Redemption; too easy?

This is a role-playing observation, not a gameplay complaint. I'm happy with the gameplay.

I wanted my Ice tank to have Mako's Arctic Breath. It would fit perfectly into his character concept. So I figured that I'd move him redside, do Mako's patron arc, and move him back to blueside again (because the character concept *is* a hero.)

This would be the first character that I would have taken from hero to villain. (I've brought several back the other way.) I decided there were two ways I could roleplay his brief stint as a villain. I like the idea of him going undercover to infiltrate Arachnos, and a lot of his villainous deeds could be staged to trick Arachnos into accepting him. Alternately, he could be having a short mental breakdown during which he did some bad things while learning some new powers, like a vision quest gone bad.

I did not realize how bad.

At the moment he has finished 8/10 villain tip missions, causing him in the process to slaughter 'countless bystanders' at a parade, throw 'countless CoT' into damnation, destroy the souls of 'countless partygoers' at a Carnival of Souls bash, and also murder a new superhero and his aged aunt. Whoever wrote these arcs likes the word 'countless', and hates Aunt May, I'm guessing.

While I applaud the devs for giving us missions with *real* villainy for a change, it makes it difficult for me to rationalize my tank's conversion back to the light side. There's no redemption for a mass-murderer on this scale. Especially if I read the well-written after-mission texts that talk about how you rationalize your killings. It's also making me look sideways at any blueside villains I see, wondering if, before they became heroes, their bodycounts were in triple digits or 'countless'. The legal system in Paragon seems pretty lenient on genocidal maniacs.

I'm big on character concepts but not so big on roleplaying in CoH, and this is why. You have to perform some screwy mental calisthenics to make any character's plot arc in this game believable.

Right now I'm ready to consider the entire blue->red->blue arc to be a fever dream that happened to my tank while he was in a coma, or something.

Anyone have any other roleplaying ideas on how I could justify the descent and redemption of my hero?

I just wanted ice breath...I didn't want to hurt all those people...

The door's opened up to you already in the 20s.

That's not you. You're just getting a peek into your doppelganger's life. *You* are just studying and out of the public eye as you learn to eat a bunch of breath mints as an offensive strategy.

See my Guides and Tutorials

Remember, you were doing all that in the service of destroying evil!

The new Vigilante themed Villain tips are awesome IMO because they do move you towards darkness than the former missions which assumed you were already gone.

In that respect, when you get finished, it's not hard for me to see at all how a former hero, upon realizing that he/she has gone too far, now needs to start the path back toward the light. But this time doing it the right way.

Sadly, you have to follow the Rogue paths which really break this journey.

Well if you watch movies like Donnie Brasco and TV shows like Wiseguy you could play it out that your character is going undercover and back for some group: Longbow or FBSA.

Then while what the official account among the villains is what the mission says it is, in fact that was just an illusion pulled off to convince them you have gone bad.

Personally I would say go with the "it didn't actually happen" approach. The whole thing was the result of a new writer who took a direction that the fans hated and the next issue retconned it out of existence with a convenient time warp.

Alternatively the "it wasn't me, it was my evil duplicate" thing can work well. This can actually tie in well with the Hero Morality mission you'll do to get back to your original alignment (the original level 40-50 one where you have to clear your name). You didn't actually do any of those acts, you were off in dimension Alpha-Lima-India-Bravo-India and a robotic duplicate did those crimes in order to frame you. The last set of tip and morality missions is you returning, getting into the swing of things and then finding out that you need to clear your name.

"I reject your reality and substitute my own" applies a lot in missions and in game.
Your a Roleplayer; make it mean what you want it to mean.

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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.

Handwave it away.

Simple, MIND CONTROL!

Say that Bob, the evil count of all evil who takes heroes and transforms them into villains, has taken over your char's soul, forcing him to do bad things. Only to be brought back to light by Bob's Praetorian which is just his name spelt backwards (aka, Bob). Praetorian Bob is a therapist, who specializes in Mind Control, so Praetorian Bob gives you his special Bob milk, which brings you back to light. Actually, I made Bob in game, here is what he looks like:



He's magic.

It was a dream.

No... not a dream. What's the word I'm looking for?? A PALINDROME! Yeah. That's it.

Again, I think they make the error of equating villainy with vileness.

Plenty of villains can be antagonists but not vile.

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Originally Posted by Venture You can't, without employing massive amounts of handwavium. It is possible to get a villain to level 20 and redeem him without doing anything unforgivable while still running the content. I did it myself with a Tanker I chose to reroll as a Brute. I don't think it's possible to get anywhere near level 50 without pole-vaulting across the Moral Event Horizon, at least not without unbelievable tedium (e.g. only street-hunting other villain groups for XP, avoiding just about all arcs, etc.)

Actually, you can. I might write a guide to the virtuous villain.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Venture There is no redemption for anyone who's put a body in the ground in cold blood. Redemption in this game is way, way, way, way too easy.

Unfortunately lots of people want that sort of thing and even RP heroes as doing it.

I wouldn't support that and wonder how some of these quests can even work if it is a T rating, but they've decided to satisfy some of those people.

While in Ouroboros you caught a glimpse of the future where one of the people you murdered would have actually saved your life in X scenario. Now to save yourself you "flashback" to change your past and thus saving yourself from yourself [the Talos arcs where you fight yourself?] but while also being seen as a hero in the eyes of paragon thus making yourself a vigilante.
You are however unable to find this man/woman who will save your life in the future, somehow the course of time has altered his location and thus you go out looking for him. Along the course of being this vigilante you learn the meaning of what it meant to be a hero and realise that the image of the person saving you in the future wasnt a civilian, but was infact yourself as a hero . . . . . . .

Well thats my quick 30 sec story anyway Might not be very good but might be usefull for inspiration!

Personally, I do the tip missions (the mechanical benefits of purple merits are too big to ignore) but as far as my main character's personal story, those missions never happened. I honestly don't care for most of the vigilante/rogue/villain missions, since they *all* make some rather massive assumptions about what and why my character is doing things. For example, most of the vigilante missions have your character acting more like Punisher or Spawn than Batman. Most of the Rogue missions feel more like "amoral villain" missions, since you'll pretty much do anything as long as you're getting paid. Rather than, say, realizing that maybe you want to be a good guy. The villain missions are all set to the tune of "puppy-eating-evil," and feel like they took copious notes from the totally successful and sane villains of Captain Planet and other Saturday morning cartoons. (IE, you're doing something for no better reason than to prove "how EVIL" you are, despite the fact that it's clearly a stupid thing to do.)

Frankly, I haven't found more than a handful of the tip missions that would fit how *any* of my characters would actually behave. If there were any other option for side switching or purple merits, I'd probably ignore them entirely.