Villians how to fix redside

All I'm really saying is that Praetoria is a police state to the Rogue Isles' organised chaos, and even in that tightly-controlled police state, player characters and NPCs alike manage to oppose the regime violently. We always have the opportunity to give Tyrant's regime the middle finger and find some way out anyway. Not giving us that isn't a sign of realism, it's a sign of unnecessary restrictions.

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! We don't get to enjoy the best of being a villain, it's all about being told what to do. The excuse as to why we do it is always along the lines of the contact "paying" you to do it. It's so ridiculous, and I am glad that they are changing that. It is most uncreative. We need better reasons to do what we do. For the whole game you get to see the actual villains (contacts) accomplishing their plots using you as a tool. You don't actually do anything for your own benefit.

Except that on Praetorian Earth you have a backup organization. (The Resistance) that you're not controlling.

Again, i'd love to play "create your own superhero/villain org: The strategy Game" but that's not really in the cards. And without that ability there's just no way you can take on an organization like Arachnos or Emperor Cole without the backing of someone.

Even in the incarnate trials we need a huge number of superhumans, backed up by Vanguard, Ourobouros and Prometheus to even have a chance of denting the enemy.

Yes there is. *it's an explanation for why the game isn't sandboxy*. It's an in-game explanation for "Why can't I murder civilians and feast upon their flesh? WAAAH!" "Why can't i go to Paragon and blow up the Atlas Statue?"

The reason is because the game mechanics wouldn't be able to do that and have it remain fun for everyone, so they say you can't, and Arachnos is the organization that enforces certain rules.

It's an IC explanation for an OOC phenomenon.

You *defy* Arachnos constantly. I was however talking about *defeating* it. And when Daos says he'll bring the full weight of Arachnos down on you, that's what he's talking about. Making you Priority Target #1.

Arachnos provides a status quo for the game, which (unless you wanted to make the game entirely sandbox, which would almost have to entail full-on PVP in every zone and all that) is neccessarily to explain why there is a *game* here, and not just villains running around beating up each other, heroes and civilians.

"I'm Blood Widow Ricki, and I approve of this statement."

In all seriousness, though, you get exactly why the redside arcs are arranged the way they are. Start at level 1, you're just some guy in the Zig who had to have Arachnos bust you out. Or just some faceless Widow or Wolf Spider looking to get one up on all those 'Destined Ones'. Work your way to 50 doing odd jobs for a contact here, bank heists there, punch a few hapless minions who unfortunately crossed your path, take out some otherworldly horrors... and by 50 you're literally handing Recluse his own mask. Now you're big time. When you found power you took it, when someone thought they were stronger you showed them who's the boss, and now you've proven to Lord Recluse himself that you're strong and clever enough that not even his own future self can stop you. Granted, the way the game's set up, it'll still take at least three fellow villains to topple Statesman and his friends, but that's why its a City of Villians and not City of The Villain.

Blood Widow Ricki * Tide Shifter * T-34 * Opposite Reaction * Shaolin Midnight * ChernobylCheerleader

Entropy Legion * Hyperion Force * Hero Heights

Because of the way the contact tech works. They've been trying to tweak the way you do these things (by eg. tip missions, etc.) but ultimately the game works by having an entity tell you what to do. It can't (in it's current state) handle "us" deciding to do anything. It can be faked (eg. tip missions) but that's just an illusion, and not a very good one at that.

Because then the game would be over. There'd be nothing more to do. Or at least it would have to transition into such a different game that it wouldn't really be anything like the one we have now. (which is impossible for all sorts of reasons)

not to mention that us "winning" would imply all the heroes "losing". Which means 80% of the playerbase gets shafted.

That's the problem with heroes and villains. Heroes are reactionary: They defend (and sometimes repair) the Status Quo. Villains seek to tear it down. If your villain succeeds and takes over the world how would you continue to play the game? And how would others?

Actually, there are ways. You know how the hospitals have unique floors in City of Heroes, such that you and your team-mates don't always resurrect on the same floor and the lift leading out to the lobby is one-way? Make a "hidden reclimator" that's like this, only there's just one machine per room and everyone comes out of, say, a sewer grate. Then I could claim I have my own reclimator hidden away that's just for me, since I'll never see anyone else resurrect on it.

Or why don't we take it one step further? The villain I had in mind already has his own SG and his own followers and his own reclimators in his SG base. There's really nothing he depends on Arachnos for, and Arachnos soldiers attack him on sight anyway. He no longer needs to train because he's level 50 and all of his enhancements are self-made from the Market, drops and Abandoned Labs. There isn't a single reason why he should depend on Arachnos for anything or why they should have any leverage over him.

City of Villains launched with SG bases specifically because that's what super villains are most identifiable with - having their own personal lair where their faceless goons reside, where their lieutenants bide their time, where all their weapons and earnings are stored. The whole point should have been to capitalise on this, not as some forgotten relic of broken PvP, but as a legitimate part of the game. If I could have personal SGs made up of my own characters and for which I can pay with Inf, I would never need another Arachnos amenity ever again, not even their ferry. Not with an Ouro portal and a Pocket D transporter anyway, to say nothing of base teleporters.

I never, ever talked about "defeating" Arachnos. Changing the status quo based on a single person's actions doesn't work in a persistent world. But so what if Daos makes me "Priority Target #1?" With how many villains would choose to spit in his face, he'll have a list of priority targets long enough to tie a bow around the tower. Again - Arachnos soldiers already attack me on sight and pretty much every amenity Arachnos offer I can get elsewhere, at the very least from the Vanguard base or the Midnight Club. Or from Praetoria. Or from my SG base.

Moreover, do you remember the 40-45 arc against Crey? Do you remember how your hero is said to have become the most wanted person in the city on trumped-up charges? Remember how your contact keeps telling you to avoid the main roads and keep out of sight? Remember how the missions keep telling you your reputation is shot, might as well bring Crey down with you? Remember how much that amounts to? Zilch. No-one bats an eye, not a single thing happens, not a single thing changes. Cops still wave at you when they pass you in the street and they jump to your aid when you fight next to them. There isn't even a token impedance like the Vahzilok plague.

This is why Daos' threat is empty - because there's nothing in the game that in the slightest suggests to me that he can do anything more than railroad the plot. Let me remind you that I took down a literal god, not to mention ALL of the Freedom Phalanx by myself. I ain't worried, and the game telling me I'm worried isn't changing that.

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 yet they do so by being cautious, sometimes hiding a lot, or not being terribly overt in most actions, even if they are somewhat overt in their position. And notably, none of them has managed to overthrow Cole's regime. Surviving just fine is not the same as massive victory.

Err... What? What does villains being successful have to do with heroes when hero characters and villain characters never cross paths? How does my villain earning respect and admiration equal the heroes "losing?" Why would heroes even enter into it? They don't even come to the Rogue Isles. Ever.

You make these grandstanding statements based on horribly exaggerated versions of things I never said, but they don't refute anything because no-one's asking for what you're arguing against.

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.

So, raiding a TEST facility multiple times, killing all TEST soldiers in there - multiple times - shutting down the Seer network, destroying the Enriche plant, exposing the War Works project... Those aren't massive victories? Come on, Guy!

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.

Your functional, game mechanical level of power and the level of power the story assumes you have rarely support one another well under scrutiny in any game I have played. The story very frequently assumes you have limits that you don't actually have in practice, or when those limits exist, they are enforced not so much by your powers, but rather by fiat - you can't go out and take over the world because the zone borders won't let you out, for example.

On top of that, welcome to episodic storylines written by multiple, disparate authors. I'm not defending this, but wild variations in what it's assumed protagonists can do are common in a lot of episodic media. My classic example is Star Trek: TNG, where the ability of the Enterprise C to absorb or dish out damage often varied wildly as served the plot. That happens in our in-game stories, too, except it's just a fluctuation in what the mission narrative assumes about us, not a change in our actual mechanical capabilities.

If the presence of continuity breakdowns like this deeply mar your experience, you're going to be disappointed a lot, and not just in video games. (Heck, for all I know, that's already the case.) If you want to ensure that the game canon holds continuity with the fact that in some TF you once defeated a god, then either everything from that point on needs to assume you only ever face threats on that par, or it needs to never let you defeat a threat at that level to start with. I prefer to have the story variety, and I will mentally gloss over the inconsistency on my own. I'm here to beat stuff up, not to read a grand novel. It's a good thing if the narrative that accompanies that doesn't suck, but it doesn't set boundaries on my enjoyment.

Yes. Never argued they shouldn't do that. Just pointed out that there is no magic bullet the devs can ever use to get more folks to play villains if they don't want to.

I'm not really talking about continuity in these cases, actually. When I mention "I defeated a GOD!!!" what I mean is "Look - the game allowed me to win that time. Can't it allow me to win like that more often?" I bring up Praetoria because, irrespective of what other concerns I may have about it, it still represents probably the best example of our villains being treated with dignity and respect and allowed to win in the tasks they set out to accomplish. Sure, the tasks themselves are somewhat railroading - fame and fortune and mostly just fame - but at least the game doesn't expect us to be ashamed for playing it.

I don't know why it is that every time I speak about these things, people assume I want to start the game from scratch or kill everyone or some such. All I want is more of what already exists - more of the Power arcs for villains, and more of the successes those bring. More of the feeling of self-satisfaction that the Power arcs bring as opposed to the sense of shame much of CoV brings. I want my villains to be cool and awesome and powerful, not dirty and disgusting and slimy. I want them to stand their ground and win their fights, even if the gains are fleeting. Take Dean McArtur, for example - sure, we're back to square one by the end of Leonard, but damn if it didn't feel like I made my enemies lose WORSE.

All I want out of the game is to treat my character like the most important role. This doesn't mean to always hand him everything on a single platter, but it means to tell stories that eventually end up making me look good and feel good. THAT is what City of Villains needs in order to be fixed - it needs to make its players feel good about playing it. Right now, the bulk of the existing stories do quite the opposite. They make me - personally - feel dirty and sorry I bothered.

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.

They don't lead to regime change. There's no culminating mission where the Resistance takes down Cole, or even turns the general population against him. These actions should be major dents in the status quo, but they don't actually change it. So, no, there's no massive victory.

In Praetorea, a massive Resistance victory largely assumes that we either convert society to rise up against Cole, or at least free it from him to do its own thing. A villain has pretty different motives. If the narrative assumes we're so powerful that we can smack Recluse (and his entire organization) around, why aren't we in charge of the RI, or some other place all our own? Are our villains just that lackadaisical that we're willing to leave the status quo in place despite having the power to destroy or take over it? The fact that this is a persistent world means that is nigh impossible to implement. Instead, it's a lot easier to present that we can't overcome the status quo.

Is that the only way they could have presented it? I don't think so. I also think that even given a storyline assumption that we can't overcome the status quo, we could have been given a better presentation on where we fit within it. But I think I understand why they gave us the overall place in the picture that they did. Part of it I put down to not "getting" what people would want a villain to be - I do think CoV's creators were too hero-centric in their views. But part of it was down to creating something that made sense as a status quo in a place crawling with super-powered miscreants.

I think it's because, as the discussions drill into more detail, you get more expansive in your explanation of what you dislike about villains, until it sounds like you're saying the entire system is flawed to the core. (You wouldn't be the only person saying that, so it's not a strange thing to infer from the right statements.)

I agree (and always have) that the fundamental "lackey to Arachnos" feel is poor. I'm sure i could have been done better, even keeping Arachnos in the picture. I'm sure Arachnos itself could have been depicted in a better, less disfunctional way, even while keeping with its Darwinist philosophy. IMO, too many people in the Rogue Isles are depicted as flat-out morons, as if someone conflated the overall grunge of the Isles with the idea that it should be populated with underachievers.

Improving on things like that hasn't sounded like what you've been looking for in the last few posts.

The game can and should let us 'win'. I outlined a few ideas as to how that is possible with existing tech (standard code rant).

That does not change the fact that the purpose of the Rogue Isles in the game is to show why the Phalanx should not just step aside and let Recluse rule Paragon.

In my personal case, even though all of my various villain characters want to win, me as a player fully acknowledges that if they DID win, they would indeed leave the earth a dystopia or a wasteland. That is part of what it means to be a villain.

If you had a method of improving the world that did not have catastrophic drawbacks, or a nihilistic endgame, and was acheived purely through thoroughly laudable methods, you would not be a villain at all.

So I say: let us win and create our alternate dystopia or wasteland, and let us periodically visit it to cackle maniacally (and let other people go there to see why they shouldn't let us win). Then let us come back to Primal Earth and wrestle with Recluse.

Of course, none of this applies to small-time villains who just want booze and beautiful people of the appropriate gender...

Which I asked for when, exactly?

A) Because the Rogue Isles are a cesspool that no-one wants but the heroes, and all they want out of it is to kick Recluse out.

B) Because my plans don't involve having an overt base of operations and having to deal with UN red tape, to say nothing of being an open target of espionage.

C) Who ever talked about smacking Recluse's entire organisation? Just because you win a battle doesn't mean you win the war.

More specifically:

Not only is it NOT the only way, it's probably the WORST way to represent it. "You are a cowardly wimp who shrinks in the face of better men, so you choose to be a good little boy and get more brownie points with the Spiders" is pretty much the worst, most insulting, most humiliating way I can think of for that particular plot point to be handled, and it's only Ghost Widow that has this problem.

Scirocco is a moron who tries to change everyone in the world - including me - so of course I want to stop him. Black Scorpion is an idiot who gets me in trouble because HE is a coward, so not only was I right on board with Daos for slapping him upside the head, I took pleasure in ratting him out... Or would have taken pleasure, had the game not treated me like a complete idiot, going before Daos to say that Dr. Aeon was doing "some weird experiment." Mako is even easier to betray. He's a backstabbing ******* who betrays me. OF COURSE I want to punch him in the shark teeth. Please!

But for Ghost Widow, there's no real reason why I want to betray her because what she's doing has no real impact on me. Hell, if we go with the mentality that I want a shot at Arachnos big-time, then letting her become human and thus losing her powers, then killing her would open up a slot for me, won't it? But, no, Daos says jump, so I jump.

How's about this: Daos says jump, I say go to hell. Daos says die and I'm insta-ported to a mission with a prison where I start in said prison. It's crawling with Arachnos soldiers, Ghost Widow among them. I fight my way through all of them, beat her up because she wants to keep her ritual a secret, come out and speak with Recluse. He says something to the effect of "OK, I crossed you, you crossed me, we both took losses, let's call it even for now. You go back to working with your contact and I'll have a word with Daos." Simple as that. I win - CLEARLY - and the status quo remains.

Where are you people getting these "regime changes" and "government topplings" and whatnot? Are we reading the same thread?

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.

The trick to writing interesting villains without letting them just mess up your fictional universe is to let them win a lot of small fights and constantly let them move one step closer to their final goal, all the while never actually letting them succeed at it. City of Villains doesn't really let us do that, however, as almost everything we do is grunt work for someone else, usually some insufferable, insulting fool like Darla Mavis or "Psymon" Omega.

As I said, our villains can win all of their battles without necessarily having been given the opportunity to win the war. So long as they don't lose and they aren't being used, that still counts.

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.

Those comments were specific to the Praetorean context, where regime change and government toppling are the express, core goals of the Resistance. They were in answer to your response to my comments about great victories in Praetorian storylines.

I think that basically comes down to purely the 'voice' of how many of the villain Contacts are written.

Sure I expect the Patrons, Recluse, and Arbiters to talk down to me; they are the equivalents of Luthors and Magnetos, they are going to treat a fellow villain as a peer at best.

On the other hand, there should be plenty of guys to talk to that treat you as a co-conspirator, client or even a feared superior. More missions should be treated as 'your own side project' and not something you are doing to gain points with Arachnos.

However, I think the devs can go even farther and have Contact Trees that 'go all the way up' and treat you as your own being. A guy you go to that directs you to poorly guarded warehouses full of tech, a Contact that helps you research forbidden magics, a source of 'volunteers' for unspeakable experiments, etc.

I'm thinking dialogue/action options like this...

"I don't know who told you I have a shipment of Superadine hidden away, but I can assure you they were mistaken!"

(Threaten her)
(Charm her)
(Offer her money and power)

...that sort of thing.

What? That makes less than no sense.

Heroes 'win' all the time. The villains get arrested, the super weapon gets destroyed, the hero gets the girl.

And yet the Villains are still there and keep coming back. They WILL get out of jail, they WILL gather new minions, they WILL plot again.

So why the hell can't the Villains win? The Hero gets beaten up and sent to hospital. The bomb blows up the Senators house. The girl dies.

And guess what? The Hero WILL recover, there WILL be a new love interest, and Justice WILL take another crack at it.

Any argument counter to that is just damn lazy.

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'd actually go so far as to argue the game significantly overstates our capability based on our actual game-mechanical abilities more often than not.

I think the misunderstanding is I wasn't talking about one MAJOR win like you'd get at the end of a single player game, so much as about lots of small wins that don't necessarily end the game, but still keep it on a positive note. And "positive" is one quality City of Villains can use a lot more of.

Oh, I definitely expect the big-shots to be arrogant and dismissive. I wouldn't have it any other way. And I don't really expect to be able to shift them from their thrones, so to speak - they're signature characters. But low-lives like Angelo Vendetti and Kelly Uqua? Why NOT let us slap those guys across the mouth or, better yet, murder them like what happens to Cleopatra, spoiler alert? People have been asking for an option to off Willy Wheeler (though why you'd want that after ruining his life I don't know), so why not?

That's pretty much what I want to see more of. People like Dean McArthur, Vincent Ross and, yes, even Willy Wheeler are a good example of contacts that treat us with respect and admiration - awkward as those may be for Willy. We need more of these guys. Lots more. These are the guys that leave you feeling like you won, even though with all of them, you ultimately lose. But it's the kind of loss that was worth the experience nevertheless. It's the Nemesis kind of loss - sure, we failed, but we still made progress even in defeat.

For years, I've been suggesting this precise framework of contact and, to the writers' credit, that's more or less what Dean McArthut is, even if he's an incidental contact. It's not a question of inventing new game systems to give me a way to win, really, it's a question of writing the story in a way that makes me feel good about running it. Dean is a great example. Sure, he's annoying as all hell (even if I get a chuckle of him hitting on my black cicada alien bug queen ), but he's also the perfect supporting character - humble, small-time and always admirable of our characters. He's the perfect yes-man, and I think City of Villains need a few more yes-men, to be honest. It would do a lot to offset all the jerks.

Basically, writing is what I think needs the most repairs in City of Villains. Well, writing and setting, but writing is the one that ought to be cheaper and faster to make.

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.

*confused* but... in that case you DO win. You hand Lord Recluse his helmet. You beat up most of the Freedom Phalanx (including Statesman if you're a VEAT) in various story arcs.

Indeed. The only perscription for these folks would be to get out into the real world more and see for themselves how things really are. The whole concept of heroic or "being the good guys" is one big grandiose delusion in the real world. More often than not it is just a convenient excuse for someone to be self righteous.