Random complaint about complaints

Ok, every now and then I see a really silly complaint about CoV. The complaint is as follows:

"My villain's story arcs are too evil"

Er, your a freaking super villain. How is that a bad thing? I personally enjoy the more evil arcs. They let my villain actually feel like a villain. Some of the villain contacts have you do things a hero would be expected to do. Granted, sometimes it's just stopping one of your own plans which goes too far according to an Abitor.

When I see someone complaining about their villain getting missions to kidnap, murder, frame others for their misdeeds, and other villainous acts I can't help but wonder. Ok, sure there's such things as the anti-hero and misunderstood hero. I have some myself. Characters such as Blazing Sleet who is a would be hero, who is viewed as a criminal. I RP him as being in the rogue isles to fight criminals away from the pesky 'heroes' who keep trying to bring him to justice for saving lives. He's a ice/thermal corrupter.

How do I get around the 'I'm a hero doing evil' dilemma? It's simple really. For one thing, I avoid the truely evil contacts. You know the contact who gives an arc to corrupt a young hero and make them a villain? I don't work for him. I pick missions which while evil, don't exactly hurt innocents. Billy Burner wants me to take down a Council base? Great, I'll do it. Joe Schmo wants me to beat down a family splinter group? All right, the villains are paying me to eliminate villains.

When I do newspaper missions, I can avoid the kidnapping missions and rare bank job. I avoid doing mayhem missions too. I don't mind the occasional mission against Longbow cause Blazing Sleet is viewed as a criminal by most of the world. He's not, but they THINK he is. They think he's burning people alive when he heals them or generates a protective barrier of flames around them.

But for the most part I think people whining that villain content is too villainous is... really really dumb. What do you guys think?

Everyone's entitled to their opinion. I, personally, think a lot of the villain content is rather mild and underwhelming (the newer stuff is much better, Darrin Wade's being GREAT and the i17 stuff being two of the best arcs I've played on either side).

To each their own.

We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.

I really think that the complaints more stem from the fact that the person wants to run the archtype they are using but would much rather use it as a hero.

Much of this will be reduced once Going Rogue comes out.

I know that I much prefer to run heroes instead of villians but find that many of the villian archtypes are fun to play.

I think we need more missions to poison and destroy the food for the poor and destitute.

But I agree with you to complain that your doing evil things when your a VILLAIN makes no sense. OFC then you have the RP people that have a "Hero" on the Villain side. GR will with any luck, will put an end to sutch complaints.

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...=219896&page=2

A big discussion about it is there.

The quick version is that villainy is NOT vileness. Villainy encompasses being an antagonist in many forms. They can have tons of possible motivations.

Most well conceived villains are heroes in their own mind and would not do random bad things just so they can show off how evil they are. In fact if they do it's among the quickest signs of a bad writer.

See also:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...ilHasStandards

Interesting thread. And I agree that being evil doesn't have to equate to being vile. Poison Bloom for example is extremely evil. She enjoys torture, murder, and would cheerfully destroy the world if she got the chance just to see it burn. She's kidnapped many wizards and force them to serve her. She's enslaved magical beings from multiple realities just because she can. BUT she is also pragmatic. She knows that if she completely destroys the world, there is nothing left for her to enjoy. Her riches would mean nothing. No one left to kill means she can't enjoy her favorate past time (torture using various slow acting toxins). Instead, she hires herself and the ninja academy she took over out. She'll work for anyone, and do anything. As long as the pay is good that is. When she discovered that the work she'd been doing for Recluse would end up destroying the world, and kill her... She took steps to prevent that. She doesn't really want to watch the world burn. Sure it'd be fun, but then she'd be out of things to do.

By the same token, I am a big fan of the morally gray hero/villain. Frank Castle is interesting because he does bad things, but for the right reasons. Magneto isn't evil, but he is fanatic. He honestly wants to make things right, but doesn't see how his actions merely prove the anti-mutant propoganda to be right. Morally ambiguous characters are very interesting. They walk the fine line between Right and Wrong. I have a few characters like that. I already described Blazing Sleet, a hero who is constantly misunderstood.

Then I have Fluffy (currently named Poison Bloom's Pet). Fluffy was stolen from his parents before hatching by PB. He was enslaved, and raised to think she was his mother. Everything he was taught said that she was one of the Good people. He was raised to think hurting others was something the just did, and thus he grew to enjoy it. But he's not evil. He's a villain only because he doesn't know what he's doing is wrong. Or at least, he didn't. RP wise he learned what had been done to him, and wants to atone. He's broken away from PB and headed to Paragon to find his way. Yeah, he's gonna Go Rogue.

Madam Enigma was brutalized as a child, and mentally snapped. She's a borderline psychopath. She'll kill without remorse or regret. So why is she a hero? Because her chosen victims are those who prey upon the weak. I'll run the morality missions with her, but I'm unsure how she'll fall. She's a cold blooded killer, but has the heart of a hero. She saves lives, but is psychotic. She's saved Paragon and the world multiple times, but her body count is incredibly high. RP wise she's had her security clearance revoked multiple times, only to have it reinstated after saving the city (or world) yet again.

So, are Fluffy and Madam Enigma evil? One hurts and kills because they think it's an act of the just. The other does so because they've been hurt so badly they can't forgive criminals. Heck, I should have a link to M.E.'s backstory in my sig.

Bah...

My complaint isn't about the content of the arcs - I agree, that it seems we're more "City of Hired Thugs" than Villains at times, but nothing I can't work with.

My real complaint is that... well, as I climb the ranks, it seems like I get real limited in my choice of enemies. Either Longbow, or Arachnos...

I don't mind fighting those factions... but they seems to come up all the time, and I'd like to see a larger variety!

I very well might side switch my highest Villains just because I am tired of seeing arcs with those two enemy groups!

Well, okay, that will kinda depend how accolades are handled with Side Switching. (I'm about 85% the way to both Born in Battle and Force of Nature with my Brute... I really don't want to see that all go to waste...)

Oh yes, because heroes get so much variety at high levels. I can fight Malta (and KoA), I can fight Praetorians, I can fight CoT (still), or Council, or Carnies, or Rikti. Crey also to a lesser extent, but Crey missions dry up after you bring down the Countess. Oh, and I can head to the shadow shard and get reamed hardcore by those stupid eyeballs.

Villains fight Longbow, Arachnos, Arachnids, Carnies, Nemesis, Crey, Rikti, CoT, Council, Malta (and by extension KoA), or the PPD.

That I really don't mind usually. After all in a City(s) of Villains, your not bloody likely to find many heroes. Their vastly out numbered, and tend to be hunted down quickly. Only groups with powerful backing can survive, and even they get beaten down regularly. I'd hate to see the turnover rate for Longbow or Wyvern. They must have a lot of deaths each month.

I concur about evil not being about vileness, I do evil things every day. I will often just say things to get reactions and elicit responses (A little like Nemesis). Or occasionally, when I'm bored I start screwing with things in my workplace to see what happens. (Like Vivacious Verandi) One time I actively sought revenge on a friend to feel "better" than him. (A little like Psymon Omega vs Romulus IIRC).

I feel the evil in COV is fairly human on most levels, with super powered flair, and thus far more extreme.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deus_Otiosus This entire post should receive some kind of award for being both hysterical and fantastic. Well done.

What kind of makes me chuckle is the existence of complaints that villain side is all "do good to stop some greater evil from destroying the world" and saying "not enough villainy" and "not evil enough" and saying "too evil".

My point is the missions have quite a bit of variety. From ruining someone who was trying to redeem the freaks in Grandville, to kidnapping a woman and forcing her to be Johnny Sonata's "girlfriend" against her will, then beating down her guards and bringing her back when she runs away, to random bank robberies and petty thefts, to joining up with heroes to do good in Cimerora and the Warzone.

There's a lot of content out there. Play what you like, avoid the rest. You have to turn off exp to play all of it before you outlevel some anyway. Might as well use that to your advantage to skip what you don't like.

In addition to the ones Kelenar listed, the earliest "evil" one I know of are the two for Radio where you get to be responsible for the plague during the hero "outbreak" tutorial. That's kind of fun.

Overall I would say the villain arcs aren't villainous enough (except for Westin). That being said my main villain is an out and out mercenary so that suits me fine. As long as he gets paid he doesn't care to much about the job itself but at the same time keeping a low profile decreases the risk of heroes knocking down his door in the middle of the night.

Or you could take Burke as your level one contact. Then avoid the more evil of the contacts such as Radio, Philips, and a few other. Instead take contacts which mainly pit you up against villains and wont hurt innocents too much. Marshal Brass would be a good contact pick. Sure he's a villain, but he is trying to do the right thing. As much as he can anyway. Hardcase is another good pick, while Johny and his flunkies may not be.

That's my plan for my misunderstood hero.