidden behind the costume that I can look at and say "Aha! THIS is what Penny looks like!" I looked at all the proposed alternate costumes, and to be honest, they're all jumbled together in my mind the same one costume, different in ways I can't really put my finger on.

This is the Arachnos base problem all over again. Technically, Arachnos bases are an incredibly diverse tileset, with dozens of different corridor pieces, each of which has its machines, pipes, supports and grating arranged in a different manner, but all my brain sees is one jumble of parts I can't comprehend that looks exactly like all the other jumbles of parts I can't comprehend. It's like trying to say that one pile of sand is different from another. Yes, it is, but to me, they both look like piles of sand.

Penny's costume is eyecatching on its own, but it is not memorable, because there is no mental image I can make of it that I can remember. I see bits and pieces, I see patterns, I see belt buckles, but I don't see a whole costume. It's too complex to spot at a glance, and this complexity does not feed into a larger, simpler design that can be understood.

The only way I can recognise Penny is by the few pieces that I CAN make sense of. She has her own unique hair, which I can recognise, and she has a bare midriff, which I can sort of recognise since hers is the only one with belts across. But the rest of her costume? I would take paragraphs upon paragraphs to describe, and that's by looking at the picture.

If I were redesigning this costume, I'd go with the following basic rules of thumb:

1. Pick a primary colour for all her basic elements. Let's say red. Then we have her boots, her gloves, her corset and her panties be red.
2. Pick a background colour. Let's say white. Then the background of her boots and her gloves can be white.
3. Pick a detail colour. Let's say black. Then all the detailing on her costume - belts, shoulders, face plates, etc. could be black.
4. If necessary, pick a secondary detail colour. Let's say gold. Then all the little buckles could be gold, all the little trims on her details could be gold and so forth.

This kind of costume would have a very simple kind of logic that my stupid brain can comprehend on an instinctive level, and then reproduce in my mind's eye. There's nothing wrong with detail or complexity, so long as I can boil that complexity down to larger chunks which I can work with off-hand without a picture in front of me.

Take, for instance, Black Scorpion. His armour is incredibly detailed and I couldn't begin to tell you what all the little etchings are, but it doesn't matter, because Black Scorpion isn't made up of these little parts. Black Scorpion is made up of three parts - the armour, the head and the tail. The armour is detailed, but it's one colour so it boils down to "the armour." The head REALLY sticks out, and though it's detailed itself, it still boils down to "the head." The tail looks a lot like the armour, but it's an unusual character feature, so it stands out, especially in silhouette. It's very detailed, but it still boils down to "the tail.

Penny's costume doesn't "boil down" to anything at all. I can't see her as pants, top and head, because there's continuity between pants and top. I can't see her as a costume that breaks down into multiple colours because there's no logic to which colour goes where, beyond "it just looks cool." I can't boil her down to "costume and head" because her costume is also on her head, and because of the midriff. I can't find a single easy, simple way to describe Penny, thus I am forced to see and comprehend the costume in its full complexity, and I'm not smart enough to do that.

Simplicity in costume design is essential, and you CAN achieve that simplicity by proper use of overwhelming detail.

I don't disagree with that. It's something I've been asking for for years now. I just didn't want it to be at the cost turning the Freedom Phalanx into incompetent horrible people unworthy of respect. I wanted it to be done by praising us, not dismantling them. It's the method of doing this that irks me.

Here's a little example. When Manticore and Liberty were arguing and she told him in no uncertain terms that if he doesn't leave, she WILL fight him, I was genuinely excited. I KNOW Miss Liberty can snap the guy in half with one hand. I've fought her, I know what she can do. Even in her worst moment, I can still respect her power. And even in her worst moment, I can still at least understand her conduct. Again, she comes off as the most reasonable of them all.

But Manticore screws up repeatedly, acts like a dick, then attacks his friends. I get the impression the only reason he didn't shoot an arrow at Liberty was because he knew he couldn't beat her, so he went to get backup. And the Statesman just leaves his friends hanging, to get picked off one by one.

I get that we were supposed to be put on an even level with the Freedom Phalanx, put above them, even. But we didn't have to reduce them to... To THIS to do it. That's like certain comic book writers repeatedly trying to "bring Superman down," to make him more of a jerk, make him kill people and so forth, because he's too good and too pure and not interesting enough.

The Freedom Phalanx used to be the benchmark, the best of the best, the veteran heroes who've already saved the world many times over, the people we aspire to be like. They used to be the people that, when we finally got to be on their level and fight alongside or against them, it really felt like we were finally playing in the big leagues. Now... Now the Freedom Phalanx is not a lot better than the Shining Stars.

I'm really not that much against the good side taking blows. Getting knocked down and getting back up is more or less the stable of a good hero. It's just that these stories make the heroes look like idiots, like it's their own fault they got tagged. As far as I'm concerned, any story just couldn't have happened if "Character A wasn't an idiot in Situation B" needs a re-write.

Let me explain. So we need Malaise to mind-ride with Sister Psyche. He uses the Dirge of Chaos to sew destruction, and he needs Psyche to strain herself trying to stop the thing. Here are a few questions that need to be answered:

1. Why would she do that in the first place?
2. Could she not tell what would happen?
3. Would she not have a contingency plan?

Those are not unanswerable questions. Let's see...

1. When I go down to re-interrogate Malaise, a huge wave of Longbow soldiers descend to attack us, maddened by the Dirge. We can't stop them without killing them, so Sister Psyche has no choice but to step in.

2. Yes, she could tell what would happen, but she's confident that she has it handled because...

3. She knocks Malaise out, believing him to have been incapacitated. Only it turns out Malaise has grown stronger and his psychic power is active even when he's unconscious, or he's able to force himself back into consciousness. It's something Psyche couldn't have known about because he couldn't do that the last time they met.

You can have the heroes fail, even make mistakes without making them come off like they're incompetent. Sister Psyche gets mind-ridden by Malaise not because of unforeseen consequences or a tactical mistake, but because she acts like a brash idiot and gets burned for it.

One of the most important things a writer needs to do before finalising a story, or even a story chapter, is to "switch hats" to become his own detractor and try to punch as many holes as he can in his own story. Why did this happen? Why didn't that happen? Why couldn't this character do this? How could that character do that? What about past continuity? How can this flow into future continuity? A writer needs to do this to himself, because otherwise his audience will do it to him, and that's by far the worse alternative.

All of this is to say that I don't think the Freedom Phalanx needed to be presented as such unpleasant, incompetent people, and story could still have come out with the same general plot.

I'd be cool with that. Put combinations of body glows in one aura, then eyes in the other. That way, we can actually mix-and-match them even better than we can now.

Well, so far as my opinion counts, I'd say go for it anyway. The old sets are perfectly good enough, and the more the more things we can make them look like, the greater their utility. I will be perfectly honest - if I had to choose between a full new set of effects for, say, Fiery Aura or a brand new set that's something esoteric, like "bio plasma" or some such, I'd choose a revamp of Fiety Aura.

I get that revamping old stuff is as costly as making new stuff a lot of the time, but that shouldn't mean neglecting old stuff, should it?

It doesn't matter what orange numbers our powers generate. The only thing that matters is how fast the enemy goes down and how long we can last. When your enemies become tougher and you become weaker, that's a loss of relative power. That my powers may now do 33% more damage or what have you is irrelevant, because that damage now means less.

Raw power is a useless concept. It's not the size of your numbers that counts, it's what they can accomplish. When all the rest of the game rises in power faster than you do, you have dropped in rank, effectively.

They were. Now they aren't. There's a reason I said "Incarnates," not the Freedom Phalanx. The whole point of the Incarnate system is to paint us as better than that. Moreover, the point of the system as I see it is to paint us as better than our enemies. Sooner or later said enemies will have to stop being a threat because they're purely more powerful and start being a threat through strength of numbers and trickery. A Bobcat that can one-shot a tank is neither trickery nor numbers. It's sheer strength.