Archvillains as allys?

Ok if this seems like a silly question then so be it, i'm cool with that


I wrote a small arc and I have an ally in it... she is suposed to be from a hero group but she is labled as an archvillain which she is not... thing is that this is the only option I have in order to keep her power equal with the archvillain I have in the arc...
I'm not sure if the same options are on the redside but then again most villain allies would be an archvillain I guess...
the queation is
Are there any plans to make it possible for a bluside arc to have a hero instead of archvillain... or a choice atleast? example: if I use statesman as an ally he is a hero not an archvillain and I would like that option for any custom toon I make. I understand it's only a name but for the sake of the story, if I write one with a hero group I think those characters should be heroes not archvillains
if any devs read this and could tell me if this will become an option that would be cool
thanks for any help on this
nitra

No, those who appear as "Hero" are apparently coded specially for it.

Right, but I think you should have the option when you are making a custom character to be a hero not just an archvillain
because if the ally in your arc is a hero that is what they should be not a archvillain... does that make sense?

I really don't understand why this is an issue for anyone, even the most strict RPer.

Life doesn't have a UI or a HUD, your hero wouldn't see that they were labeled as a AV, it's just a slagging rank.

I apologize if this comes off as rude, but we've had like six threads about this on the various forums, and I honestly don't understand how it is a problem. You don't see people complaining about how it's impractical to believe Fusionette attained the title of Lt in the military, or any other rank. If you care so much about your characters that you can't see them ranked as supervillain, then you should just work on a different story because nobody wants to play second fiddle to a Mary Sue.



EDIT - Ignore me, I'm grouchy.

Simple... it's about the integrity of the story... and to be honest what is the problem with giving the writer the option to make said ally a hero or archvillain why does it have to be just an archvillain and yes maybe you don't care and that's cool but obviouly some people do or they wouldn't post about it... if I write a story and I want a HERO as an ally and NOT an acrchvillain then I think that should be an option!!
lol based on your reply you would most likley write an arc and have all the characters look the same and have the same name and why even write a story.... just make a map put toons on and let people have at it...
sorry that doesn't work for me
if this sounds like I am being rude... I leave it up to you to decide

I agree. I suspect that even for many non-RPers (actually, I don't think role-playing even figures into it one way or the other), it's somewhat jarring to have a supposed hero identified as an "Archvillain"; discrepancies like that leave the story looking unpolished and poorly implemented.

When speaking to a contact, your character presumably doesn't doesn't see a written transcript of what's being said, but that doesn't mean it's okay to misspell every other word. How the material is presented to the player is very important.

Yes it is... and I hope I'm not alone in thinking we should have the option to make an ally a hero not just be stuck with making it an archvillain... when you are writting a story so many things go into to make it what it is you want... like I said if you use statesman as an ally he would be a hero but if I make a custom toon and i want that toon to be tough like statesman in order to match that toughness my custom toon has to be a archvillain... I would like a dev chime in on this cuase i'd like to think it does matter...

I would caution against making an AV/Hero ally under any circumstances. Their power level tends to be completely out of whack with respect to other AV's, and their damage scale is so high they steal all the xp and reward from the players, along with gameplay and decisions. I understand that you want to tell your story, and balance things, but this is still a game first, at least, until they add the "cut scene architect", then you can have people stand around and watch your story, which is more or less what happens when an ally AV enters the mix.

I'd at least tone him/her down to a Boss level. No matter how strong this person is, to keep it balanced.

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I would caution against making an AV/Hero ally under any circumstances. Their power level tends to be completely out of whack with respect to other AV's, and their damage scale is so high they steal all the xp and reward from the players, along with gameplay and decisions. I understand that you want to tell your story, and balance things, but this is still a game first, at least, until they add the "cut scene architect", then you can have people stand around and watch your story, which is more or less what happens when an ally AV enters the mix.

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Good points no doubt but if the story warrants using an av/hero then all i'm saying is I would like the option of it being a hero... for example say in your story you are facing 2 av's and you need to free your ally to help fight said av's you want that ally to be a hero because you wrote in your story line that ally is a hero... should we be limited as to what we can use? I hope that makes sense... thanks for your reply

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I'd at least tone him/her down to a Boss level. No matter how strong this person is, to keep it balanced.

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I understand what you are saying but that isn't what i was getting at... I want the option of making it a hero and not being forced to make it an archvillain because that is the only choice

Example... if I had a story and i wanted to use statesman as an ally he would show as a hero now if i want to make a custom toon the only choices I have is either boss elite boss or archvillain... I would hero t obe an added choice... thats all

I can totally sympathize, as in one of my future missions I will require a few custom AV-level allies who really should be labelled heroes. However, since AV and Hero are on the exact same level, it's just a matter of semantics.

I wonder how many people have sent in a bug report about having to "Save the infamous Archvillain, Statesman, from the evil Tyrant!" It's been that way since issue 1, and still hasn't been changed?

Even if one doesn't intend to us AV level "Heroes" as allies, let's not forget that not all arcs are designed with the good guys as the protagonists. There's no reason we shouldn't be able to create enemy NPCs with the label of "Hero" as well.

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However, since AV and Hero are on the exact same level, it's just a matter of semantics.


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Yes, it is a matter of semantics and that's exactly what people are talking about, the semantics. If it weren't for matters of semantics, we would all just make arcs called "asdf" with text that looked like "dkssudgktpdy sksms qkqhdPdy" and be done with it. Luckily most people care enough about semantics to put in a little more effort than that (Most people who aren't farmers, that is).

And I agree, we should be able to make them labeled as Heroes even though I can't imagine a time when it would be a good idea to us an AV ally, far be it from me to want to stop someone from doing it, and of course, as was mentioned, there are villainous arcs!

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I'd at least tone him/her down to a Boss level. No matter how strong this person is, to keep it balanced.

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This. At LEAST Boss Level. I can't tell you how ridiculous it is when I play an arc and rescue an Elite Boss ally who proceeds to finish the mission all by himself :-/

Yeah thanks for bringing me along as a spectator to watching your character do the mission for me. Really, I didn't want to play or anything anyways.

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Originally Posted by eltonio This is over the top mental slavery.

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I'd at least tone him/her down to a Boss level. No matter how strong this person is, to keep it balanced.

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This. At LEAST Boss Level. I can't tell you how ridiculous it is when I play an arc and rescue an Elite Boss ally who proceeds to finish the mission all by himself :-/

Yeah thanks for bringing me along as a spectator to watching your character do the mission for me. Really, I didn't want to play or anything anyways.

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Haha, yeah. I really think there should be another class that's ally only. Like the already in game "Pet class" with Lieutenant/Minion damage, and Boss/EB Accuracy and health.

When you mentioned pet class, I immediately pictured a mission where the player rescues schools and schools of rikti monkeys, then they all pigpile onto an AV boss with no AoE's. That would be epic, like ants taking on a beetle.

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I can totally sympathize, as in one of my future missions I will require a few custom AV-level allies who really should be labelled heroes. However, since AV and Hero are on the exact same level, it's just a matter of semantics.

I wonder how many people have sent in a bug report about having to "Save the infamous Archvillain, Statesman, from the evil Tyrant!" It's been that way since issue 1, and still hasn't been changed?

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EXACTLY... and to be honest it doesn't seem like it would be that hard of a fix... this way the heroes are what they are supposed to be HEROES!

I can only think of two or three groups in the game that really are military or intend to act as an army.

But, y'know, all of them have minions, and lieutenants. Not to say that minion is a military rank...

Statesman isn't my boss, and he certainly isn't my elite boss. Who calls someone an elite boss? "Yipes, Ted, you better get those 409s done before Nancy, the elite boss fires you!"

Who would allow themselves to be called a minion? "Yeah, I'm a minion for hire, it's like being a gopher but you get killed more often."

The Skulls are an inner-city group of hooligans, how do they even know the concept of lieutenants? How about the Devouring Earth? Did they devour a library? How about those zombies? Did someone stop them before they went out to eat people and said "Hey! You're a minion, that means you min!"


None of the ranks make sense, none of them, but they are an unimportant portion of the UI, and quite frankly, you shouldn't encounter an archvillain as your ally, they are too powerful and they will finish the map before you do. If you need to help people face your twelve AVs by giving them one, make those AVs into Bosses or Elite Bosses.

I don't care if your character is so powerful that they could rip the Earth in half by sneezing, they should never be more then an elite boss because they aren't going to rip the Earth in half. The arch-villain/hero rank is for those superheros that are above all the others, we aren't ever supposed to be Superman or Batman in City Of Heroes, we aren't, we are Aquaman, Blue Lightning, Blue Beetle, Green Lantern, She-Hulk, or Hawkeye. Our characters can never attain that level of power or popularity. Lord Recluse is Lex Luthor, Statesman is Superman, so on and so forth. Sometimes on certain difficulty levels, those rules will bent, or the developers will bend those rules to make something seem important or exciting, but that's within their rights as the overlords of the universe that's been created.


I love this game, I love my characters, but within the structure of the game, they will never have a statue in Atlas Park, they will never be anything more then a second-stringer that a degenerate writer could kill off without even asking the editor.

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I can only think of two or three groups in the game that really are military or intend to act as an army.

But, y'know, all of them have minions, and lieutenants. Not to say that minion is a military rank...

Statesman isn't my boss, and he certainly isn't my elite boss. Who calls someone an elite boss? "Yipes, Ted, you better get those 409s done before Nancy, the elite boss fires you!"

Who would allow themselves to be called a minion? "Yeah, I'm a minion for hire, it's like being a gopher but you get killed more often."

The Skulls are an inner-city group of hooligans, how do they even know the concept of lieutenants? How about the Devouring Earth? Did they devour a library? How about those zombies? Did someone stop them before they went out to eat people and said "Hey! You're a minion, that means you min!"


None of the ranks make sense, none of them, but they are an unimportant portion of the UI, and quite frankly, you shouldn't encounter an archvillain as your ally, they are too powerful and they will finish the map before you do. If you need to help people face your twelve AVs by giving them one, make those AVs into Bosses or Elite Bosses.

I don't care if your character is so powerful that they could rip the Earth in half by sneezing, they should never be more then an elite boss because they aren't going to rip the Earth in half. The arch-villain/hero rank is for those superheros that are above all the others, we aren't ever supposed to be Superman or Batman in City Of Heroes, we aren't, we are Aquaman, Blue Lightning, Blue Beetle, Green Lantern, She-Hulk, or Hawkeye. Our characters can never attain that level of power or popularity. Lord Recluse is Lex Luthor, Statesman is Superman, so on and so forth. Sometimes on certain difficulty levels, those rules will bent, or the developers will bend those rules to make something seem important or exciting, but that's within their rights as the overlords of the universe that's been created.


I love this game, I love my characters, but within the structure of the game, they will never have a statue in Atlas Park, they will never be anything more then a second-stringer that a degenerate writer could kill off without even asking the editor.

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Well, you made some nice points indeed but the whole Idea of MA is to let people's imagination run wild, do we really need to put limits on that by telling them to make their characters lower than they want? Think about this... is Superman more of a hero than Spiderman? some would say yes because of the power they pocess batman is far being being close to Superman in fact Batman is a martial arts expert that uses gadjects... while you may think your toon is a second stringer the point of this game is you have your signature heroes and signature villains and if you creat a story you are given the chance to make your toons the signature heroes and villains for THAT story and I think the reason they have these heroes/av be as powerful as they are is done to make it be a challenge be cause if we has heroes/villains were equal to the signature ones this game would get boring real fast BUT the great thing about MA is you can make your toons be that signature character if only for 1 story arc...

also all av's/heros are not created equal it all come down to the skill sets you pick... I have one arc whre I do have an allys as a helper and she is plant/emp and she is av level and she has gone against the av in the mission and gottten owned
adn as many times as I have tested this arc she does get some kills but it's not even close to her taking over the arc and getting all the kills... like i said it all comes down to what you create... for example if you make an arc with nothing but elite bosses that is not going to be a very fun arc... maybe for someone who wants a real big challenge I guess but it's really up to us the creators to make it interesting and we need to have some balance and order to make the arc fun to play...

my whole point was to have the option of having a hero rather than just an av...

thanks for your reply though