What's a poor wannabe vigilante to do?
By
Baler,
Posted on: 2010-08-20 19:22 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
And so it should be. The fact that sometimes you just have to let your metagame objective go because it's not worth making that decision to you is the sign of well-founded morality in a game.
The Vigilante missions are some of the hardest missions to bring myself to do. Some of them are extremely cruel. The devs did a great job on them.
bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonner-
ronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenth ur-
nuk!
I had a rogue mission where I had to save Overdrive. Now while going through all the mayhem missions on the way to lvl 49 where I am now, Overdrive was the hero showing up at the bank 4 out of the 9 missions, and when I went to destroy the statues for my cape at lvl 20, who showed up to get trounced? Overdrive of course! 
Now how fitting is it, I thought, that she's be the first weak-**** hero who I now have to save instead of the usual pounding I'm used to delivering. I'm certain I heard her laugh about it just before she ran out the door at the end, lol.
Doing the villain tips actually makes me feel incredibly guilty.
There is one where a group of Carnies are now trapped in Arachnoid tunnels, now Carnies are evil sure, that makes the choice easier.
No when you find the group of Carnies in the tunnels, the Ring Mistress is coughing up blood and near collapse and tells everyone else to run as soon as I get in range. Arachnoids my be monstrous...but I was definitely the monster there.
The villain morality mission is INCREDIBLY evil, like to a whole new level of evil, even beyond the Phipps stuff.
Basically you go in, threaten a guy (possible love interest of Overdrives from the dialogue) to have Overdrive turn up. You beat her down and she calls in Blast Furnace, you you beat down. You then proceed to laugh in Overdrives face as she tries for a second time to have at you. Once defeated you brutally mock Blast Furnace about how he can't save Overdrive and how truly pathetic he is for caring about innocent lives...before carting off Overdrive to torture until she finally breaks and agrees to become your lackey.
At every dialogue point in that mission you don't come across as some Bond villain, making threats, you're genuinely evil...seriously it needs to be played in order to be fully understood, I can't do it justice.
On the other end of the scale was the mission involving Westin Phipps for heroes. That actually made me feel good about myself because not only did I get to rescue Ms. Francine (whose ending in the Westin Phipps arcs is noted that she'll be tortured to death), Amanda Vimes and one other. It was because I'd managed to stave off my pure hatred of Phipps and the opportunity to smack him around (seriously, I was so incredibly tempted, it took me a while to decide) and actually made the heroic choice.
Oh yes. Westin Phipps. Mind you, I was trying to do vigilante missions anyway, but it was a very easy choice to decide to go administer some blunt trauma justice to him....
I'm finding for a lot of the missions it's easy to take the mindset of "villains need to face justice! And you can't trust Longbow to do anything right, they're corrupt!" The whole "I am the law" approach. But that doesn't work as well when it comes to abandoning people seeking your help. I suppose some vigilantes are only in it for selfish reasons and are probably destined to be villains, but I don't think any of mine are like that so far. Mouse Police uses a sword, and she doesn't just arrest villains, so I can envision her as a vigilante, but she's not evil. My War Shade Squiddy Kitty sucks the souls out from her enemies, so yeah, she's a rather bloodthirsty type too, but only against the bad guys.
On the flip side, when I turned my villain MM rogue, there were a couple of times where I thought, "Rescue this idiot? Why? I don't know them, why should I care?" But when I hit the morality mission, where the lives of innocent civilians were at stake, it was much easier to say, "No, sorry, not crossing that line, even if it pisses off Recluse himself."
I really like the bits and pieces you pick up about the various rogues you run into during these missions. I like Blast Furnace quite a bit more now. ^_^
my lil RWZ Challenge vid
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Originally Posted by james_joyce
The Vigilante missions are some of the hardest missions to bring myself to do. Some of them are extremely cruel. The devs did a great job on them.
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I so agree, I took my shade full villain and told the wife afterward that I felt kind of bad for doing it.
Badging in a PvP zone?
If you are treasure hunting on a battlefield wearing an enemy uniform, there is a high probability that you will be attacked.
This is an enjoy-the-ride game. "50" is only a number, not the goal of the game. - Noxilicious
Wait, wait, wait. You basically get the choice of Hero or Villain in each tip mission, and have to do the villainous stuff both to acquire (maintain?) Vigilante status, and to switch over to full-blown evil villain? The same stuff?
I wasn't sure how I expected that to work, but wow.
That means between the border groups, Rogues are effectively the good guys, and Vigilantes are actually the bad guys... Odd.
I was hoping to play a Vigilante to go around killing the bad guys and doing necessary evils, not kicking puppies.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding something here.
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I was fighting myself on this as well. rian has wanted to lay the hurt on phipps since issue 7, my initial thought was (one vigilante point wont hurt" but once i decided to run it because in character, rian would feel obligated to save amanda vines, the overall story worked...i do know i beat the everloving @#$% out of the arachnos guys who denied me my beatdown, i was popping reds superfluously, just to get the point across that rian would have been in a foul mood. I'm not consistant enough to rp, but i do like to keep something of a consistant mindset for characters.
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Originally Posted by Dr_Mechano
On the other end of the scale was the mission involving Westin Phipps for heroes. That actually made me feel good about myself because not only did I get to rescue Ms. Francine (whose ending in the Westin Phipps arcs is noted that she'll be tortured to death), Amanda Vimes and one other. It was because I'd managed to stave off my pure hatred of Phipps and the opportunity to smack him around (seriously, I was so incredibly tempted, it took me a while to decide) and actually made the heroic choice.
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It depends on the mission. Several that I did tonight were of the, "don't go to the authorities, go administer justice on your own" type. But it's not always so clear-cut.
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Originally Posted by Khiva
I was hoping to play a Vigilante to go around killing the bad guys and doing necessary evils, not kicking puppies.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding something here. |
my lil RWZ Challenge vid
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not quite, there usually is an option for one degree in either direction for a character. a hero would get a heroic option or a vigilante option. now vigilante would still be generally heroic, but violent, and usually disregarding an innocent to get a big bad. now if you are a villain, you would either get a rogue or villain option. vill options are generally nasty, whereas rogue are more self-serving, but kind of showing concern for human life and collateral damage. so one way to look at it may be heroic options are generally saving helpless people and averting danger, vigilantes usually are still attacking evil, but doing so in a callous and brutal way, rogue have some regard for life, but still are selfish and materialistic, and villains are just plain nasty(someone can fill in the vills descriptor for me better, i havent run any vill options, im mostly heroic or rogue.)
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Originally Posted by Khiva
Wait, wait, wait. You basically get the choice of Hero or Villain in each tip mission, and have to do the villainous stuff both to acquire (maintain?) Vigilante status, and to switch over to full-blown evil villain? The same stuff?
I wasn't sure how I expected that to work, but wow. That means between the border groups, Rogues are effectively the good guys, and Vigilantes are actually the bad guys... Odd. |
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Originally Posted by Organica
I really like the bits and pieces you pick up about the various rogues you run into during these missions. I like Blast Furnace quite a bit more now. ^_^
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That sounds pretty accurate to me. I also got the impression from a lot of the rogue missions and dialog that your typical rogue acts all cool and aloof about saving others. "Yeah, I saved you. Whatever. It's not like I went out of my way or anything. Just keep out of my way, got it?"
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Originally Posted by rian_frostdrake
not quite, there usually is an option for one degree in either direction for a character. a hero would get a heroic option or a vigilante option. now vigilante would still be generally heroic, but violent, and usually disregarding an innocent to get a big bad. now if you are a villain, you would either get a rogue or villain option. vill options are generally nasty, whereas rogue are more self-serving, but kind of showing concern for human life and collateral damage. so one way to look at it may be heroic options are generally saving helpless people and averting danger, vigilantes usually are still attacking evil, but doing so in a callous and brutal way, rogue have some regard for life, but still are selfish and materialistic, and villains are just plain nasty(someone can fill in the vills descriptor for me better, i havent run any vill options, im mostly heroic or rogue.)yeah, im thrilled they used them, and for me, doc quantum went from a doormat you went over to get redside capes, to one of my favorite canon characters, they pretty much turned him into jigsaw.
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my lil RWZ Challenge vid
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I kind of disagree. Some of the ones I've had made me think, "No, that's not what a vigilante would do, that's what a VILLAIN would do." They kind of go over the gray area, and that's not cool. Now if it was when I was already a vigilante, and was going villain, then I'd want it to be like "Yes, this is villainous completely"|
Originally Posted by james_joyce
The Vigilante missions are some of the hardest missions to bring myself to do. Some of them are extremely cruel. The devs did a great job on them.
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...Sadly I can't think of any examples...
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That sounds like it's kinda pushing the T rating...|
Originally Posted by Dr_Mechano
Doing the villain tips actually makes me feel incredibly guilty.
There is one where a group of Carnies are now trapped in Arachnoid tunnels, now Carnies are evil sure, that makes the choice easier. No when you find the group of Carnies in the tunnels, the Ring Mistress is coughing up blood and near collapse and tells everyone else to run as soon as I get in range. Arachnoids my be monstrous...but I was definitely the monster there. The villain morality mission is INCREDIBLY evil, like to a whole new level of evil, even beyond the Phipps stuff. Basically you go in, threaten a guy (possible love interest of Overdrives from the dialogue) to have Overdrive turn up. You beat her down and she calls in Blast Furnace, you you beat down. You then proceed to laugh in Overdrives face as she tries for a second time to have at you. Once defeated you brutally mock Blast Furnace about how he can't save Overdrive and how truly pathetic he is for caring about innocent lives...before carting off Overdrive to torture until she finally breaks and agrees to become your lackey. At every dialogue point in that mission you don't come across as some Bond villain, making threats, you're genuinely evil...seriously it needs to be played in order to be fully understood, I can't do it justice. |
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| On the other end of the scale was the mission involving Westin Phipps for heroes. That actually made me feel good about myself because not only did I get to rescue Ms. Francine (whose ending in the Westin Phipps arcs is noted that she'll be tortured to death), Amanda Vimes and one other. It was because I'd managed to stave off my pure hatred of Phipps and the opportunity to smack him around (seriously, I was so incredibly tempted, it took me a while to decide) and actually made the heroic choice. |
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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dude, hit up the wiki, phipps is a polarizing figure. to some he is the reaction of the devs to the criticism that cov was not villainous enough, to others he is considered a prank by the devs for going so overboard on making a horrid, evil, depraved scumbag of a man that he is self-referentially funny. my vills will not do his missions, but at least read up on them, they are twisted. im not going to spoil how completely depraved one of his missions is, but the one where you are poisoning poor children's food was memorably evil, particularly his reaction. as my in-game characters go, my heroes want to brutally beat him and my vills would likely kill him, even my steadfastly non-killing dom violet tendencies.|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
I never knew the original Phipps arc was that bad - that's just disgusting. |
here is his page. http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Westin_Phipps read up and enjoy.
Yeah I'm making Peacemoon go Villain for a bit, and some of the stories really make you think. One of them is you blow up a building to take out a villain inside, but the villains motives and that of the other vigilatange you are trying to help are not what you thought they were. Makes you feel bad. Plus afterwards you get a lovely popup saying how the crowd outside watches in disbelief as you hit the detenator and casually walk away. :'(
Thought provoking stuff though, which is good!
Just as I typed that I was logging into the game only to see a civilian say:
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I feel so bad!
| Marylyn: AHH! It's Peacemoon! I heard they bombed a building in Peregrine! |
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Hilarious arcs! Nothing makes you feel like a villain more!
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Originally Posted by rian_frostdrake
dude, hit up the wiki, phipps is a polarizing figure. to some he is the reaction of the devs to the criticism that cov was not villainous enough, to others he is considered a prank by the devs for going so overboard on making a horrid, evil, depraved scumbag of a man that he is self-referentially funny. my vills will not do his missions, but at least read up on them, they are twisted. im not going to spoil how completely depraved one of his missions is, but the one where you are poisoning poor children's food was memorably evil, particularly his reaction. as my in-game characters go, my heroes want to brutally beat him and my vills would likely kill him, even my steadfastly non-killing dom violet tendencies.
here is his page. http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Westin_Phipps read up and enjoy. |
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Wait, wait. |
Originally Posted by Dr_Mechano
I get to rescue Ms. Francine (whose ending in the Westin Phipps arcs is noted that she'll be tortured to death), Amanda Vimes and one other.
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You're Blue Steel?!
The Vigilante missions I got last night were mostly in the vein of "Let the villain group get away/do damage for the purpose of getting led to their hideout/drawing out their boss" etc. Sacrificing certain things for the 'Greater Good' as the Vigilante percieves it, or for cutting off the snakes head rather than cutting the body where it will heal.
It's all been very well written, so far. Sometimes the Rogue missions dont quite seem to go far enough to be 'redeeming', but some of them have been morally brighter, even if your also in it for the pay.
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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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Hehehe...|
Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
Wait, wait.
You're Blue Steel?! |
Oddly enough both myself and the person I was playing it with quipped that we'd taken over Blue Steels job as Deus Ex Machina, however we both reasoned that in order to fully do so we would have had to have done nothing BUT these kind of missions instead of being the reactive heroes we really are.
I remember one of the Rogue tips have you helping Hardcase. Boy, was that a tough one to lean torward Rogue, especially since it showed how stupid Hardcase can be. Binding a demon to fight the wailers... and he didn't think that could go wrong?
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Wait, what? The same Hardcase that absolute will NOT deal with demons because he knows they'll turn on you... bound a demon? Huh. Does the Rogue Isles have a Darwin Award?
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Originally Posted by MowDownJoe
I remember one of the Rogue tips have you helping Hardcase. Boy, was that a tough one to lean torward Rogue, especially since it showed how stupid Hardcase can be. Binding a demon to fight the wailers... and he didn't think that could go wrong?
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Aegis Rose, Forcefield/Energy Defender - Freedom
"Bubble up for safety!"
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I don't think I've gotten any that are explicitly villainous. The one I was thinking of was where some Freakshow are taking out some reformed Freakshow. The Vigilante choice is to go in and take all of them out, because, "They're all scum," or something like that. The reformed Freakshow actually beg for mercy while you're killing them. Gah.
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Originally Posted by Clebstein
I kind of disagree. Some of the ones I've had made me think, "No, that's not what a vigilante would do, that's what a VILLAIN would do." They kind of go over the gray area, and that's not cool. Now if it was when I was already a vigilante, and was going villain, then I'd want it to be like "Yes, this is villainous completely"
...Sadly I can't think of any examples... |
bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonner-
ronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenth ur-
nuk!
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You do know that there's an alternative ending to that arc, don't you?|
Originally Posted by Dr_Mechano
not only did I get to rescue Ms. Francine (whose ending in the Westin Phipps arcs is noted that she'll be tortured to death)
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Let the timer on the final mission expire. You get a different souvenir
Warning:
The above post may contain Cynicism, sarcasm and/or pessimism. If you object to the quantities contained, then tough.
So I set out tonight to go vigilante on my main hero Mouse Police.
First tip: Frostfire (and friend) are trying to become more heroic! Frosty, a hero? But he's gone off and tried something very brave and foolhardy, and needs your help...
The vigilante option, of course, is to use the information given to you but ignore Frosty and his dilemma. Bleah. You think Frosty's ever going to try anything heroic again if I shatter his newfound faith in good and leave him to his fate? How can I abandon him?
So I went and saved Frosty. Ah well, turns out, becoming a vigilante is harder than I thought. ^_^
my lil RWZ Challenge vid