War Walkers

Signed.

Encouraging people to leave means you also get to enjoy news of more devs being let go and is the best way to torpedo chances for future expansion packs and funds for content releases. Think I'm the only one not keen on grinding Demonic Spiders? Think again.


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This is the kind of crap that pisses me off more than any change ever made to the game. When people act like self-righteous jerks just because someone complained, it ruins my experience for me without even having to log into the game.

Telling people to leave the game IS A BAD THING. Never, ever resort to this unless the player absolutely, positively just wants something completely different from what the game actually is. And while I typically disagree with Johnny, what he wants and what he has wanted for the past how many years is very much in line with what the game already offers - the ability to log in a hero and beat up cool bad guys. Far as I'm concerned, that's what the game is about, and the more that stands in the way of doing that, the more unnecessarily cumbersome the game becomes.

The notion that Praetorians are designed to be stronger or that they're designed to require Incarnate level power is a joke, and a bad joke at they. They are not and have not been. What Praetorians have is numbers, organisation and preparation. They do not have some kind of hidden raw power that we need to be demigods to stop. They simply have a tactical advantage.

Listen to Mender Silos - an invasion will occur and Earth will be unable to defend itself because of extenuating circumstances. Removing the circumstances and releasing Primal Earth's full, concentrated power would thwart the invasion, and thus this is the ultimate goal. The invasion itself is not "unstoppable" in any way. It is very much stoppable, we're just caught with our pants down. The reason we need Incarnate level powers is because we're fighting at an extreme disadvantage, not because we're fighting against superior foes. In fact, Maria Jenkins' arc demonstrates that while the foes are strong, they are by far not superior, not by a long shot. We can beat them as long as we focus on doing that and aren't distracted by infighting, other invasions or whatever else the Coming Storm entails.

The game does not need cheating enemies as regular spawns. The odd super-incarnate like Recluse, Statesman, Tyrant or Reichsman or Imperious or... How many Jack Emmert clones do we have here? Anyway, for them, I can see that as an exception. Even though they still scale down to EB levels when solo. But for regular spawns? There's no need to be fighting spawns of all bosses (I'm aware of the Hydra trial) or spawns with EBs in all of them or on and on and on. Not in regular content, and Praetorians - high-level ones included - do show up in regular content, like Maria's and Tina's arcs.

The threat from Praetorian Earth, as exemplified with the I19 TFs, should come from superior numbers, surprise tactics or other subterfuge, NOT from us being wimps and them being juggernauts. The game's currently-existing plotline does not substantiate this in any way. Yes, Praetorian Earth's forces are nasty. But they are not boogymen, nor should they be.

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.

"Sir our scouts report there are only 2 defenders left, they have retreated onto a hill made up of the corpses of their former colleagues"
"Excellent. Make preparations to finish them off"
"Wait! Why did they fire the Oil Slick arrow at their own feet?"

*Howling Twilight*

"Oh poo!"

Throw in the Council and 5th Column Mega Mech-Men (how I wish they could move) and this'll be one for the books.

I argue they have none of those. That has not been the picture of Praetoria shown to me from playing the Going Rogue content.

The entire planet has been vastly depopulated by upwards of 50 years of the Hamidon Wars. A disproportionate number of these have been the super humans. We never see it stated explitictly, but Praetoria the city (NP, IC and NU) is likely the largest stable settlement of humanity left. Other cities exist, but I don't get the impression they're back on their feet yet and able to commit troops or resources.

No matter what arcs you take, Praetoria is still in upheval when you leave. The Resistance is still going, the people may be rioting when their Enriche was cut off, the new zone events suggest further mass protests, etc. Also, the Emperor may be counting on Maelstrom to provide him with key info about Primal Earth, but anyone who's done the missions with him in it can tell he's about three bullets short of a full clip.


Really, Praetoria is the side with the severe disadvantage; all it would take is one strike team to go to Praetoria and blast a hole in the miles of undefended sonic barier (or threatening to) to throw them into total chaos.


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Good post!

But aren't you assuming that there actually IS anything on the other side of the Sonic Barrier? I mean we only have Glorious Leaders word on it.

Poor Eddie suffers from the common villain problem of thinking he's way better than he actually is

And if Crazy Eddie is providing the targets for the invasion, it would explain why the zones udner attack on the Apex TF are Kings Row (PPD HQ) and Steel Canyon (Icon), and not Atlas Park (City Hall and Vangaurd office), Galxy City (Freedom Corps HQ), Rikti War Zone (Vanguard HQ), Peregrine Island (Portal Corp and Vangaurd office), Independence Port (major supply route for the city), Terra Volta (power supply for the city) or Founders' Falls (Vanguard office).

Eddie's no fool. He knows he should take out Blue Steel before all hell breaks loose.

He clearly is, this implies he can actually take out Blue Steel.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

Clearly he wasn't on earth when the Rikti Invasion happened.

But on a more serious note and in response to Johnny Butane about how the IDF shouldn't the sheer number their forces suggest to launch an invasion...
I think I recall that one of the IDF troopers (the bosses I think) were mentioned in their click descriptions that they're gene-spliced, possibly even genetically engineered.
So it maybe possible that all the 'human' members of the group are test-tube babies.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

Resources.
Where are they getting the metal and materials to create the armor and weapons for all these troops? Let alone house and feed them. There just isn't enough space in Praetoria. They can't just go out and mine, seeing as the Earth is covered in DE. And you think suddenly tripling the population wouldn't cause a huge problem with their existing food production?

From another dimension isn't a viable response from what we've seen. Neuron is *just* getting to the point of having a large scale portal generator ready for the invasion, and it takes up a whole tower. They simply couldn't have the capabilities to be sending out large scale resource gethering crews and have off-world processing and production. It's just not in their means from what we've been presented with GR.


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As far as metal and materials, they don't have to mine since there's a whole damn world in ruins for them to salvage from, not to mention, in-game we see that they can basically produce an infinite number of clockwork to serve Praetoria. As far as food and housing is councerned, who says they'd be concerned about that? These guys maybe so fresh out of the vats they haven't even had time to BECOME hungry, assuming they honestly need to eat at all, there might also be a Soylent Green solution. (After all, is there any confirmation what happens to the bodies of the people killed by the state?) But also, part of why they might be able to produce such numbers it because they're not planning or designing the clones to live very long anyway.
Most of the troopers are "shock" troopers. Meaning they human troops could be to blitzkrieg primal earth, taking out the medi-port grids, an operation which cole might think will only take maybe a month or so tops.
Then maybe the idea was to grind us down with armies of war-walkers and other battle droids, completely supplementing the remaining forces.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

1. That was at level 19. The TF's are for 50's. Who says that Neuron hasn't perfected them in that time span?
2. But many of them are very strong, such as the Praetors.
3. Who said that they didn't prepare for both?

Resources? Really, this is where you're going to hang your hat? I mean come on, the whole freakin' game makes no sense if you're going to start considering resources...

The Council, a secret fascist society with (1) secret volcano bases, (2) a robotics manufacturing capacity that Japan would envy, (3) advanced genetic super-science facilities capable of producing multiple forms of superhuman, (4) subterranean bases throughout the world, (5) a massive army of disposable humans and (6) pharmaceutical treatments to feed your massive army of super soldiers. The Council kinda-sorta owns one small island in the Bahamas. DISNEY owns more real estate than these guys. How the hell are they paying for all of this?

The same deal goes for the 5th Column and Malta. We accept a certain amount of suspension of disbelief on these matters because otherwise our heroes have nothing reasonable to fight. It just so happens that when we don't like the content for unrelated reasons, we suddenly lose the ability to suspend our disbelief.

In the Apex TF, it is stated that he did attack Terra Volta (and won). In the Tin Mage TF he attacks the Vanguard Compound and Peregrine Island. It is also shown that he had plans to attack Atlas Park and Grandville.

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