Where can I beat up Hardcase?
By
Aura_Familia,
Posted on: 2009-07-04 02:35 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
That is an ooooooold complaint my friend. I mean, the 2nd day after CoV was released, I saw a thread about it. Of course, it hasn't gotten any less true with time. IN fact, with the addition of HOs, Invention Recipeess, and Epic Levels for villains, our relative pwpoer has only increased when you think about it.
Everyone I've ever heard speak about that arc ahs fealt that being intimidated into doing what Hardcase wants was a particularly heavy-handed and unpleasent form of railroading (and in this game - especially in the VILLAIN portion of this game - that is really saying something). But alas, it still hasn't been fixed. This makes cynics (like me) skeptical that it ever will be fixed.
Note that people have had similar complaints about the patron arcs wherein you're forced to betray your employer under threat of Arachnos retribution - sometimes there is a good reason to want to stop them apart from what Arachnos thinks (aside from philisophical questions about the nature of free will, if Scirocco succeeds in his plan, for instnace, it will either brainwash you or erase you from existance), but in some cases (Ghost Widow's arc is the perfect example, and a popular one, given how many fan-boys she has) the only reason to betray them instead of helping them is because you're either more loyal to Arachnos than them, or more afraid of Arachnos than loyal to the patron, and a lot of players resent having that choice taken away from them. Notice that as with your exmaqple, there has been a complete lack of anything being done to fix it.
I have always thought these missiosn would be good candidates for timers. Looooong timers, but ones that are there, so that you can choose to "fail" the mission. In that case, the consequences would be hand-waved by saying that your contact (hardcase; the Arbiters; ECT) took care fo the problem themselves, but is now none-too-pleased with you for your insubordination.
Unfortunately it isn't practical for you to be allowed to go through with any of these plasn since it woudl masively change some element of the setting, and CoH is a static world.
I do like your re-write idea of the final Verandi mission. That would be awesome. But I doubt the developers will put time into re-doing old content when thye ahve new content (indeed, a new expansion) on the way.
Pretty much the only thing to do is follow the lame suggestion the devs someitmes give when asked about it and use the "drop mission" feature, and pretend your character didn't do as he was told, but some other agency foiled your plans anyway.
Actually, I did drop the final mission out of disgust.
Hmm, I think I finally have a MA arc idea: "How It Should Have Ended."
I'd hold off on that one until you run Johnny Sonata's arc. There's a bit of interaction between the player and Hardcase that makes the one in Virandi's arc much worse.
The Abrams is one of the most effective war machines on the planet. - R. Lee Ermy.
Q: How do you wreck an Abrams?
A: You crash into another one.
While it's not an official arc, the first thing I did with AE was make an arc devoted to getting revenge on Hardcase.
[shameless plug: ArcID 1366 - it was originally just going to be a single mission with lots of beating up Hardcase, but I decided to give it a smallish amount of plot leading up to that]
I've always hated that arc because of Hardcase and his whole "do what I say or I'll beat you up" railroad plot. I don't think ANY of my characters would think twice about saying "Try it, you little peon" if he threatened them. Yet the game basically makes you cower and whimper, replying, "Yessir, sorry sir, won't happen again! Don't hurt me!"
It makes me sick. 
By the time you're into your 30's, you've likely tangled with numerous elite bosses, including several of the Vindicators, and even some of the Freedom Phalanx. Who the hell is THIS punka** to threaten you?
Meh.
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I'd hold off on that one until you run Johnny Sonata's arc. There's a bit of interaction between the player and Hardcase that makes the one in Virandi's arc much worse.
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I liked that Arc it was one of my favs.
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I'd hold off on that one until you run Johnny Sonata's arc. There's a bit of interaction between the player and Hardcase that makes the one in Virandi's arc much worse.
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I liked that Arc it was one of my favs.
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I have to chuckle when I run across the scattered few people who actually liked Hardcase's arc. What I was about to post was... To add insult to injury, his missions are kind of boring. Not all that jazzed about fighting cookie cutter wailer demons with the same 3 sonic powers each.
I'm surprised I have not come across an AE mission where you get to either beat up Hardcase or where he is a custom ally to establish that he really is badass and make him more likeable. Having him just be a guy standing whom you are forced to accept as a king killer who will slap you around if you don't do what he says is really off-putting to people thinking they are playing villains. He's been despised by most folks since day 1.
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The Vivacious Verandi arc could have ended in hilarity, when all the villain groups you've been messing with figure out it was all you and team up to get payback.
[/ QUOTE ]I loved that arc. Right up until the moment I talked to Hardcase. Pretty sure I never bothered to finish it after that, I really hated that.
Westin Phipps should have you beat the crap out of Hardcase, then dump him in a room with a bunch of demons so they can do whatever the hell they want to him. That would be a fitting ending, making everything much better.
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Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!
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The Vivacious Verandi arc could have ended in hilarity, when all the villain groups you've been messing with figure out it was all you and team up to get payback.
[/ QUOTE ]I loved that arc. Right up until the moment I talked to Hardcase. Pretty sure I never bothered to finish it after that, I really hated that.
Westin Phipps should have you beat the crap out of Hardcase, then dump him in a room with a bunch of demons so they can do whatever the hell they want to him. That would be a fitting ending, making everything much better.
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Unforutnatley it has the same problem as allowing you to succeed at Verendi's plans in the first place - it would change the setting (specifcly in the way that Harcase would be dead). And that can't happen. Not in CoH certainly, and not really as a result of single-player instnaced content in any game, to be honest. The moment after you deliver him to his grizly execution, he'll still be right back there on his streat-corner looking stereotypicaly badass and handing out missions.
It would be fun to have a sort of 'go teach him a lesson' mission where someone highers you to put him firmluy adn violently in his place though, I agree.
No, you're simply not thinking grand enough! After completing that mission, you do a little special 'job' for Nemesis, and in exchange you get a Hardcase automoton! That way, no one will ever know that the real Hardcase is long gone!
(unfortunately, Nemesis is too good at making his automotons and it keeps giving out the same horried missions! )
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Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!
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The Vivacious Verandi arc could have ended in hilarity, when all the villain groups you've been messing with figure out it was all you and team up to get payback.
[/ QUOTE ]I loved that arc. Right up until the moment I talked to Hardcase. Pretty sure I never bothered to finish it after that, I really hated that.
Westin Phipps should have you beat the crap out of Hardcase, then dump him in a room with a bunch of demons so they can do whatever the hell they want to him. That would be a fitting ending, making everything much better.
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Unforutnatley it has the same problem as allowing you to succeed at Verendi's plans in the first place - it would change the setting (specifcly in the way that Harcase would be dead). And that can't happen. Not in CoH certainly, and not really as a result of single-player instnaced content in any game, to be honest. The moment after you deliver him to his grizly execution, he'll still be right back there on his streat-corner looking stereotypicaly badass and handing out missions.
It would be fun to have a sort of 'go teach him a lesson' mission where someone highers you to put him firmluy adn violently in his place though, I agree.
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Why can't Hardcase use the same medical teleporters that the villains use. He's connected enough. There's no reason a beat down would have to entail removing him from the game.
Paragon Unleashed, Unleash Yourself!
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I'd hold off on that one until you run Johnny Sonata's arc. There's a bit of interaction between the player and Hardcase that makes the one in Virandi's arc much worse.
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I liked that Arc it was one of my favs.
[/ QUOTE ]Oh, the arc itself is great, don't get me wrong. However, there's one line from Hardcase which really gets under my skin, especially considering his actions in the other arc.
The Abrams is one of the most effective war machines on the planet. - R. Lee Ermy.
Q: How do you wreck an Abrams?
A: You crash into another one.
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Unforutnatley it has the same problem as allowing you to succeed at Verendi's plans in the first place - it would change the setting (specifcly in the way that Harcase would be dead). And that can't happen. Not in CoH certainly, and not really as a result of single-player instnaced content in any game, to be honest.
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Got news for you - continuity is already irretrievably broken in this and any other MMO with any story pretensions whatsoever.
Go join a team doing the Seer Marino arc. Thrill with suspense and delight as you read each mission briefing and watch revelation after revelation. Then go back and get that arc for yourself and go talk to her. Notice how she has magically forgotten everything.
Continuity breaks like this constantly. It's just part of MMOs, where characters are static with pretensions of dynamism. Sure, an amnesia pill for Marino or something like that may be easier to handwave than a resurrection pill (or Nemesis duplicate - I love that idea 
) for Hardcase, and it downplays the disconnect to just not be able to kill Hardcase at all, but it's all just varying degrees of handwaving. It's silly to say that killing Hardcase would break some cosmic law that isn't already broken countless times in the game.
Why not make it yourself in AE? :P
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Note that people have had similar complaints about the patron arcs wherein you're forced to betray your employer under threat of Arachnos retribution - sometimes there is a good reason to want to stop them apart from what Arachnos thinks (aside from philisophical questions about the nature of free will, if Scirocco succeeds in his plan, for instnace, it will either brainwash you or erase you from existance), but in some cases (Ghost Widow's arc is the perfect example, and a popular one, given how many fan-boys she has) the only reason to betray them instead of helping them is because you're either more loyal to Arachnos than them, or more afraid of Arachnos than loyal to the patron, and a lot of players resent having that choice taken away from them. Notice that as with your exmaqple, there has been a complete lack of anything being done to fix it.
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Yeah, I didn't much care for those elements of ghost widow's arc myself. Arbiter or no arbiter, my dom would hardly be afraid of Daos, especially with the backing of Ghost Widow, and she most *definitely* would not appreciate being threatened. In a perfect world, she would have taken the false crystal from him, promised to do his bidding like a good little minion, and gone straight to GW to warn her and plot how to take Daos down and complete the ritual in spite of him. My dom may be a villain but she doesn't backstab those who she respects (and secretly, she feels a bit sorry for GW too), and attempting to coerce her into doing something would be about the surest means to get her *not* to do it.
Now, the story would still have to come out the same in the end to keep everything consistent, but ideally it would be possible to get there by two different paths - one where you betray your patron, and one where you don't. We now have branching dialogue possibilities in the game - perhaps eventually the devs will be able to design branching *storyarcs* as well. Certainly the patron arcs would be ripe for such an invention.
Maybe someday I'll write a MA arc exploring the possibilities of the player choosing *not* to betray Ghost Widow. I wonder if Arbiter Daos exists in game....?
@MuonNeutrino
Student, Gamer, Altaholic, and future Astronomer.
This is what it means to be a tank!
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Note that people have had similar complaints about the patron arcs wherein you're forced to betray your employer under threat of Arachnos retribution - sometimes there is a good reason to want to stop them apart from what Arachnos thinks (aside from philisophical questions about the nature of free will, if Scirocco succeeds in his plan, for instnace, it will either brainwash you or erase you from existance), but in some cases (Ghost Widow's arc is the perfect example, and a popular one, given how many fan-boys she has) the only reason to betray them instead of helping them is because you're either more loyal to Arachnos than them, or more afraid of Arachnos than loyal to the patron, and a lot of players resent having that choice taken away from them. Notice that as with your exmaqple, there has been a complete lack of anything being done to fix it.
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Yeah, I didn't much care for those elements of ghost widow's arc myself. Arbiter or no arbiter, my dom would hardly be afraid of Daos, especially with the backing of Ghost Widow, and she most *definitely* would not appreciate being threatened. In a perfect world, she would have taken the false crystal from him, promised to do his bidding like a good little minion, and gone straight to GW to warn her and plot how to take Daos down and complete the ritual in spite of him. My dom may be a villain but she doesn't backstab those who she respects (and secretly, she feels a bit sorry for GW too), and attempting to coerce her into doing something would be about the surest means to get her *not* to do it.
Now, the story would still have to come out the same in the end to keep everything consistent, but ideally it would be possible to get there by two different paths - one where you betray your patron, and one where you don't. We now have branching dialogue possibilities in the game - perhaps eventually the devs will be able to design branching *storyarcs* as well. Certainly the patron arcs would be ripe for such an invention.
Maybe someday I'll write a MA arc exploring the possibilities of the player choosing *not* to betray Ghost Widow. I wonder if Arbiter Daos exists in game....?
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You should go back and re-read the arc, maybe play through it on another toon. Daos WANTS you to let Ghost Widow perform the ritual, so she can return to life only to be murdered by your character. So, Ghost Widow does perform the proper ritual. The problem is, her plan failed, the ritual doesn't work the way she hoped. The new body it makes for her is cold unfeeling ectoplasm, not much different than the spirit stuff she was made up of before, and a far cry from the warm living flesh she hoped for. This failure enrages Ghost Widow, and in her unthinking rage she lashes out at you, blaming you for her failure in classic villain fashion. If you had stayed loyal to her, all it would have earned you was an early grave as she destroyed you in a coldblooded, murderous rage.
Instead, with Daos's blessing, you showed up expecting a fight from her. And whereas if she were left without the Arbiter's interference in her affairs, she would likely have revoked your mediporter codes, Daos has the clout to see to it that you benefit from Arachnos's resources when she turns on you. If not for his role in the story, your villain might well have perished.
Or well, that's how I read it anyway.
Paragon Unleashed, Unleash Yourself!
I never interpreted it that way. I agree that it's a plausible way to interpret things, but I don't think it's definitive. For one thing, it's specifically mentioned several times that it's *your character* who is carrying out the ritual, not ghost widow. So, the party responsible for any flaws in the ritual's execution would be *you*, which is (I presume) why Ghost Widow concludes that you've betrayed her. Also, the ritual apparently worked just fine when you tested it on the Red Widow. Additionally, there's the matter of the mission objectives display in that mission (from paragonwiki):
Betray Ghost Widow
* Trap Ghost Widow
* Defeat Ghost Widow!
When you click on the glowie (or whatever you do to summon her, I forget), the chat confirmation message that you get is: "Ghost Widow is now trapped between life and death." Between the line "Trap Ghost Widow" and the confirmation message, it makes it sound to me like that was the plan all along. It can probably be interpreted both ways, but that's the way I choose to read it, anyway.
@MuonNeutrino
Student, Gamer, Altaholic, and future Astronomer.
This is what it means to be a tank!
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Note that people have had similar complaints about the patron arcs wherein you're forced to betray your employer under threat of Arachnos retribution - sometimes there is a good reason to want to stop them apart from what Arachnos thinks (aside from philisophical questions about the nature of free will, if Scirocco succeeds in his plan, for instnace, it will either brainwash you or erase you from existance), but in some cases (Ghost Widow's arc is the perfect example, and a popular one, given how many fan-boys she has) the only reason to betray them instead of helping them is because you're either more loyal to Arachnos than them, or more afraid of Arachnos than loyal to the patron, and a lot of players resent having that choice taken away from them. Notice that as with your exmaqple, there has been a complete lack of anything being done to fix it.
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Yeah, I didn't much care for those elements of ghost widow's arc myself. Arbiter or no arbiter, my dom would hardly be afraid of Daos, especially with the backing of Ghost Widow, and she most *definitely* would not appreciate being threatened. In a perfect world, she would have taken the false crystal from him, promised to do his bidding like a good little minion, and gone straight to GW to warn her and plot how to take Daos down and complete the ritual in spite of him. My dom may be a villain but she doesn't backstab those who she respects (and secretly, she feels a bit sorry for GW too), and attempting to coerce her into doing something would be about the surest means to get her *not* to do it.
Now, the story would still have to come out the same in the end to keep everything consistent, but ideally it would be possible to get there by two different paths - one where you betray your patron, and one where you don't. We now have branching dialogue possibilities in the game - perhaps eventually the devs will be able to design branching *storyarcs* as well. Certainly the patron arcs would be ripe for such an invention.
Maybe someday I'll write a MA arc exploring the possibilities of the player choosing *not* to betray Ghost Widow. I wonder if Arbiter Daos exists in game....?
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You should go back and re-read the arc, maybe play through it on another toon. Daos WANTS you to let Ghost Widow perform the ritual, so she can return to life only to be murdered by your character. So, Ghost Widow does perform the proper ritual. The problem is, her plan failed, the ritual doesn't work the way she hoped. The new body it makes for her is cold unfeeling ectoplasm, not much different than the spirit stuff she was made up of before, and a far cry from the warm living flesh she hoped for. This failure enrages Ghost Widow, and in her unthinking rage she lashes out at you, blaming you for her failure in classic villain fashion. If you had stayed loyal to her, all it would have earned you was an early grave as she destroyed you in a coldblooded, murderous rage.
Instead, with Daos's blessing, you showed up expecting a fight from her. And whereas if she were left without the Arbiter's interference in her affairs, she would likely have revoked your mediporter codes, Daos has the clout to see to it that you benefit from Arachnos's resources when she turns on you. If not for his role in the story, your villain might well have perished.
Or well, that's how I read it anyway.
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Pretty much THIS. Each of the patrons are psychotic enough in their own way that NONE of my villains would dare turn my back on them or trust them. Doing so is expecting a shiv in the back at any time simply for something as little as sneazing the wrong way around those four.
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Notice that as with your exmaqple, there has been a complete lack of anything being done to fix it.
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That assumes that the Devs think there's something to fix.
I remember reading about people's complaints of Kheldians, being a little of everything and a master of none, and refusing to play them until the Devs fix them, saying as such as if the design as a Jack of All Trades was somehow an error.
A friend in a SG I'm in had similar complaints about the Arachnos Soldier Epic, proclaiming on our SG Forum that he'll make the ugliest most painful eyesore of an Arachnos uniform and wear it all the time as a never ending protest until the Devs fix the VEATs.
I'd have to think it was written that way for a reason.
Kind of like the arc from Magus Mu'Drakhan, you're cursed and forced to save all of Mu kind, numbering some one billion people across the globe. Why would my character care if a billion people die? OH! I've been cursed so that if they die, I'll die too? Well, that's convenient isn't it?
Like it or not, the game needs something to push the player into doing the missions we do, and being threatened by something more powerful than you is the typical way to get a villain into working through something he wouldn't want to.
Also, Hardcase is a representative of the Anti-Villain type, he's protecting the innocent using underhanded means, so he won't want the totally random and dangerous violence going on at the end of Verandi's arc, since you started it you get to fix it. What do you expect from another villain, him to say "Pretty please? With a cherry on top?"
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Notice that as with your exmaqple, there has been a complete lack of anything being done to fix it.
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That assumes that the Devs think there's something to fix.
I remember reading about people's complaints of Kheldians, being a little of everything and a master of none, and refusing to play them until the Devs fix them, saying as such as if the design as a Jack of All Trades was somehow an error.
A friend in a SG I'm in had similar complaints about the Arachnos Soldier Epic, proclaiming on our SG Forum that he'll make the ugliest most painful eyesore of an Arachnos uniform and wear it all the time as a never ending protest until the Devs fix the VEATs.
I'd have to think it was written that way for a reason.
Kind of like the arc from Magus Mu'Drakhan, you're cursed and forced to save all of Mu kind, numbering some one billion people across the globe. Why would my character care if a billion people die? OH! I've been cursed so that if they die, I'll die too? Well, that's convenient isn't it?
Like it or not, the game needs something to push the player into doing the missions we do, and being threatened by something more powerful than you is the typical way to get a villain into working through something he wouldn't want to.
Also, Hardcase is a representative of the Anti-Villain type, he's protecting the innocent using underhanded means, so he won't want the totally random and dangerous violence going on at the end of Verandi's arc, since you started it you get to fix it. What do you expect from another villain, him to say "Pretty please? With a cherry on top?"
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Some answers that I would have accepted, just off the top of my head, which would have been better.
- I'll pay you double what she's paying
- I have proof that Verandi's going to turn on you in the near future (and reasonable proof provided)
- The Carnies duped Verandi into a scheme she didn't understand (ala Crash Cage). Help get the girl out of the mess she made and the Verandi family will make it worth your while.
- Verandi's a Longbow agent in disguise trying to destabalize an Arachnos power base. Disrupt her plan to clear your name of any involvement
I can go on. There are any number of better ideas than "Do it or I'll [censored] spank you!"
Paragon Unleashed, Unleash Yourself!
On the one hand I kinda get what Hardcase is supposed to be and I sorta understand how he thinks. Some of my Villains are the same way. However the way he comes off is all wrong. You do NOT strong arm a villain the way Hardcase does. If Harcase actually walloped the Player before telling him to do as he says it might be easier to swallow. Although I imagine that would annoy the players as well.
Spoiler: The MA arc City of Revenge lets you go head to head with Hardcase.
Old arguement I made a year ago. I felt that we can go from supervillain to putz just that quick with him. If I could find the thread I could show you what many have said about Hardcase
I think it would be nice if you were given the option to say yes or no to him, and if you said "No" he gives you one last threatening speech. Then the next mission you do, for anyone, he spawns as a nasty Elite Boss and tries to kill you. If you win, he mutters something about Arachnos being warned, which explains why there's no disaster; if he wins he comments that he'll have to take care of the situation himself and despawns ( so no coming back until you finally win ).
Arc #40529 : The Furies of the Earth
I've only had one interaction with this guy, and I already hate him. The Vivacious Verandi arc could have ended in hilarity, when all the villain groups you've been messing with figure out it was all you and team up to get payback. But no, the end amounts to Hardcase going 'stop having fun or ill totally shoot you'. Now, even stuff like Arbiters is intimidating enough to be a decent justification to intimidate the player character, but a random demon hunter on the wrong side of the game? Against, say, a renegade space marine who can summon 'a considerable amount of firepower' in spades on a whim?
Devs, make an official higher-level arc where we get to smack this guy around like a ragdoll, please.