Reichsman is not fun.
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2010-05-31 13:39 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
I haven't done the Barakuda SF yet (and from the sound of it, I'm not gonna'), but I HAVE done the Khan TF and it was boring. No, wait, let me try again. It was booooOOOooooOOOooooOOOORING! It doesn't help that TF teams always rush too much for me to so much as read a sentence of text, but that final fight is both tedious AND stupid on quite a few levels. As usual, the only glimmer of good taste is Nemesis, going for the obvious "You really think you caught the REAL Nemesis? Ha!"
The rest, though, are just dull and Grimfalcon or whatever his name is just... Makes no sense! The Malta Group don't have "a leader." They're not like the Trolls where one tough guy is sitting on a throne and slapping everyone else on the back of the head for kicks and giggles. They're an international conspiracy with enough bureaucracy to sink the Soviet Union and whose leaders - the Directors - are not not defined by being kickass fighters, but rather by being able politicians, capable leaders and cunning bastards. They don't go out and fight things because they don't HAVE to. No-one is ever supposed to be able to so much as connect them to Malta, and even then, no-one can lay a finger on them. And suddenly we have a jacked-up Gunslinger as "the boss" because someone needed another AV and didn't feel like using someone that made sense.
Why in the hell is Reichsman kidnapping completely nonsensical people, anyway? What does he want with Countess Crey? Her shtick isn't that she's a powerful fighter but rather that she's a millionaire and very cunning? Why does he not use one of the eleventy zillion AVs that the Council stole from the 5th Column? Wouldn't that make more sense, even if you wanted to go with that kind of gimmick?
And, really, Reichsman's gimmick is just stupid, especially in the Khan TF. Basically, it amounts to a bag-of-holding's worth of HP, one cheapass invulnerability state and a bunch of out-of-context AVs. Seriously, it feels like this was made by someone who'd never so much as HEARD of City of Heroes before.
I've been tying my fingers in knots typing this out over the years, but if you're going to make a complicated-mechanic AV, then do something more involving, rather than just a mountain of hit points. You can look at practically EVERY GAME EVER MADE for inspiration. Hell, you can look at THIS game for it. Like the Hydra Head. That's, what, five years old? And it's still FAR superior to the Khan TF.
What was wrong with designign a few machines that need to be broken while he's invincible, then hurt him some, then he runs away and calls ambushes, then you have to break down a door while ambushes come in, then you have to beat him until he runs away to regenerate, whereupon you can REALLY hurt him as he's exposed... You know, your typical MegaMan boss battle. Yeah, it's complicated, sure. The way the Barakuda SF works isn't exactly simple, it's just... Ugh! Required ATs and sacks of HP. That's what it comes down to.
Man!
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Funny thing is that I've only run it with my Stalker and I think that's the least useful of the temps. The Dominator + Corruptor combo is better but actually requires coordination.
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Originally Posted by PumBumbler
It almost forces you to bring a stalker to use the 'kill all ambushes' switch...
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Sam, we are in complete agreement here.
I almost get the feeling like the Devs came close to making a very interesting boss encounter that couldn't be solved with just brute force but then chickened out and decided that a big bag of Hit Points was still the way to go.
If you want to make an invulnerable boss encounter where a team has to use alternate means to defeat the boss then just DO it.
Give us an interesting end boss for once. Give us something where the team needs to work together to disable his/her/its power sources or position disruptor devices while fending off his henchmen. Whatever...
Just friggin' pick something and stick with it! If you can't distance yourself from big bag of hitpoints, then just admit that and move on. Don't try to do something different and then stop halfway. There are thousands of games out there with interesting end encounters and this is the best you could come up with?
Reichsman is a terrible fight, IMO.
However I wonder if the devs made him an annoying PITA because he's designed to be fought by at least one Incarnate, lol.
The Story of a Petless MM with a dream
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Originally Posted by Deus_Otiosus
This entire post should receive some kind of award for being both hysterical and fantastic.
Well done. |
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I honestly wouldn't be too opposed to this, provided they drop the concept of ridiculous offence along with the concept of ridiculous hit points. There is NOTHING WORSE than the intangible Thorn Tree in the Villain Respec trial that you have to run in plain sight of, taking huge damage while not even being able to taunt it. Why do boss fights always have to come with such ridiculous damage output, anyway?|
Originally Posted by Slashman
If you want to make an invulnerable boss encounter where a team has to use alternate means to defeat the boss then just DO it.
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I mean, if you have to run around blowing up generators to drop his shields, then cull in his offence until his shields drop and THEN he lets rip, but doesn't just murder the team while they're going about their tasks.
Again, a lot like the Hydra Head. Yes, if you approach it it will smoke you, but you can take down the shield generators without having to face the head, itself, instead fighting lots of Rikti, perplexingly all bosses.
Neither stupid amounts of hit points nor stupid amounts of damage points are integral to a good boss encounter.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Actually GreyFalcon is a 'stand in replacement' AV for the original Circle of Thorns AV, unfortunately whoever wrote the Taskforce didn't know the lore well enough that Akarist (who was the AV at the time *said in Grampa Simpson voice*) wasn't actually an evil member of the Circle of Thorns but a traitor to the Circle and got called on the fact it made no sense for Akarist to be fighting the heroes. | The rest, though, are just dull and Grimfalcon or whatever his name is just... Makes no sense! The Malta Group don't have "a leader." They're not like the Trolls where one tough guy is sitting on a throne and slapping everyone else on the back of the head for kicks and giggles. They're an international conspiracy with enough bureaucracy to sink the Soviet Union and whose leaders - the Directors - are not not defined by being kickass fighters, but rather by being able politicians, capable leaders and cunning bastards. They don't go out and fight things because they don't HAVE to. No-one is ever supposed to be able to so much as connect them to Malta, and even then, no-one can lay a finger on them. And suddenly we have a jacked-up Gunslinger as "the boss" because someone needed another AV and didn't feel like using someone that made sense. |
The AV dialogue in Beta was a HELL of a lot worse and the Khan TF actually went through about three different version, again because players mentioned that the four AVs had absolutely NO reason to be helping Reichsman.
Atleast currently they have the pretense of trying to beat up the heroes for other reasons.
Countess Crey: Bad publicity to be seen 'affiliating' with a Super-Nazi and trying to defeat the heroes to stop it getting out.
Nemesis: It's only a robot so he might as well beat up some meddlesome heroes before departing.
Vanessa De Vore: Always needs new mindslaves.
Now that's all well and good, admittedly most of those a poor reason but they're semi-justifiable none the less...unfortunately it all falls apart when we get to our next AV...
GreyFalcon: Malta would NEVER parley with Reichsman, they wouldn't even bother sending a represenative (which is what GreyFalcon is in my mind, he's not the boss but a cell leader, someone they could afford to lose). To them a Super-powered Nazi represents actually the kind of thing Malta hates personified into an evil gloaty form. Basically when Akarist got remove I think dear Bruce kind of panicked and just pulled a 40+ group name out of a hat and went with it.
What would make more sense would be someone like Requiem, held in a cell for 'failing' to defeat the Council and Reichsman holding him there 'to be judged' while he deals with other matters. When release have Requiem laugh and say that he'll defeat the heroes, that way the 5th Column will see who their true master is and not this upstart from another dimension.
I threw that together in the time it took to write it...yeah it's not great but I personally believe Requiem would make a better AV than GreyFalcon.
wow I didnt exeperience anything like this at all on my only run of this TF. I guess I got lucky. I didnt know much about this TF going in with my dark/dark/dark defender so I just tried to keep up best I could. I dont recall the enitre make up of our team but we breezed through the whole thing including the last fight. I guess I got lucky with my team.
Member of the Hyperion Force
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Ouch... That actually explains a lot. The whole ending of the TF always felt like someone stuck a band aid on a gunshot wound, but knowing it used to be a 120 howitzer hole...|
Originally Posted by Dr_Mechano
Actually GreyFalcon is a 'stand in replacement' AV for the original Circle of Thorns AV, unfortunately whoever wrote the Taskforce didn't know the lore well enough that Akarist (who was the AV at the time *said in Grampa Simpson voice*) wasn't actually an evil member of the Circle of Thorns but a traitor to the Circle and got called on the fact it made no sense for Akarist to be fighting the heroes.
The AV dialogue in Beta was a HELL of a lot worse and the Khan TF actually went through about three different version, again because players mentioned that the four AVs had absolutely NO reason to be helping Reichsman. |
Yeah, that about sums it up. It feels like it was written by someone who knew City of Heroes existed and may have actually played a few missions, but didn't have the first idea about what any of the characters were supposed to represent, who they were or what their motivations were. I mean, seriously. This is on par with the "Hamidon is a what what of what?!?" incident, only this was an offhand promo comment and this is a piece of flagship content.
That whole TF is just... Dear Lord! Why is Reichsman working FOR the 5th Column when in the past they've done their best to work for his Axis Amerika? Why is he wearing a 5th Column uniform coming out of the vat? Or indeed at all? Wouldn't he want an Axis Amerika uniform. Whoever wrote him doesn't seem to have grasped the difference between the 5th Column and Axis Amerika, in that there isn't anything other than ideology common between them. They're not the same thing.
If this is the past 5th Column, where is past Requiem, the one we fight in the Imperious TF? What was he even trying to achieve? Where did the current Requiem come from? Did he go into the past to set up the 5th Column and then leave them to their own devices? Is he commuting between timelines, swapping uniform AND POWER ORIGINS back and forth?
And that's without even touching on the huge frikkin MESS that is the Council storyline... Ugh, I'm starting to wish for another retcon again...
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| What would make more sense would be someone like Requiem, held in a cell for 'failing' to defeat the Council and Reichsman holding him there 'to be judged' while he deals with other matters. When release have Requiem laugh and say that he'll defeat the heroes, that way the 5th Column will see who their true master is and not this upstart from another dimension. |
Thing is, before someone wiped his *** with the Ubelmann arc and turned into a story about somebody's grandma, this is exactly how he was depicted. Requiem basically set up Ubelmann to take the fall and NOT change the world to where the Nazi won, because Requiem is hypocrite. He wants "his 5th Column" because he wants power, and he's more than willing to sacrifice ideology for it. So it makes sense that he wouldn't support Reichsman who will basically either take his Column or bring about a Nazi future where his Column is insignificant. Requiem has even more reason to want Reichsman to fall than we do.
Plus having an AV's plan backfire in actual gameplay, as opposed to clue-based writing, is a cool gimmick
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Fixed.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Like the Hydra Head. That's, what, five years old? And it's still FAR superior to every other TF/SF boss in the game.
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Too bad everyone wusses out at the sheer mention of the Sewer Trial.
Think it's Gyrfalcon. Not that it matters.
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I didn't experience any challenge nor "not easy" on the one time I ran a Dr. Kahn TF. Three friends and I decided to try it since it said the minimum team size was 4. We had fun through most of the missions. Most of it was pretty easy and simple but it was new content. The last fight felt like fighting a practice dummy in the Rikti War Zone base or a Mole Machine. We fought for 20 or 30 minutes and had used half of our weapons. When the various AVs in the area came against us we swatted them like flies... they were gnats. The AVs literally died in under 30 seconds to the 4 of us. |
Originally Posted by GreenFIame
It's an fun Taskforce, not everything Should be easy, I do believe we should have some lvl of an Challenge.
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Reichsman, however, was a post. There was no challenge to it. He wasn't hard. He didn't need any strategy. I had plenty of time to bring up the web to read about the encounter to make sure we were using our weapons properly to ensure we got it done as fast as possible. No action occurred. No threat of danger occurred. No challenge was seen. We simply put attacks on auto and slowly waited until he died.
Reichsman felt like:
If other people find beating on mole machines and practice dummies fun that's fine. Personally, I despise the Reichsman encounter and will never run it again.
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That, ultimately, is the critical problem with bags of hit points. For the people who aren't strong enough, it's a no-win situation. For the people who ARE strong enough, it's just tedious. Essentially, a no-win situation.|
Originally Posted by Smurphy
Reichsman, however, was a post. There was no challenge to it. He wasn't hard. He didn't need any strategy. I had plenty of time to bring up the web to read about the encounter to make sure we were using our weapons properly to ensure we got it done as fast as possible. No action occurred. No threat of danger occurred. No challenge was seen. We simply put attacks on auto and slowly waited until he died.
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This actually confounds me to no end. The developers have proven that they can make cool, entertaining, interesting and engaging content... And they just choose not to, again and again. A boss battle doesn't need to be ball-bustingly tough in order to be fun. In fact, after a certain point, toughness just makes it worse. A boss battle needs to be interesting, and while I don't expect every newspaper to end in a clever puzzle, you could at least make your new flagship TF a little more interesting than an AV brawl.
And again - required-AT gimmicks need to die in a fire, right alongside simuclick missions (those aren't fun even on a team!). This is the quintessential, most crucial failure of this game's balance and the balance of its encounters. It all comes down to what you BRING and almost never down to what you DO. Needing a Stalker to take and use a specific power is just bad design. If you needed a Stalker to actually go out and DO something useful for the team above and beyond his state of being a Stalker, that might count, but AT-specific powers? No. Just... No.
For the umpteenth time: Hydra Trial! And possibly Eden Trial, as well, I haven't done it yet. These are great. Did the person who make them die or something?
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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There are two Reichsmen.
One Reichsman is the guy the team with overkill debuffage fights. This Reichsman dies in like 30 seconds and the team says, "lol reichsman is overpowered?" (had been on that kind of team when I did Khan last, just because I felt like pounding on some nazis!)
The other Reichsman is the guy a pug team has to fight. This Reichsman is overpowered and tedious to fight. I remember my first (and only) Barracuda run we pounded on Reichsman for 40 minutes. Stupid, lame SF. Only hate Recluses' "enjoy your 8 level 54 AVs " final mission more, mostly because it was designed wholly around using meta-gaming tricks to beat 'em. It should be redone to be more like the Jade Spider one where the Freedom Phalanx attacks in waves, with Longbow support. Just not..."ok everybody stand waaaaay over there out of Line of Sight, and i'll try to single pull one and hope they all don't come charging along".
Hydra and Eden trials were done eons ago. Hydra is a hoot because it's so easy to fail if your team isn't coordinated enough to take out the generators all together. Abandoned Sewers Network really is the only *challenging* TF in this game, forget what the stupid loading screens say about Statesman/Recluse's. Eden has a *really cool* map. But you could cheese the Crystal Titan by just eating purples instead of the super special anti-Crystal Titan One-Shot hit Ambrosia inspirations the DE bosses in the map drop. And a Fulcrum Shift utilizing all those crystal monsters surrounding the Titan? pfft, forget about it, i think one footstomp could cause an earthquake. I think Eden is only about 2 merits because Speeden teams dominated that trial so easily, for the rapid Recipe rolls it used to provide. Sadly, that Synapse guy probably can't rebalance the merit reward upwards or it'll just get farmed to death again.
Don't mention LRSF to me...
It was great fun! And then we hit the last mission. Oh god....oh sinful lords of the underhells, what diety did we p*ss the living heck outta to deserve what happened there? Horrible, horrible, horrible design. At least I can safely say 5thSF is more fun than LRSF, because at least 5thSF is BEATABLE.
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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It almost seems like self-sabotage. We have so many 'pound on x til it dies' end encounters. Do we need yet another?|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
That, ultimately, is the critical problem with bags of hit points. For the people who aren't strong enough, it's a no-win situation. For the people who ARE strong enough, it's just tedious. Essentially, a no-win situation.
This actually confounds me to no end. The developers have proven that they can make cool, entertaining, interesting and engaging content... And they just choose not to, again and again. A boss battle doesn't need to be ball-bustingly tough in order to be fun. In fact, after a certain point, toughness just makes it worse. A boss battle needs to be interesting, and while I don't expect every newspaper to end in a clever puzzle, you could at least make your new flagship TF a little more interesting than an AV brawl. |
And yes, it's stupid that every end boss has to do a truckload of damage for the entire encounter. Why aren't there bosses who depend on others to fight for them? Countess Crey is not some mega telepath. She is a normal woman who is extraordinarily smart, cunning and ruthless. Encounters like hers only serve to make the story content look absolutely nonsensical.
If she had that kind of power, why would she even need to try to make her organization look like a legitimate business.
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And again - required-AT gimmicks need to die in a fire, right alongside simuclick missions (those aren't fun even on a team!). This is the quintessential, most crucial failure of this game's balance and the balance of its encounters. It all comes down to what you BRING and almost never down to what you DO. Needing a Stalker to take and use a specific power is just bad design. If you needed a Stalker to actually go out and DO something useful for the team above and beyond his state of being a Stalker, that might count, but AT-specific powers? No. Just... No. For the umpteenth time: Hydra Trial! And possibly Eden Trial, as well, I haven't done it yet. These are great. Did the person who make them die or something? |
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Fully agree with you there Sam, as I said I threw out the 'Requiem in a bubble' idea in the time it took me to write it.|
You know what WOULD be fun, though? If we had Requiem in the bubble, then he's released to fight us, only he says "Ha! The 5th Column is MINE! You can't have it!" and actually fights on our side. Be fun to see Reichsman go O.O Thing is, before someone wiped his *** with the Ubelmann arc and turned into a story about somebody's grandma, this is exactly how he was depicted. Requiem basically set up Ubelmann to take the fall and NOT change the world to where the Nazi won, because Requiem is hypocrite. He wants "his 5th Column" because he wants power, and he's more than willing to sacrifice ideology for it. So it makes sense that he wouldn't support Reichsman who will basically either take his Column or bring about a Nazi future where his Column is insignificant. Requiem has even more reason to want Reichsman to fall than we do. Plus having an AV's plan backfire in actual gameplay, as opposed to clue-based writing, is a cool gimmick
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Sadly I actually think the experience put off Horatio aka Bruce Harlick (the man that wrote the mission briefings and dialogue) because he was lambasted at every point and people just generally weren't hugely impressed with what I kind of percieve as 'his baby' and that while he had worked on the development team...he kind of hadn't read the story bible..if you get what I mean.
The Khan TF went through three of four rewrites in beta thanks to the players point out plot holes, general flaws and mismatching against the already ingame lore. The Barracuda SF went through atleast two because people did the "oh...so I'm Lord Recluses Lackey again...great...fine...another taskforce where I'm the [censored] of Arachnos, like we're not totally sick of that /sarcasm."
So it was kind of like dear old Bruce hadn't A) heard the complaints of the playerbase and B) didn't know the lore well enough. After the tepid reception of his baby...he seemed to have left Paragon Studios quietly not long after...
The two 5th Column taskforces are STILL not that great even after all that and they're also horrible imbalanced between the two sides (the hero version is a complete freaking joke with even 1 debuffer, the villainside version has the horrible, horrible AT based temp powers gimmick and ambushes so huge they take half an hour of constant fighting to clear out if you wipe).
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| And yes, it's stupid that every end boss has to do a truckload of damage for the entire encounter. Why aren't there bosses who depend on others to fight for them? Countess Crey is not some mega telepath. She is a normal woman who is extraordinarily smart, cunning and ruthless. Encounters like hers only serve to make the story content look absolutely nonsensical. |
Further Edit:
They Hydra head is about as close to a WoW Dungeon boss as we get, it has a gimmick (as most WoW bosses do) and it requires good team coordination (as 50% of the WoW bosses do).
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Yikes! Man, now I kind of feel bad for the guy. But at the same time, that's a pretty serious gaff when you launch a story that contradicts your own lore and players have to keep pointing out the plot holes. Jack used to beat us over the head with this mythical story bible, which apparently was big enough for him to hide behind when the Council car wreck was dumped into the game, and boy were THOSE fun times! The Independence Port Security Chief briefing still has Atlas fighting an "alien armada" because game lore suddenly became phobic of the 5th Column and nazism, replacing them with the Council and fascism. I don't know why that was, but it ended up laying so many eggs we're STILL not done counting our chickens before they hatch, and I promise to stop saying stupid things!|
Originally Posted by Dr_Mechano
Sadly I actually think the experience put off Horatio aka Bruce Harlick (the man that wrote the mission briefings and dialogue) because he was lambasted at every point and people just generally weren't hugely impressed with what I kind of percieve as 'his baby' and that while he had worked on the development team...he kind of hadn't read the story bible..if you get what I mean.
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But, yeah, the Khan TF is just... Awkward. I don't know if the actual writing for it is any good (I assume it is), since my team didn't exactly let me experience it, but the story as best I could piece it together seemed... Well, yeah, seemed like it was written by someone who didn't know the first thing about City of Heroes lore. And I'm not talking about getting character nuances wrong that we, the players, might have memorised after five years. I mean obvious mistakes that anyone who'd played the game from 1-50 ought to have at least seen mention of. My God! Akharist as the Citcle representative? Holy cow!
That's actually something that bugs me a lot about new content being added to the game when there's old content it references. When the Rikti War Zone was added, that basically invalidated Angus McQueen almost entirely. His story arc no longer makes sense. When the Statesman TF was added, this invalidated Maria Jenkins' story arc entirely, because it relies on the Statesman missing, which he clearly isn't. Adding the Midnight club didn't invalidate much, but the game is still filled with little references to people coping with the Midnight Club being gone, and it's not!
I dare say the best stories are those who introduce an entirely new zone with entirely unrelated plot points, like Coratoa or Faultline. And even THEN they managed to dump all over the Trolls and the Outcasts with the Hollows, putting their leaders 2-3 level ranged before the factions stop showing up, and don't even get me started on Striga and the Council/Column car wreck!
I'm actually reminded of Linkara's review of Donna Troy's backstory, from her accidental creation to the many revisions she's gone through, all for the sake of making sense and, according to him, all making less and less sense. That's kind of how I feel about the Khan TF. It sounds like it started out as just gigantic misunderstanding by an author who may have otherwise made a good story, but one which had nothing to do with the game, which was then crowbarred into in-game lore a little at a time until it at least stopped falling off, but it still bears the trace of "whatthehellary."
Seriously, I sincerely hope that the storyline in Going Rogue is more concise and the people writing it talk to each other more. Hopefully avoid goofs like this in the future.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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To be excruciatingly fair, I believe the Midnighters are still supposed to be a bit of a secret. Some folks might not be in the loop. It's always worth noting that player characters are privy to information that the general public does not know about.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Adding the Midnight club didn't invalidate much, but the game is still filled with little references to people coping with the Midnight Club being gone, and it's not!
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Now, if the Newsie starts shouting about how the Rikti are actually altered humans, I might have to go scrounge up that picture of Captain Picard which the internet loves to use for such situations...
@SPTrashcan
Avatar by Toxic_Shia
Why MA ratings should be changed from stars to "like" or "dislike"
A better algorithm for ordering MA arcs
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Speaking of that, the Omega Clearance Rikti info is given out in a 40-45 arc, and only as an extreme exception. Or WAS. Right now the Dark Watcher is handing it out to anyone who walks by like he's giving out free dinner vouchers. "Just say you learned it elsewhere." This isn't quite the same level of BAD as how villains learn about it, of course - which is basically Timothy Raymond dropping an afterthought to the effect of "Oh, and by the way, the Rikti are altered humans. You know, just sayin'." Ugh... Who wrote that?!?|
Originally Posted by SpittingTrashcan
Now, if the Newsie starts shouting about how the Rikti are actually altered humans, I might have to go scrounge up that picture of Captain Picard which the internet loves to use for such situations...
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I guess if we ignore the fact that our characters know about it, the Midnight Squad is still pretty secretive. You don't see their agents in the streets, their actual representatives don't stand out and their clubhouse mansion (never thought I'd use THAT expression) is hidden in nevereverland. So, that kind of makes sense.
Speaking of clandestine secret organisations, what THE HELL are the Malta Group doing calling you out in broad daylight? No-one is supposed to know they even exist, much less be printing their manifestos. That's what the definition of hidden conspiracy is. The Malta are suppose to be the Illuminati, the Templars, the Freemasons, the guys who rule our lives without us knowing and have fun putting pyramids on dollar bills just to show how cool they are that we don't understand the symbolism. They don't go around the streets yelling threats at people on the news!
Grimalkin or GrimFalcon or whatever that guy is is just the tip of the iceberg of Malta mischaracterisation. The Malta area group that pretty much no-one aside from Crimson and Indigo even knows about. Their contacts know specific details, but they're not aware of the overarching conspiracy. OK, I can deal with Recluse knowing about them, and Daos through him, but they shouldn't be in the newspaper. Moreover, police scanners shouldn't be mentioning them by name!
Ugh...
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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I remember all kinds of crazy ideas people used to throw around. Like a Countess Crey being an AV that battles some, but after taking a certain amount of damage flees when a force of her Paragon Protectors and Crey personnel spawn to cover her retreat. She respawns deeper in the map, healed up by her medics, and you have to lay the smack on her again...her strength coming from Crey Corporation's massive resources instead of personal strength.| And yes, it's stupid that every end boss has to do a truckload of damage for the entire encounter. Why aren't there bosses who depend on others to fight for them? Countess Crey is not some mega telepath. She is a normal woman who is extraordinarily smart, cunning and ruthless. Encounters like hers only serve to make the story content look absolutely nonsensical. |
Instead of throwing heroes against AVs that were just sacks of HPs and damage they could all have individualized tricks like that. Say, Clockwork King being the most powerful psychic on earth scrambles everyone's brains temporarily while his Court arrives to smack you down and clockwork gears begins repairing his damaged frame.
heh, even ideas like just common Bosses doing stuff like that. Like why don't Sky Raiders/Malta call in backup that zap in using teleportation packs, and stuff like that.
Her bodyguard Hopkins, at least, is pretty much a standard guy. Most non-super AV in CoX. SS/Wuss combo.
From my understanding you're supposed to take Statesman being kidnapped by Tyrant as just a little thing that happened while he was standing around IP, and you just happen to be someone who is strong enough to beat the Praetorians and rescue him from their dimension. ...at least Statesman should be missing in action in CoH2. lol. Heroes have to come out of the woodwork because Superman is dead!
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I'm still not quite convinced of the existence of a story bible that is anything more than maybe a collection (a large collection, it must be said) of random disorganized notes.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Jack used to beat us over the head with this mythical story bible, which apparently was big enough for him to hide behind when the Council car wreck was dumped into the game, and boy were THOSE fun times! The Independence Port Security Chief briefing still has Atlas fighting an "alien armada" because game lore suddenly became phobic of the 5th Column and nazism, replacing them with the Council and fascism. I don't know why that was, but it ended up laying so many eggs we're STILL not done counting our chickens before they hatch, and I promise to stop saying stupid things!
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I think I first got the impression that it was an actual physical object when Mark Waid (who (co-?)wrote the first three Top Cow CoH comics) mentioned in an interview (about said CoH comics) that the story bible "broke the table" when presented to him.
After that, my impressions of it morphed and changed due to various dev comments about how they didn't think of something or other (eg the infamous Dominatrix/Tyrant relationship thing), and now I'm not sure if it's a story bible that has the One True Canon, or just a huge collection of bits and scraps of what-if.
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Quote:
Personally, that's my definition of a "story bible". |
DKellis wants a book: I'm still not quite convinced of the existence of a story bible that is anything more than maybe a collection (a large collection, it must be said) of random disorganized notes. |
Dec out.
Okay, I tanked my first Reichsman shortly after it went live. This somewhat colored my perceptions.
On the plus side. This was still back when it was possible to beat the "Invincible Reichsman". Which we did. After about 30-45 minutes.
We then proceeded to beat him down AGAIN (with about the same amount of time) in the end. It was fun sorta.
On the minus side. I quite literally had to stop playing for almost a week afterwards as the extended periods of intense button-mashery necessary to keep him trained on me and not run at one of my squishies created an honest-to-bob RSI. And for several weeks afterwards I had massive pain in my wrist and hand if I played for more than an hour or so.
Since then, while I've done a few more Khans and Barracudas, I've been somewhat averse to the TF/SF.
The TF itself is mostly straightforward. The SF is a gimmick fight (which I'm not fond of).
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Quote:
I'm suspicious of if this mythical story bible exists myself.|
Originally Posted by DKellis
I'm still not quite convinced of the existence of a story bible that is anything more than maybe a collection (a large collection, it must be said) of random disorganized notes.
I think I first got the impression that it was an actual physical object when Mark Waid (who (co-?)wrote the first three Top Cow CoH comics) mentioned in an interview (about said CoH comics) that the story bible "broke the table" when presented to him. After that, my impressions of it morphed and changed due to various dev comments about how they didn't think of something or other (eg the infamous Dominatrix/Tyrant relationship thing), and now I'm not sure if it's a story bible that has the One True Canon, or just a huge collection of bits and scraps of what-if. |
There are only a few game devs I know of who I would trust when they say something like: 'We have a story bible.'
First and foremost is probably Bioware. I can believe that about Mass Effect and Dragon Age. Especially after seeing interviews with their lead writer.
I can probably also believe it about Blizzard. They are so anal about everything that it would just stand to reason. Plus have you seen inside their offices?
COX story arcs and lore are a bit too disjointed for me to take them at their word on this. I usually take them at their word on most other things...but not this.
The endless tide of Nazis can be really rough on a team not prepared for it - but on a team that brings lots of AoE, man, it's a hoot. Succeeded once when I brought my Crab; failed when I brought my Fort, who has significantly less AoE. Need to try it on my SS/Elec Brute sometime.
Reichs could afford to be less full of beef, though. I don't mind long fights, but I'm not a big fan of long fights that are essentially the same from start to finish. In fact, on the Kahn TF, it makes the last fight less interesting than it could be, because there's no chance in hell you'll burn him down fast enough to spawn more than one of the other AVs at a time.
@SPTrashcan
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Why MA ratings should be changed from stars to "like" or "dislike"
A better algorithm for ordering MA arcs