Questions about the Roy Cooling arc (spoilers)

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.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

I was unaware those were no longer vet rewards. So they aren't hard for people who have been here 5 years. I wonder how hard they are for people who have been here 3 months.

Beginner's luck, inherent stamina and the origin attacks (which I forgot to mention) are veteran rewards now?

EDIT: And more subtly, Inherent Health. (which actually does quite a lot for your survivability)

Much much better. Launch content is better than this, at least in terms of storytelling. Sure, it's not as complex mechanically and is sometimes padded with unnecessary bulk, but at least the stories make sense and follow some semblance of logical progression.

During the time when I could do the Roy Cooling arc, I could instead do, say, Ubelmann the Unknown, an arc which is still very good even after "Councilification" just about ruined it twice over. It's an interesting if simple story delving into Requiem's self-serving nature, as well as a very interesting plot of Nazi time travel. I could also do "A Hand of Iron," an arc which explores the hedonistic lifestyle of the Freakshow and the allure of such an existence. They're not expertly told, but they are competent, logical and interesting.

Everything that the Roy Cooling arc is not. Roy Cooling's arc comes off like it was written by someone's first attempt at writing an actual story AND first attempt at using the Architect, and I know a thing or two about both. It's sloppy, inconsistent, disorganised and really, really inept. Its game mechanics may be interesting (and that's debatable), but game mechanics alone don't make a good game when the story is bollocks. That's not to say every single story arc has to be a masterpiece of cat head theatre, but at the same time, I should not be stopping at every step asking how this or that makes sense and what the blue balls is going on. And I'm not nit picking here, either. Major plot points constitute major plot holes which are never addressed.

Why is Vincent Ross' story arc so good and Roy Cooling's arc so bad? The Vincent Ross arc is no less ad-hoc and made up on the spot. Blood coral? Yeah, that thing that's so important and powerful that we... Didn't think to mention until about, oh, 13 Issues in. It's obviously someone just trying to tack on a bit of extra canon where none existed before, but it's done logically, so it still works AND it manages to involve Merulia - the Coralax godess - into the mix. Oh, sure, I was left wondering "Shapers? WHAT Shapers? Calystix was THE shaper who kept coming back, there weren't a zillion of him!" but again - that's just one question, and as such doesn't really serve to bug me as much. The writing is good enough to make it not as bothersome.

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.

I don't know who wrote it, but I have an axe to grind with whoever it is that keeps making inept arcs like this. I don't know if it's the same person, but SOMEONE is greenlighting these things. The first time it really hit me was with I11 and the Midnight Squad. Ashley McKnight's writing was actually pretty good, but Montague Castanella's writing is HORRIBLE, to the point of being painful to sit through. And I have to sit through it if I want access to the Midnight Club.

What makes me the most mad is that there are obviously talented writers on staff, as evidenced by some of the better content we've seen lately, such as Vincent Ross' arc and earlier than that Dean McArtuhr's arc. And, hell, most of Praetoria feels like it was written by actual professional writers. These stories make sense, they tie together, and above all they are well-written. So why the hell are they always paired up with such obvious amateurish work? It wouldn't be as obvious or as grating if everything in the game were badly written, but not everything is. Some of the new story arcs are very good, and some are very bad. And when you have very good stories, the very bad really, really, REALLY stand out.

I know the City of Heroes developers and writers can do better than this. I want them to do better than this.

*edit*
Just as a random example, I'm doing Division: Line right now, after having run both of Levantera's arcs and Serpent Drummer's arc. By this point, I'm well aware of the factionalization of the Rikti society here on Earth, of which faction stands for what, of the human-Rikti peace talks, of C'Khelkah's personality and contribution to the peace talks and the entire situation. And yet Angus has me exploring the possibility that the Rikti have split into factions, trying to figure out which Faction we want to fight more and "capturing" C'Khelkah and interrogating her, all in an eventual attempt to stop the second Rikti invasion which happened two years ago.

Just about everything that has taken place in Division: Line up until now has made me instinctively question events. Why are the Rikti stealing Portal technology when they clearly have their own, and when they already have a "tenuous" portal back to their Homeworld. How was C'Khelkah at the negotiations when I'm just capturing her now. Why don't I know that it's not the Traditionalists who are evil? Why is it surprising that the Rikti would try magic? And so on, and so on, and so on. Division: Line is a great arc, easily one of my most favourite, but these gaping plot holes are ruining it for me. Of course, I don't blame the original writer of the story for this, because back in I1, it still made sense. I blame whoever it was that decided to move all of these revelations back to the 35-40 level range, yet left Angus' 40-45 unchanged. Even Maria Jenkins and Tina McIntyre's old arcs got updated so as to make sense (kind of), yet this one was left behind, and it's really, REALLY souring me on the experience.

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.

Since Inherent Fitness scales with level, it actually does not do a whole lot for you at low levels. The origin ranged attacks are pretty much meaningless too. Beginner's Luck is the only real boost lowbies have gotten.

The game does need to be more difficult, just not at low levels. Praetorian mobs, and evidently everything coming after them, are just absurd.

I have to agree with Venture here, especially about the Origin attacks. These have never meant a thing.

Beginner's luck IS a boost, yes, but only insomuch as it allows us to acquire high-level to-hit levels earlier. One has to remember that THE WHOLE GAME was design for lower-level to-hit values, with players expressly expected to sometimes go for weaker, more accurate powers and sometimes deliberately making powers stronger but less "precise." No-one ever did that, throwing off the difficulty of not just lower-level content but content of all levels in general.

I have ZERO problem with the low-level game being embarrassingly easy. It's the time that's meant to let people familiarise themselves with their characters and potentially snag new players. If challenge is necessary, the low-level game is exactly the wrong place to put it.

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.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

Also Big Dogs. They might look, dress and sound like especially butch members of exclusively men-only back-street special-interest clubs but they're an utter, utter pain, especially to any sort of control based lowbie.

Ye gods, Sam, I never though I'd have to call utter bollocks on a post made by you.
The Blueside starter arcs, all of them; terrible. They don't HAVE an arc to them, they're just a series of missions strung together.
The Peregrine Island stuff with the old 'Alternate worlds' stuff is worse than having your genitals kicked in by a rabid 6-foot rabbit. Dull, dull, mind screwingly dull and badly executed.
I've just been coasting through the Wiki for the old arcs, and the vast majority of them might have a decent idea or core to the story, but the way they are told is so bad that, as an artist and writer, it makes me want to scream at how shockingly poor it is.

The stories are mostly held together by coincidence and haphazard fudging at best
The Missions themselves are dull and boring
The Mechanics are woefully out-dated

Calling ANY of the old stuff on par with the new missions is like admitting you'd rather smack yourself in the face all day long with a soggy, dog-chewed nerf bat then sit in a relatively comfy chair and eat semi-decent cake.
Each to their own I guess...

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.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

While I love Praetoria, its graphics and it's mobs, this mechanics stuff is true. I hate, hate, HATE the Resistance's damn P.O.K.E. attack (Punch of Kill Everything)
It's not even on the fist that has a power-fist for the Resistance Recruits, for crying out loud!

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.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

To repeat myself form a few nights ago, I just ran an arc where the "story" was "Run errands for this villain until he's happy enough to turn himself in."

His errands were to make an asinine run through Indy Port (where the Warriors don't even have a presence) and then to take out some of his enemies. For all practical purposes, it was a redside arc of "Hey, I'm a villain too lazy to defeat my own enemies so go beat them up for me while I wait here". Except that I'm a hero and it took place in Talos instead of Sharkshead. Nicely trying to ask a villain to go to jail by doing his dirty work for him an an errandboy.

Some launch content is good but a lot of it was just garbage.

I ran Ubelmann right after the above arc and it was okay at best. Not nearly as stupid as the Alexander arc but nothing about it really had me wanting more. And, yes, I read the clues and souviner letter and all that stuff. Although I'd go futher than "about" and just say that the Councilifcation of it didn't "about" ruin it, it took a so-so arc and made me completely uninterested.

Ross's arc was okay. I was at least interested enough to want to do the next mission and see what happened. And the mechanics were pretty good aside from me hating the final mission (but that was on account of the character I was on, it'd probably be more fun on anyone else including Empathy defenders). It didn't strike me as "better" than Cooling's arc though and I've done Cooling more than Ross.

I'm not saying that Cooling's arc is fantastic but it sure as heck isn't the nadir of arc writing in this game.

Now, here I agree: Destroyers are an utter pain. As are Seers and Ghouls.

The other groups though? I don't notice much of a difference.

EDIT: Resistance Recruits btw. don't seem to be any tougher than Wolf Spiders or Longbow.

I'm going to stop you right there, and say that the problem is not with the writing of either the original arc or the newer content, but that you're doing the latter before the former - out of order, as it were - AND that Cryptic and Paragon never put in the time and money to rewrite the former as it was overtaken by later events. On their own, both are IMO decent stories; they just don't fit together in the current setting.

I agree that it's slightly absurd to have Agent McQueen congratulate you on preventing a second invasion while dropships cruise through the green skies. And perhaps I'm nitpicking by saying it's a continuity problem rather than writing quality, per se. But some of this complaint feels like someone wondering why the reveal of Yoda in Episode V is supposed to be a big deal or any kind of mystery, when you already know who he is from Episodes I-III. (And why did the fight choreography and special effects/CGI get worse?)

As I'm reasonably sure my friend invented this phrase, I'm glad to see it catching on.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

Actually the P.O.K.E. came from a G1 Transformers episode where (I think) it was Warpath or possibly Motormaster who shouted about a Punch of Kill Everything.
The P.O.K.E. Alpha and V.2 were later used as powerups in War for Cybertron.

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.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Hmm, well my friend is a big Transformers fan -- maybe that's where it came from.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

It's funny that you bring up Star Wars, because the prequels are a lot like the new content in a lot of ways. They are shiny and stuff blows up. They don't need to worry about telling a compelling story because stuff blows up and it is shiny and we get to see Yoda kick some *** so people will go see it and they'll make a bazillion dollars.

Granted, the original trilogy didn't make you sit through the film equivalent of fed-exes and hunt missions, and you didn't have to watch our heroes defeat every single last Storm Trooper on the map, but a lot of what people hate about the original content could be solved by simply cutting all that stuff out.

That's a pretty bad analogy. In fact, I'd call it terrible.
New and shiny? Yes. But it's new and shiny that runs better, is more fun to play and actually has a better delivered plot than the old stuff is.

A better comparison, for me anyhow, would be the old content is the SW prequel, and the new content is the old trilogy. If they swapped the level of graphics and tech around.

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.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

"Could be" but I would bet a sizable sum that it won't be. And so any discussion about that old content deserves to include "I had a defeat all in the Cake Cave" as part of the discussion.

Calm down there, broham.

Well if you actually like it, then yeah, I guess you could say it has a better plot.

I don't like the plot. I don't like the fact that low levels are introduced to Malta, and shown that they're a shadowy paramilitary organization made up of total idiots, I don't like the fact that it takes the emergency mediport system from a background mechanic that we're better off not thinking about too much to an actual plot point that needs to be addressed yet doesn't satisfactorily address it, I don't like the gratuitous cameo from Captain Castillo, or the incredibly contrived Rogue PPD enemy group just to give heroes a "new" enemy group to fight.

That depends if you're discussing old content or old writing. I am in complete agreement that old mission design is very much lacking and subscribes to the maximum timesink philosophy. I also agree that a good mission has to have BOTH good writing and fun gameplay. But if you cut the extraneous garbage, some of the older content could be quite good. If you cut the shinies, a lot of the newer content would be completely meh.

I would run a whole lot more old content if it wasn't so irritating. Take your average level 45-50 arc blueside. It's at least 13 missions in a row, and it looks something like this:

Contact in PI
Mission in KR
Back to PI
Mission in Bricks
Back to PI
Mission in Steel
Finally get phone number; but mission is in Crey's Folly
Talk in KR
Hunt mission which is mandatorily in Bricks
Talk in PI
Mission in Talos
Talk in PI
Mission in KR

Yeah. Fun stuff. Oh, and at least four of those missions are kill-alls. Probably outside too.

Without even revamping the missions or stories, just making it so you don't have to change zones constantly, do frequent kill-alls, or huge defeat missions (65 Carnies, 65 Nemesis... yeah!) would make people actually want to play old content again. It's amazingly frustrating to lead a team and have them zone after every single mission.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.