Villians how to fix redside

I"m sorry but no.

I don't find Arachnos tough at all as an enemy group.

Annoying does not equal tough.

All that aside, COV still treats you like a second string lackey. Sorry but I find that's terrible writing, and is a reason many folks don't play villainside.

Notice I said A reason.

"To me." I'm all about options in villainy, and Arbiter Daos playing tough guy doesn't give me any options. My only option is to shrink from the challenge and tell myself I'm so totally not a coward because Arachnos are so big and scary.

When I say what a villain "should be," that's inclusive. I've never tried to argue what a good villain SHOULDN'T be, since everyone's preference is different. But old-game CoV fails in providing only a very small subset of what villains could be, and the excuses for it are growing lamer with every Issue.

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.

True, but you saw what Arilou said:

It's a cool victory, and pretty much the ONLY one from the old content which has any amount of dignity to it, but it still leaves the door open for people to argue about why I should be afraid of Arachnos. Recluse, in turn, comes off less as scared and more as bothered, like I'm becoming too much trouble for what I'm worth and he's cutting his losses.

I still like Praetoria when it comes to satisfying, conclusive finishes. Reese spends the entire time being a grade-A jerk, and at the end, you get to kill him. Twice. He gets better, sure, but he's quite humbled by the end. That's what I believe City of Villains needs to fix it - giving our villains back their dignity and even letting them be arrogant when the situation calls for it. Because right now, most of CoV's content is humiliating.

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.

And you're demanding to be the god-moded player, who demands to be treated like a special snowflake and to be able to ignore any kind of existing power-structure in the world, just by virtue of being a player.

And that's stupid. There's a world. There are powers in it and you mess with them at your own peril. You don't get to mess around with the Lady of Pain or traipse into Nessus or fight Cain or kick Khorne in the shins or have tea with the Dark Powers without issues.

Personally I wouldn't mind an option to say Screw you to Daos... That would then show a cutscene of you being killed and delete your character. Because that's what would happen. You shouldn't be able to beat Arachnos in a straight up contest of power. Because to dos o would be silly. We'd have to have a completely different game (more of a strategy game, I'd play that, no doubt) in order to simulate the kind of power you'd need to take on an organization like Arachnos. You're one superpowered person (albeit a strong one) and there are thousands of them in the world.

To quote an old Jedi saying: There's always a bigger fish. Or in this case, you might be a Great White Shark but Arachnos is a school of Piranhas big enough to swallow the moon.

^ This, QFT and agreed with

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 don't disagree that some or all of those might be welcome story changes, but I certainly don't feel they qualify as being required to "fix" the villain side. There are many things that dissuade players from playing villains, and story is only one part of it. Honestly, the forums are the only place I ever see anyone gripe so intensely about that aspect of the over-arching villain-side story. I have heard plenty of people mention they wish it was different (and I wouldn't mind, myself), but it isn't a deeply pervasive reason people avoid villain side.

Then why are they NOT actually in charge? Why are the Heroes capable of genital-slapping not only the Grandville defence forces, not ONLY the Patrons, but also Recluse himself tanked up on super-jesusbeam steroids machine.

And why then are we, a team of eight villains, able to do what Recluse and his apparently powerful army have been unable to do for YEARS, punch right into the heart of Paragon and kick the ever loving snot out of the Vindicators, Ms Liberty AND the entire Freedom Phalanx, right under Atlas' globe?

Paragon without it's Heroes would have been reduced to rubble and anarchy by now.
And, in turn, Arachnos without it's Destined and begrudging metahuman allies would have been broken over the lawful worlds knee by now.

That's the whole reason the game has a status quo to maintain, it's why it's so successful despite people beating up Heroes and Villains so many times; they counter each others movements. Heroes put away Villain X, bad guys bust him out. Villains capture Captain Y to torture and finish him off 'once and for all!' Heroes go and beat up the guards and rescue him.

I can deal with that whole scenario. Except that it's not even; Villains, with the exception of the more recent arcs (which are great, might I add) get treated like lackeys and like they need Arachnos.

Wrong. Dead wrong. Arachnos needs US.

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.

How come Lee Harvey Oswald could shoot JFK and yet not take over the US?

How come John Wilkes Booth could shoot Lincoln and yet the South lost the war?

Arachons != it's leaders. To take on an organization like that you need more than firepower, you need an army, an organization, a plan... And the game mechanics can't handle giving us that.

I'd love to play a superhero strategy game, but COH isn't it. And this means the major organizations of the world are going to be beyond our ability to defeat.

EDIT: We can also get in and fight Recluse because the vast majority of his armies are also being drained by the WEB. This is stated in the briefing.

Because we may have strength, but we don't have *power*.

I agree with this but everyone has there own reasoning.
Some people don't like the thought of beating up heroes and refuse to come red side. Some don't enjoy the content. Others have their own reasoning.
I like the red side. I play on both.
After taking a year break from the game and coming back, I find that my villain sg has died mean while my hero side SG is still going strong.

Then maybe the devs should *add to* rather than *change* the game's setting/story to give more moral/characteristic choices. Personally, I'd find it interesting if the dialog choices made actually affected mission progress. So your big-bad "smack your head off if you look at me funny" villains might find most contacts don't want to have anything to do with them/are afraid to piss them off...then you'll have your perfect feared villain that doesn't work for anybody (or have work at all in many cases).

No, but they can make it more fun for Villain players. Isn't that the point of a game?

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.

Isn't that already the case? |-:

(The correct answer is yes!)

I stand corrected.

Wait, what?

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'm sure this is deliberate and makes sense.

There is a reason that we don't want the bad guys to win; part of Lord Recluse and Emperor Cole's point as story icons is to illustrate why that is: Paragon City may have War Walls, frequent invasions, Hellions stealing purses in the street, and Hazard Zones, but it is STILL (arguably) better than letting the bad guys win.

With Lord Recluse, you live in a Darwinist/Randian/Nietchzian dystopia.

With Emperor Cole, it's an Orwell/Huxley nightmare scenario.

The main thing I would do if I could wave a magic wand over the Villain Zone would be to create some villain-only mechanics and subsystems for the game:

1: A career-long story arc that allows you to create a doomsday device/worldbeating scheme, culminating in a battle against the Phalanx. If you win that battle, you get to create an alternate timeline (an instance that any player can enter and play in) where you have ruled/destroyed the world.

This location would be its' own variation on 'apocalyptic hellhole', and would use AE tech to build the scenario based on decisions made during the story arc. What kind of dystopia would your main villain build, if they won? Control the world via mind/soul-destroying tech/magic, and you end up with sheep instead of subjects. Conquering via fear and terrorism leads to an apocalyptic wasteland or a hellish landscape filled with sirens and searchlights. Many of these worlds could also be used as additional zones for the AE and alternate worlds found via a Portal Corp repeatable mission Contact or perhaps via Ouroboros.

'Cloning' tech would be used to populate the instance with statues and posters of you and the like.

2: Trials and arcs would allow you to overtake Paragon City and Rogue Island spawnpoints temporarily, replacing the normal spawns with minions of your own design, using AE tech.

3: Create career-long story arcs that establish you as working with other villainous organizations besides Arachnos in the capacity of an Arachnos Infiltrator (using Going Rogue tech). You would begin these by seeking out 'hidden' Contacts in various lowbie zones. You would be able to access alternatives to certain arcs and missions, sabotaging Arachnos plans. These would have unique badges that you could use to 'prove' to other players that you are not actually a lackey of Arachnos.

4: A true faction system within Arachnos, with Contact and in-mission choices that allow you to curry favor with various Patrons and/or invite attacks and countermoves by them and their minions. This would have a corresponding blueside system, allowing you to choose 'trees' of temp powers, missions, and the like from various organizations, like the FSBA or Hero Corps.

You lack imagination. On Praetorian Earth, our characters manage to be enemies of the state and still survive just fine despite opposing a government of VASTLY superior technology and material means, not to mention one of much tighter control of its territory. "Oh, but you're a double agent." Beladonna Vetrano isn't. Everyone knows she's Resistance but they just can't catch her. Calvin Scott isn't. Everyone knows he's Resistance but they can't find him. This stops neither of them showing their faces in public, they just have to be careful.

Off-game example - Gordon Freeman, "a man who had barely earned the distinction of his PhD at the time of the Black Mesa incident, and who I have it on good authority was in a state which precluded such training in the intervening years" appears to have no problem taking on the full might of City 17's Metrocops, Overwatch, pretty much every Antlion there ever was and a whole city full of zombies time and time and time again. Do we need more examples? How about War from Darksiders? He appears able to fight hell's forces head on, powerless on top of it, and still come out triumphant and even destroy the Destroyer himself. How about Red Faction: Guerilla's Mason? He manages to take down the EDF dictatorship pretty much on his own, with only occasional, futile help from the resistance for anything more than lodging and supplies.

You lack imagination in much the same way as the original City of Villains writers. There was no reason to tie our Reclimators to Arachnos, there was no reason to have all Vendors be Arachnos-sanctioned and there was no reason to have what amounted to our entire end game up until I19 consist of kowtowing to the Arachnos power structure.

Just as there exist "Abandoned Labs" and the Black Market isn't Arachnos property by virtue of being illegal, so we should have been given "illegal" Reclimators waking us up in the sewers or in a cave or in an old building or any place where Arachnos aren't likely to look and so we should have been given vendors that don't wear Arbiter uniforms. Like in Praetoria. Praetoria itself has no reason to exist because everything which takes place there should have been taking place on the Rogue Isles all along.

You don't need to punch every Arachnos soldier in the face in order to defy Arachnos, as Going Rogue proves beyond the strongest argument. Arachnos don't run a tight shift. People hide from them all the time. Hiding from them and opposing them covertly is not a difficult thing. Everyone does it all the time.

Congratulations on quoting one of the worst movies ever made. I'm not sure that has the effect you're after.

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.

Here's a question: When WE are playing the bad guys, why can't the game let US win? That's one of City of Villains' biggest problems - it's a moral lesson teaching us that playing City of Villains and enjoying it is wrong, because evil is wrong. The game expects us to feel humiliated and depressed at the end of the day and consider that to be a GOOD thing. And it just isn't.

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.

Arachnos overpowered the IDF and nearly destroyed Keyes Island. Just sayin'.

So, you're saying that the IDF don't possess far superior technology, far greater resources and don't constitute the biggest threat Earth has ever faced? Because that would make the iTrials kind of pointless. Not to mention that the lore itself makes numerous mentions in regards to how badly inferior Arachnos technology is to Praetorian technology, the only thing Anti-Matter showing any respect for being the Rikti bombs they bring.

Yes, that "nearly" happened... But it didn't actually happen, did it? And if we're being fair, the reason it didn't happen is because "we" stopped it. What does that say about the scary Arachnos military?

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.

Exactly! Expect to see more villains when Freedom launches!

As I hear, Freedom will fix much more than starting in Fort Darwin. It will start us out as genuine self-interested villains, something Mathew Burke was supposed to do but didn't really manage.

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'm gonna have to say yes to that one. Lord Recluse attempted to secure a future where The Web sapped every hero in the entire world of their powers and allowed him to take over. The plan failed for the same reason the Keyes Isle one did: player characters (not local governments) stepped in to stop him.

If anything, the characters we create are more powerful than Arachnos. But Praetoria certainly has some work to do.