City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

CoV mission morality

all_hell

By all_hell,
Posted on: 2009-12-14 24:32 in CoH and CoV General Discussions

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Golden Girl View Post
I've seen a few AE missions and arcs that encourage you to beat up Phipps
first thing i wanted to do when ae came out, but could never get the flow of the mission wto work right, so am waiting for improvements in ae before tackling it, for it to fit my idea you have to beat him up repeatedly, burn down his home(using the mayhem arson effects) and destroy all of his belongings. cant do it yet, but am waiting.

 

Posted

If all you want is to have a headstart with your brute in GR, then play the missions and don't read the dialogue. It's a shame, because the dialogue is rather good compared to the Blue side.


Alternatively you could go to the AE building and do heroic missions with your brute.

But if you hate doing that, to avoid serious problems, start with Kalinda where you end up beating up snakes most of the time. Followed with Mongoose where you rob a villain bank and beat up more snakes.

Then to Port Oakes. Beat up villains and rob a bank (can't be avoided but you are allowed to fail, just start the timer and get out). Then take Verandi as contact. Yes he wants revenge and bad things will happen to those he wants revenge on. But those people are council.

Of to Cap au Diablo and you should be level 10+ at that time.

Edit: Obscure Blade pointed out that even the Vendetti arc has some innocents getting hurt. Even if that man is a filthy traitor to begin, you cannot blame him much from becoming a traitor in the first place. Still betrayal, even with good reason is betrayal.

 

Posted

Quote:
I'm not so sure I agree with this. I think Scirocco's plan needs to be stopped, and anyone would agree with that. Do you really think that any one man, no matter how good intentioned, should be allowed to reshape the world and the people living in it? Do you really?
Anyone trying for PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER needs to be stopped on general principles, especially when trying to avoid the >ittybittylivingspace< part.

Besides, Scirocco's plan wouldn't have worked. The curse would have corrupted his efforts.

Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by GrinningSpade View Post
Then take Verandi as contact. Yes he wants revenge and bad things will happen to those he wants revenge on. But those people are council.
Well, except for his badge mission where the niece of the Vendetti ( Verandi are the Family guys, not the contact ) traitor ends up getting the short end of the stick ( scroll down to the debriefing ).

Arc #40529 : The Furies of the Earth

 

Posted

Personally, I feel that villainside isn't evil enough.

I'm roleplaying an evil character. Key word here is character. Do you ever hear an actor complaining because they're playing a bad guy? Very little difference. It's not ME doing these despicable things. I would never do any of that stuff in real life, because I'm a decent guy with solid morals and ethics. I have some truly evil characters created that don't feel very evil when I read the dialog and mission text.

I want REAL evil!! Not watered down, kid-friendly evil.

I also dislike that no matter what you do in the late game you become an Arachnos lapdog. There is no way most of my characters would conform and be someone else's goon like that. Sure, a couple would, but that's how they're written.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

 

Posted

The evil in COV atm is ok if youre a thug. A simple merc.

If you aspire greatness in villainy... Dr. Doom level... COV is not complying.
OV like it should be for a villain would make it at least 18+. Using MA arcs you can reach the real evil.. there you can make killing and torture.

What age should a person be protected from evil... and what age from nudity... or sex? It is a hard and culturally set aspect. The US often allows violence at much younger level then nudity and/or sex. The EU would often accept ot just the other way around.

In base... if I want to play my villains as villains... I would have to be able to kill civileans in mayhem missions... And text would often talk kill instead of defeat yes. A smart villain would much more clash with longbow, ppd or civies then Arachnos.

I also miss some other villain aspect in COV... being a villain you would expect while playing a heroes arc. I would like for instance to be allied to Vazilock... and have some of his medic walk with me and heal me. I like more visual aspect... blood would me nice on killing. Maybe we should show some end results of capers with an animation upon succeeding a mission?

Would it be possible to have news realsin Paragon City not unlike the screens in Grandvill. Showing most wanted villains..?

Anyway.. this will prob never happen as COX doesnt want to raise the age but a villain should be a real villain.

There is something very true off heroes... They are only as good as their enemies are evil. You set the moraility of youre hero to what villains he fight. The more evil the villain, the better the hero.

I am no pvp-er... but instances with PVP would make a better villain/hero clash too. Like tf's which are 2 sides of same mission. and have the teams meet each other during the action.

Anyway... if there was a way to show what you had done after and action... you would feel more evil. For all who hardly read the text... COV is the same as COH with diff look.

- The Italian Job: The Godfather Returns #1151
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Advanced - Go back in time and witness the birth of a vampire. Follow her to key moments in her life in order to stop her! A story of intrigue, drama and horror! Blood & Violence... not recommend to solo!

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect View Post
Personally, I feel that villainside isn't evil enough.

I'm roleplaying an evil character. Key word here is character. Do you ever hear an actor complaining because they're playing a bad guy? Very little difference. It's not ME doing these despicable things. I would never do any of that stuff in real life, because I'm a decent guy with solid morals and ethics. I have some truly evil characters created that don't feel very evil when I read the dialog and mission text.

I want REAL evil!! Not watered down, kid-friendly evil.

I also dislike that no matter what you do in the late game you become an Arachnos lapdog. There is no way most of my characters would conform and be someone else's goon like that. Sure, a couple would, but that's how they're written.
The problem with a truly evil villain is that you'd basically have no missions since your character refuses to be an underling/take orders, and thus, you'll have to make up your own missions in AE. :3

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Obscure Blade View Post
Well, except for his badge mission where the niece of the Vendetti ( Verandi are the Family guys, not the contact ) traitor ends up getting the short end of the stick ( scroll down to the debriefing ).
Sometimes you do not want to read the clues and feel good about yourself.

 

Posted

Methinks since I've never really messed with AE before that I'll try my hand at making some over the top villain arcs.

Murder,Death,Kills FTW

 

Posted

For all the people complaining villains basically have to be mercs:
More Villainous Options

>_>

<_<

</shamelessbump>

Having Vengeance and Fallout slotted for recharge means never having to say you're sorry.

 

Posted

Man, there's a lot of bloodlust here. For those desiring graphic violence, I'd recommend firing up one of the Left 4 Dead games or something similar. If you want a goregasm, there are plenty of alternatives to CoX.

Anyway, the really sinister villains would maintain a facade of respectability and work their schemes in the background

 

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Originally Posted by Zamuel View Post
I think it just depends on the villain. You can psycho mass murderers like Carnage, businessmen like Lex Luthor, or even honorable thieves like Carmen Sandiego. The trick is finding the right way to offer content for all types of villainy.
And that's been my largest source of disaffection with CoV over time; there's no real way to do it with the existing contact/mission structure, but it always feels as if, regardless of how high-level your character is, that you're still just a legbreaker for your contacts, not a villain in your own right. It would take a redesign of the mission system to have branching options -- so when you undertake a Dastardly Plan™, you'd have a choice among several first steps, each of which would have several choices for second steps, etc. -- which would be a massive undertaking to get all the necessary content in place. Failing a mission would eliminate that choice and its tree, so you'd have to go back and pick one of the other choices to bring your plan to fruition. But I don't expect anything like that to come out any time soon.

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Originally Posted by Vitality View Post

How many of the missions are clearly evil?
Only a handful of story arcs are really evil. Then there's the mayhem missions and repeatable warzone missions, but the newspaper missions are load of ****.

You'll mainly spend time fighting other villains in CoV, not heroes. You'll get disappointed pretty often lemme tell ya.

I'm sticking with CoV though, at first it was because I was expecting to do evil things, but now it just seems that CoV has majority of the better -.....ok I think I'll hold that sentence, lol.

 

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Lol, double post'd.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by srmalloy View Post
And that's been my largest source of disaffection with CoV over time; there's no real way to do it with the existing contact/mission structure, but it always feels as if, regardless of how high-level your character is, that you're still just a legbreaker for your contacts, not a villain in your own right.
Yeah, you're never going to have themed minions or your own evil lair... unless you recruit a villain group and design their costumes and base for them. There's no way to actually carry out a villainous philosophy other than Arachnos' vague "conflict needs no reason, conflict is the reason".

It hardly even seems like there's room to be more of a punch-clock villain. I mean, sure, you've got to kill people when it's required for the job, but there's no reason to be a jerk to everyone, all the time. I've always felt vaguely bad that there's nothing villains will do for Thorn Slaves in Nerva or the people being Devoured in St. Martial, even if you stomp the spawns around them. Sure, rescuing people is for heroes, yadda yadda, but nobody deserves to be mind controlled or turned into a hideous monster unless I'm the one controlling them or it's my hideous monster.

But then I go on with whatever I was doing because, hey, people need killing. Those bills aren't going to pay themselves.

@Mindshadow

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by srmalloy View Post
there's no real way to do it with the existing contact/mission structure
I disagree. Make a few new low level contacts--some for the ruthless and others for the "I just rob banks" types. Make the mid and higher level ones unlockable only by completing lower level ones. This will give the ability to gate player preferences between styles of villainy. Careful wording of contact text and adding a few of these to the SG Mission Computer will help a large amount.

Also, rotate in a few new Newspaper missions where the player gets to fight heroes for the listed victim/item as opposed to other villains. Legacy Chain, Wyvern, and the Paragon City Heroes are all woefully underused. Add in a "page turn" option to the Newspaper so you can rotate out the selection of available missions.

Also, badges should be more than just an obsession. Make it so that if you get a badge for kidnapping X number or victims, you unlock a contact with a short arc that allows you to go on some form of grand kidnapping spree.