Supporters of Emperor Cole are abandoned?

Here's one that really bothers me and over time as I've explored the stories in Praetoria, this has become an even bigger bugbear.

I have a couple of characters who believe in Emperor Cole's vision and objectives. Their PoV: They started in Praetoria, the Resistance seem to be completely anarchic and willing to tear society down with no alternative game plan and the last thriving City in Praetorian Earth is under untold threats - the Hamidon, Primal Earth, Rikti, Arachnos, Malta, etc etc et al.

They follow his path and the ideals set out by Cole and then come level 20 they are discarded with a so long and thanks for all the fish kind of "Well you've proven yourself to be an highly able ally and have done some great work for us, now bugger off and go do your own thing."

It could be that I've missed something but having run the arcs a few times I've not seen any evidence of that. Whatever alignment you choose, you go back to Praetoria as an Incarnate and stick it to Cole's forces. There's no comeback for the Resistance - it's as though we, as players are forced to be their ally regardless of our character's original role. We may have been dedicated Loyalists but we go back with Apex and Tin Mage and kick a couple of Cole's team into oblivion.

This leaves me with a very strong feeling that the Praetorian arcs cater almost exclusively to the Restisance side once out of Praetoria. If you are a Loyalist you get to go to the Rogue Isles and do your own thing - which gives 2 problems - firstly that the Isles are denuded of population these days (but I don't really want to get side-tracked down that avenue) and that it's almost a Crowley-esque "Do what thou wilt is the whole of the law" - except that you follow that route and you suddenly find yourself as a "Destined One" which jars horribly.

Almost the only way I can justify this in my own mind is if I have a character who is a totally self-serving sociopath, and will do whatever s/he needs at a given moment to meet their own needs, regardless of the wider world, and none of my characters are like that.

Why would a character who believes in Cole simply become subsumed into their new environment and then a few levels later go back and start attacking his forces? To me, it makes no sense - and it almost breaks the story for me. It forces some of my toons into a path they absolutely don't want to go.

Have I missed something critical? If so what? If it is critical then it should be much more in your face than it is I'd suggest.

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

Cue golden girl drivel in 5, 4, 3...

Seriously though I think you are right, they are abandoned. All our characters are supposed to realize that Cole is a mad-man by level 20 and willingly escape Praetoria for some reason. There's probably not much to be done about this due to the usual linear MMO storytelling methods.

Fortunately you can always write your own pro-Loyalist content in the Mission Architect!

Well, what the devs tried is to set up Cole as literally everyone's enemy. Heroes are naturally against him becaus he's an interdimensional invader and villains want him gone because he's busting in on their turf, plus the promise of stealing his phat lewts and bust in on his turf. The Resistance have obviously been against Cole since level 1.

It's a wee bit more complicated with Loyalists, though, but not really much. The idea is that Power guys are in it, well, for power. They want to rise through the ranks and gain control over those they consider inferior. Then they learn that Emperor Cole plans to basically replace everyone with clones of himself and realise there's no future for them in Praetoria so they head out into Earth Prime. By the time they're 50 they're mighty powerful and they don't feel like becoming someone's lackey again, so they hold no sympathies to Emperor Cole.

As for the Responsibility guys, well, I always took them as the good cops in a corrupt state. They want to make their world a safe one to live in Then at the end of their stay in Praetoria they learn about their Emperor's invasion plans and realise that not only many people in Earth Prime will die, they will take the fight to them and the civilians and innocents in their own home dimension will suffer and perish. At this point the good cop decides to go on a diplomatic mission to Earth Prime to both show them that us Praetorians aren't all that bad and to show their dear and loving Emperor that peaceful coexistence is possible and preferable over an all-out war.

Then your Emperor shows up and calls you a naive idiot and at least at that point the good cop's illusions might start to crumble.

On that note, the Behavioural Adjustment Facility and Lambda Sector are purely military targets with next to no civilians around. The Responsibilities strike there to cripple the war efforts and minimise civilian casualties, and in the case of the BAF prevent mindwashed Resistance members to run amok in the city and kill innocents.

So as I said earlier, the devs tried to set up Emperor Cole as literally every toon's enemy. I think we can all assume the reasons for that are purely practical. Instead of making a huge amount of content in a little amount of time for Heroes, Villains and several Praetorian orientations, they just focus on one thing. Of course, when you have one thing meant to suit everyone, you'll just end up stepping on plenty of toes.

I suppose a Heroic loyalist who then joins the counter-Praetoria activity in the end game could believe in Praetoria while being disillusioned with Cole himself. They oppose his needless paranoid expansionism which endangers the hard-won peace within Praetoria; they seek to either convince Cole of the impossibility of his dreams of multidimensional rule, or they hope to replace him with a more restrained leader.

The Devs have been following their stated mission of "give the players what they want". Of course, you can't give everything to everyone, so they've instead relied on targetting some parts of each new Issue at one group and others at another.

Take for example the 1-20 content in Praetoria. This is meant to be a more polished early game experience for new players, with interesting stories and writing that pulls you into the world. But they don't want veteran players to feel left out, so the difficulty of the Praetorian mobs was made with them in mind.

In the same way, some players want to see a storyline based around their character that gives them great importance and increased power, while others would like to see large-scale endgame raids like other MMOs have, and the Incarnate system provides both.

What you are seeing is the result of another of those compromises. Some people like to emphasise the conflict between different player character philosophies, and for those players, 1-20 Praetoria offers four factions, each with a different approach. But other players don't care about in-character divisions and just want to team up with their friends against a Big Bad, and for them, there's the return to Praetoria at level 50.

Paragon Studios: All Things For All Players.

I've gotta echo Scarlet's sentiments; this whole racket with Cole is pretty much garbage in my eyes.

The worst part, for me, is how the Responsibility storyline comes to a screeching halt after you walk through the portal to Paragon City.

You spend 20 levels in Praetoria, helping it's citizens and being a good person. At the final story arc, you find out that Cole's going to Overnight FedEx a crapton of War Walkers to Primal Earth in hopes that the gargantuan smashbots will completely decimate all super-powered beings. Yeah, sure, good idea.

Except that it will cause countless civilian casualties (until you find out otherwise) and, until now, you thought what you were doing mattered. Seriously, the entire Responsibility storyline does not matter. Not one bit. You run through it all, uncover the invasion plans, and end up having to kill Interrogator Kang because he wanted to TELL SOMEONE ABOUT IT. So much for being a good person. So you're "forced" to off the poor guy, with the now-bizarre notion of "God forbid anyone doubts Cole" floating around your moral choice and then... that's it. You're done. You now know of the whole mess Cole has planned and suddenly Marchand rings you up and says "Hey, get the **** out of Praetoria for the good of the Emperor."

You follow through for the sake of level progression, and once you run to the other side, there's Cole waiting for you. He basically tells you "Thanks, man. But you know too much, I know you know too much, and if you ever come back I'll kick you in the taint so hard you'll vomit your own colon. GTFO my empire."

What? I spent all that time keeping your damn city safe just for you to tell me to screw off after I found some dirty laundry? No option to convince him otherwise, no option to say "but maybe I can turn people to our side over in Primal", no nothing?

Then, 30 levels later, you're pitted against the Empire with no explanation to Responsibility Loyalists as to why. I mean, you know why, but here's the part that sticks out the most to me (this is one hell of a storyline clashing):

Being sent to fight the forces of Praetoria in Apex/Tin Mage, as well as the new Incarnate Trials, directly conflict with the choices you made in the Responsibility Arc, and further proves that the Responsibility arcs don't matter.

If you end the arc with the Loyalist choice, you kill Kang. You KILL HIM to keep him quiet, because if he blabs he'll "send Praetoria into a state of turmoil and unrest." So what happens? You take the knowledge of the invasion with you to Primal Earth and DON'T MENTION IT TO ANYONE, not even States or Recluse or hell, I'm sure Nemesis would have loved to know if he didn't already. You hit 50, run Apex/Tin Mage and the assault happens anyway. Your actions as a Responsibility Loyalist didn't matter.

If you end the arc with the Resistance option, you and Kang transmit the information you find to the PPD and the Resistance, exposing Cole for what he is and essentially earning the reply you get from Cole, though he doesn't mention anything at all about the "unrest" you and Kang supposedly caused. You do exactly what the other arcs avoid, and inform the people of what's going on. You leave for Primal Earth with that knowledge and AGAIN fail to tell anyone important. You hit 50, run Apex/Tin Mage, and the invasion happens anyway. No interference/assistance from the Resistance, no uprising or rebellion from the PPD/Praetoria, no nothing. Your actions didn't matter.

The remainder of the morality lines in Praetoria flow pretty normally and work out in the end. For Responsibility Loyalists, however, your actions are both fruitless and, inevitably, nonsensical.

Were you loyal to the vision? Or Enriche? (Please click my link)

With Primal Earth not having Enriche, perhaps your minds are freed from Mother Mayhems wicked elixer.

But I sort of got the sense that the vigilanti route leads to the side Cole would want, but it rarely effect the party or heroes already existing in the world.

The thing is Cole is right in a way.

Primal Earth won't let Preatoria be, they've already begun their invasion. You've got Malta and the hotheaded (if not outright terrorist) forces of Longbow, and Arachnos all meddling in Preatoria, all getting people killed.

Maybe he's right to try and kill off metahumans in Primal Earth, for the most part Primal Earth Metahumans (NPC ones) are kinda dicks.

You've also got to remember that the Loyalist side isn't Loyal to Cole and his administration.

Loyalist Powers is Loyal to yourself.

Loyalist Responsibility is Loyal to the people of Preatoria.

At least that's the impression I get from the missions.