SpittingTrashcan

You can stop here, because you are factually, provably wrong.
That is what Lord Recluse says when you hand him his own head after defeating him in the future of Operation: DESTINY. Of course, he's trying to claim credit, but the fact of the matter is that he has admitted that neither he nor anyone else in the Rogue Isles can stop you from doing anything you want.

The problem here is that, having reached this point, you can't actually go and work any terrors upon the Earth. More pertinently, you can't even try and fail to work any terrors. Von Grun excepted, of course.

Yes! Yes, it would! It's by far not the only problem - see also, everything else in this thread - but being treated like a legitimate threat and equal partner would do a great deal to improve the villain game. It's not that complicated: when people respect you and offer their help, that feels good, whether you're hero or villain. When people treat you without respect and demand your service, that is not pleasant. Does this surprise you?

"Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven." -- Satan, Paradise Lost

How villainous do I want to be? I dunno, Satan seems like a pretty good role model!

No, it's pretty much exactly as strong as I think, because I'm not addressing the issue of choice. I'm well aware that the options available to us will still be finite, and I'm okay with that. There are already complaints that the new arcs don't cover every possible character backstory and motivation. They can't. What they do is reverse the relationship between villain and contact, and that's what I'm asking for more of. It's still a limited menu, but instead of picking my boss, I'm picking my plan.

I'd like to expand on how the existing game systems, with no mechanical changes, only updates to text, could do more to make villains protagonists.

Scenario: You have just completed a Mayhem mission, and your newspaper contact is introducing some story arc contacts.

NOW: I think you're ready to work for the big players now, $villain. $contact has some jobs for a heavy hitter, and you might have what it takes. Just don't get him mad, and you could go places.

NEW: I saw what you did on the news, $villain, and so have a lot of other people. $contact has been asking if I can get you in touch with him. It seems like he has a big plan and needs someone of your caliber to pull it off.

The arc can then proceed using the same enemies, the same objectives, and the same mechanical results. The difference is in the attitude.

The one place where I do feel it is important that new options be made available is in the 40-50 villain game. Whereas before this point you had a wide variety of factions to work with and have had ample opportunities to work directly against Arachnos's interests, once you reach Grandville all paths lead to Recluse and end there. That's simply not necessary: it's an artifact of a design decision, not an inevitable consequence of the game's fiction. Particularly rankling are the patron powers, which only become available once you ally yourself with a lieutenant. Why not conspire with enemies of those lieutenants to steal their power? It's not like Recluse would even mind: his lieutenants gained their position by being the strongest, and if they're not strong enough to hold onto what they have, he's not going to step in to help them.

Agreed. In order for the click option to be an improvement over toggles in terms of time spent activating powers, the clicks would have to have faster animations than the toggle activations. So the animation change is needed regardless.

There are some other potential advantages to click powers, but they depend on details of the interaction between auras, Placate, and Hidden status that I'm not actually knowledgeable about.

Ohh snap.

I can't believe I forgot Flamethrower! Shameful.

BU + Flamethrower ~= 357 damage per target. So combined with the 334 per target from Buckshot and M30, that's 687 damage per target. Of course, you'd probably want to start with Flamethrower if at all possible, as the other two tend to move the enemies around.

Now, speaking to the actual topic of the thread: I actually do prefer the crashless nukes, because they're more conducive to the fast-moving playstyle of the game. Wiping out every 10th spawn in 1 second instead of 5 or 6 is not really worth the recovery time and risk that a crashing nuke puts you under, but having an attack up every other spawn that nearly wipes it out and still leaves your toggles running and your other attacks immediately available is great. But then, I dislike situational powers in general, even though I know that in the situations where they're useful, they can be *very* useful.

Having fiddled with the base editor enough to put together a simple functional base, I agree with you 100%: base building is simply too complex and fiddly for the average player, and for too little benefit. But having seen the fantastic, colossal bases that some of the base-building community have put together with the current free-form functionality, I have to note that simplifying the base editor, especially after the many issues that bases have been neglected, would be reacted to with about the level of warmth that PvPers had for Issue 13. There would be wrath, and it would not be entirely unjustified.

If the devs did dedicate some time and effort to bases, I would want to see a simplified version of the editor available, one that creates pre-decorated and pre-functionalized "macro" rooms. Pick a theme, pick colors, place room, control and power are handled automatically, you get a functional, well-decorated base room. However, it would be downright rude to turn to the base builders after 10 issues of not prioritizing bases and give them something they never asked for in any of their polite requests and instead take away all the functionality they enjoyed. So the fiddly editor really ought to stay, if at all possible.

Thanks for reminding me. When I said that defeating Lord Recluse left you with no path forward, I was in error. It's actually worse than that. Now that you've beaten him, he entrusts you with your greatest mission: defeat Statesman and the Freedom Phalanx, his sworn enemy and not yours. Until this point, Statesman and the Freedom Phalanx have done nothing to you personally. Oh, you may have gone after a couple of them for a bounty or because they got in the way of one of your missions, but there's no particular grudge. They're not coming after you. They're not hatching a plan to invade the Rogue Isles. They're not even in charge of Longbow - that's Ms. Liberty's business. There is no reason for you to fight them, except that they're there and Recluse hates them and he wants you to.

That's dumb.

The overall story arc, at least in the 40-50 range, involves proving yourself to higher and higher ranking people in the Arachnos hierarchy, culminating in a fight with Recluse in an alternate future where your cooperation to take over the world, and subsequent falling out, had ended in a complete disaster. Your reward for this effort is Recluse's esteem as an equal. Which is all fine and good if that's what you wanted, but as a number of people in this thread have already mentioned, their characters don't care about Recluse's esteem, and would rather be pursuing their own vision. Having earned the right to do whatever you want, there's nothing else to do.

There's nothing wrong with the villain plotline including a confrontation with Lord Recluse. He is the dictator of the Isles; all paths to power must go through him eventually. The problem is that the confrontation with Recluse arises from following his plan, not yours. The story should not end with Recluse acknowledging his defeat; that should be the beginning of the true villain endgame, when you use your uncontested freedom and power to build your volcano fortress, or prepare your laser death ray, or enchant your mystic superweapon, or defeat the hero who mocked your hairstyle, or whatever it is you want to do. Of course, there would have to be a limit to your range of options, but it'd still be more properly villainous than defeating the greatest obstacle to your plans and then retiring without ever actually implementing said plans.

Before you whip out your calculator, it helps to read what was actually written.
AIM + BU + Fistful of Arrows + Explosive Arrow ~= 407 damage per target hit
BU + Buckshot + M30 Grenade ~= 334 damage per target hit

Fire Blast provides more straight damage with non tier 9 attacks. It also doesn't have the knockback effect of Buckshot, M30, or Explosive Arrow. It also has Rain of Fire, which does an additional 451 damage over 15 seconds (with Aim and BU) to anything that doesn't escape its area. Fire Blast is simply superior to AR and Archery in AoE damage if you don't consider the tier 9 powers. It's comparable to AR and Archery even counting in RoA/Full Auto.

Fire is good at damage. That's kind of its schtick.

(Mitigation, of course, not so much.)