City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Plot suggestion: More happy endings for the good guys *Spoilers*

Aggelakis

By Aggelakis,
Posted on: 2011-11-11 21:18 in Suggestions and Ideas

 

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Originally Posted by Mr_Morbid View Post
This is hardly the first arc where you're stuck with doing things in a way that make you think, "I wouldn't do it that way." The engine just isn't flexible enough for you to have more than a very few limited options. It isn't like a pen-and-paper game where a real live human game master is sitting there to hear your idea of an alternate approach and rule on how well it would work.
If there's only one path to follow, at least let it be a good one. In this particular one, villain NPCs (aka, a computer program) got to shove it to the blue players (aka, actual human beings) while they're happily playing Manticore's sidekick and shouting OHNOES.

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As far as this particular arc it's explicit (even on the hero side it you bother reading the debriefing) that Miss L was dead before you started fighting Blitz, so bypassing him wouldn't save her. Red side it's made clear that Malaise makes her appear to die just as the heros get there solely to make Manticore (and the blue player) feel that they could have saved her if they'd only been faster.
They should have written heroes a different mission then, one that would eventually stumble upon this little tragic event. Instead, we were told to escort Alexis (failed, she was kidnapped), to disarm the nukes (failed, missed a few and don't know where they are), and finally to rescue Alexis (failed, she died). Triple failure. Good job.

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Since this arc is not a fully story by itself, Alexis' death must occur to drive the plot. And even though we know that one of the Surviving Eight will die, we don't know that that will mean a victory for the baddies in the end. We still don't know what they REALLY want. At this point it looks like they want to steal Statesman's powers, but that may be a red herring. And they may not get him anyway. We know someone is going to die, but we don't know that it will be the target the villains are after. Maybe someone else steps in to make the heroic sacrifice that ruins the baddies' plans once and for all.
I don't really care about their future plotlines, I rate each episode's enjoyment on its own. Blue side, this one felt like City of Lemmings meets Strategia della tensione, directed by Uwe Boll. As I said, I signed to be a hero, not a bystander, so count me out of the Signature Stories. Unfortunately, almost every other storyline released since Praetoria is also suffering from the same problem, heroes just can't seem to win anymore.

 

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Originally Posted by Zemblanity View Post
If there's only one path to follow, at least let it be a good one. In this particular one, villain NPCs (aka, a computer program) got to shove it to the blue players (aka, actual human beings) while they're happily playing Manticore's sidekick and shouting OHNOES.
Actually, you have to look at the "book" as a whole. Just because you're playing the hero side arc doesn't mean the villain side arc doesn't exist. It does.

You have hero players (hero side arc) against villain players (villain side arc), it's just that while you're actually playing a character (i.e. the hero), the other side (i.e. the villain) can't be a player since the game doesn't work that way.

This is one of very, very few pieces of the game written this way. The only other content I can think of that pits a player against a "player" (with an NPC in the driver seat) is the "boss group" in the Statesman TF where you fight the respec tree. You're a team of heroes coming up against a team of villains who are minding their own business doing a respec trial. (I find this hysterical, by the way; one of my favorite pieces of game flavor.)

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Originally Posted by Dispari View Post
I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

 

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Originally Posted by Aggelakis View Post
Actually, you have to look at the "book" as a whole. Just because you're playing the hero side arc doesn't mean the villain side arc doesn't exist. It does.

You have hero players (hero side arc) against villain players (villain side arc), it's just that while you're actually playing a character (i.e. the hero), the other side (i.e. the villain) can't be a player since the game doesn't work that way.

This is one of very, very few pieces of the game written this way. The only other content I can think of that pits a player against a "player" (with an NPC in the driver seat) is the "boss group" in the Statesman TF where you fight the respec tree. You're a team of heroes coming up against a team of villains who are minding their own business doing a respec trial. (I find this hysterical, by the way; one of my favorite pieces of game flavor.)
Very well, I'll admit heroes were outplayed here. I'd prefer it if villain victories over heroes were limited to PvP (and vice versa, no arresting player villains either), but whatever. Well done. Still, let me quote one of my favorite lines of all time "You lost today, kid. But that doesn't mean you have to like it." And I'll be damned if I don't spend at least a dozen posts grumping about it

 

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Originally Posted by Zemblanity View Post
Very well, I'll admit heroes were outplayed here. I'd prefer it if villain victories over heroes were limited to PvP (and vice versa, no arresting player villains either), but whatever. Well done. Still, let me quote one of my favorite lines of all time "You lost today, kid. But that doesn't mean you have to like it." And I'll be damned if I don't spend at least a dozen posts grumping about it
That's the thing. You're asking for the heroes to win throughout. Now, when that happens, it's a boring story. But when you happen upon the villain, nearly done with his plan, and about to complete it, and the heroes pull through then? That's a story. If the heroes kept winning, you wouldn't have kept playing the big thing, because you wouldn't have been hooked in.

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Originally Posted by Back Alley Brawler
Did you just use "casual gamer" and "purpled-out warshade" in the same sentence?
Apostrophe guidelines.

 

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To those that think a hero would try to save Ms. Liberty and skip the missles, you're sadly mistaken. A hero does what is right for the innocent, the vigilante does what he's paid to do. Saving millions is the hero thing ... saving who he's paid to protect is the vigilante

 

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And for those that like to stealth past enemies ... They should have let you be able to. but then, when you get there and realize she was dead already, you should have had to fight 2 AVs at the same time, or fight the first guy to escape. They need to fix that, where if you stealth you get ambushed by the guys you skipped.

 

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There's a reason why a lot of the older the content has stronger hero victories than the newer content. When a lot of that older content was written, there was no City of Villains, only City of Heroes. It was not a question of which players would win, it was simply a question of if the players should win. When phrased that way, it's a lot easier to see the answer, "yes". The players should usually be able to win, in the end.

With the addition of City of Villains, the question began to move to "which" rather than "if". Up until recently, the question has been avoided. The content on each side really had no impact on the other side. Stories written for one side didn't really have counter stories on the other side. This made it possible for the answer to be "both".

We really only started to see interlocking counter-story lines in the Praetorian content. If you play through all four tracks in Praetoria you can see the same stories from multiple directions.

Personally, I think this is better story writing. As others have said, and as I myself stated earlier, if the heroes always win, the story becomes too predictable and boring. How many times can you see Inspector Gadget nearly be killed by Dr. Claw and see Dr. Claw narrowly escape capture at the end before you start to see it coming in every story? What happens before that part becomes inconsequential because you already know the ending is inconsequential. Nothing is going to change and next week, you'll be right where you were.

Now that zone phasing has been introduced, it is a technology I hope we see a lot more of across the entire game. It would be interesting to see a game where the world changes around you, based on your actions. By the time you reach level 50, the world looks substantially different than it did when you started off at level 1, and as you advance through the levels, you see that change occurring gradually over time as you attain (or fail to attain) your goals.

- Garielle
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Originally Posted by Frosty_Femme View Post
I said "ur" which is not a word. It's a sound dumb people make when you ask them to spell out "you are".

 

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Originally Posted by ArcticFahx View Post
That's the thing. You're asking for the heroes to win throughout.
I think what the OP was saying was that lately, since GR, it seems like it's been the villains winning, or at least the heroes forced to (at best) an unsatisfying draw or Pyrrhic victory. Mmm, GRIMDARK - that's how you know it's "mature" storytelling!

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Now, when that happens, it's a boring story.
Also depressing.

"You can't win, you can't break even, and you can't get out of the game."

My characters at Virtueverse
Faces of the City

 

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Originally Posted by Zemblanity View Post
Very well, I'll admit heroes were outplayed here. I'd prefer it if villain victories over heroes were limited to PvP (and vice versa, no arresting player villains either), but whatever. Well done. Still, let me quote one of my favorite lines of all time "You lost today, kid. But that doesn't mean you have to like it." And I'll be damned if I don't spend at least a dozen posts grumping about it
The thing with the SSAs is that they're not really separate arcs, they're one big arc, being released very slowly. When you have an in-game arc that's seven missions long, around the time of mission #3, you're not really expecting things to go well for you. After all, you can't thwart stage one. When all is said and done, I'd expect the Who Will Die arc to end on an obviously bittersweet note, but one that is doubtless a positive one where justice is properly served.

 

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Originally Posted by Seschat View Post
Joss Whedon is hardly a shining example to follow in the art of writing HEROIC fiction. His comic book credits are primarily X- books, deliberately grey and gritty. And let us not forget he's responsible for the depressing travesty of Firefly.
You take that back!

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Originally Posted by Hyperstrike View Post
English does not borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, hits them over the head, and rifles through their pockets for loose grammar.

 

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Originally Posted by Garielle View Post
There's a reason why a lot of the older the content has stronger hero victories than the newer content. When a lot of that older content was written, there was no City of Villains, only City of Heroes. It was not a question of which players would win, it was simply a question of if the players should win. When phrased that way, it's a lot easier to see the answer, "yes". The players should usually be able to win, in the end.
It makes sense that the players would win in a hero game. Paragon City isn't the right place for a horror survival game.

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With the addition of City of Villains, the question began to move to "which" rather than "if". Up until recently, the question has been avoided. The content on each side really had no impact on the other side. Stories written for one side didn't really have counter stories on the other side. This made it possible for the answer to be "both".
That's fine with me. You're still leaving out PvP, zones and Arena, the "correct avenue" to shove it to the otherside.

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We really only started to see interlocking counter-story lines in the Praetorian content. If you play through all four tracks in Praetoria you can see the same stories from multiple directions.
These were very good, because they involved choice. No official canon outside of what each player sets for his own little world. Each player's world IS canon. The premise was different, anyway, you were stuck in a post apocalyptic world ruled by a supposedly benevolent tyrant, and you got to choose your path. You could even shape it to fit your own brand of morality.

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Personally, I think this is better story writing. As others have said, and as I myself stated earlier, if the heroes always win, the story becomes too predictable and boring. How many times can you see Inspector Gadget nearly be killed by Dr. Claw and see Dr. Claw narrowly escape capture at the end before you start to see it coming in every story? What happens before that part becomes inconsequential because you already know the ending is inconsequential. Nothing is going to change and next week, you'll be right where you were.
There's a reason the Coyote never catches the Road Runner. He'd be eaten. If the heroes win, the world gets to survive another day. If the villains win, the world ends. Galaxy City is gone. Alexis Cole is dead. Short of a retcon, that's it. So a compromise was reached, villains only get to succeed to a point, and heroes sometimes get less than a flawless victory. There's plenty of examples of comic books that messed with that unwritten rule and started killing all of their characters for cheap sympathy ploys. They usually end up either retconned or cancelled.

Of course, City of Villains and Praetoria might survive the death of Paragon City, but for those of us who want to play heroes with any sense of accomplishment, that means game over.

Again, if you want to give heroes grief, try PvP.

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Now that zone phasing has been introduced, it is a technology I hope we see a lot more of across the entire game. It would be interesting to see a game where the world changes around you, based on your actions. By the time you reach level 50, the world looks substantially different than it did when you started off at level 1, and as you advance through the levels, you see that change occurring gradually over time as you attain (or fail to attain) your goals.
True, but why does it look worse at lvl 50 than it does at lvl 1? That seems to indicate that the villains are winning, so for those of us who aren't interested in personal tragedy or self-inflicted pain, there's little motivation to log on a hero right now.

Villains got their happy ending in "vanilla" CoV, they got to beat every hero NPC and even shoved it to the big bad boss, "Hey dude, here's what's going to happen to your helmet in 5 minutes if you keep messing with me!" Heroes never got their happy ending. By the way things are going, they never will.

And as you said, phasing technology allows each player to earn their own accomplishments. Atlas park is still plagued by Hellions - UNLESS your hero decides to arrest them.

Right now you can choose to create your character in 3 different locations, Paragon City (where heroes are expected to win), the Rogue Isles (where villains are expected to win) and Praetoria (where everybody loses, apparently). If the writers let these three worlds collide outside of PvP and then start picking sides, they'll inevitably make some players unhappy.

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Originally Posted by Megajoule View Post
I think what the OP was saying was that lately, since GR, it seems like it's been the villains winning, or at least the heroes forced to (at best) an unsatisfying draw or Pyrrhic victory. Mmm, GRIMDARK - that's how you know it's "mature" storytelling!
That's exactly what I was saying. Or ranting ^_^

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Also depressing.

"You can't win, you can't break even, and you can't get out of the game."
We all need some therapy, because somebody came along and said "hero" means soft on crime, soft on drugs, soft on corruption, soft on fascism, soft on defense, and we're gonna nerf you back to issue 6 because you don't need superstrenght to pull an old lady's cat out of a tree. And instead of saying, "Well, excuse me, you psychotic, bloodthirsty, goatee-wearing, cigarette-smoking sociopath, go wash your mouth before you end up copycatting the massacre of Columbine", we cowered in the corner and said "Please don't hurt me." No more.

 

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Originally Posted by Zemblanity View Post
I don't see a problem with this, in fact the game engine allows it. In Praetoria, you can choose whether you want to kill or spare Cleopatra, Schrodinger's cat and all. Would it be that problematic for a hero to have a different outcome from the "cannon" version? They do write both hero and villain missions for these signature arcs, so I don't see why they can't diverge eventually, particularly in a game that allows for multiple dimensions to coexist.



I won't play the rest. On hero side at least, episode #3 was my last. You're basically telling a bunch of kids playing cops and crooks that the cops have to lose, just because. And that if they don't like it, then they should just play the crooks instead. I just thought I should share that sentiment with the devs and the community, and either gather support for a different, lighter toned writing direction for the scripted blue-side missions, or stand alone and suck it up. It seems the later applies.



I couldn't care less about the trick, I care that the script forced my hero into a series of vigilante-like actions that break his character and culminated in the death of the person I was meant to protect. As you said, if I knew the episode was designed to be played by an incompetent vigilante meant to fail, I wouldn't have played it. That's not how they advertized it, though.



No, it's like playing Street Fighter 2 with Ken all the way to the last boss, only to find that Mr. Bison is scripted to be unbeatable. Afterwhich you're appeased by a text-box saying "Sorry, you have to play Ryu to beat this game. For plot reasons." Would you like that?



So make it happen outside my character's sphere of influence. People die. There's plenty of missions where we are sent to investigate murders. Only those murders don't happen on my character's watch. What was my character doing that was so important instead of rescuing the woman? Beating up an old man?

And I wouldn't mention it if it was an isolated case, but nearly every hero mission since the launch of Going Rogue has ended tragically for no apparent reason than to add to the drama. Katie Douglas. My alter-ego from Jenny Adair's arc. Alex Cole. Calvin Scott. DeVore.

Heroes and villains can both succeed, just not at the same time. I'm urging the writers to stop pushing villain accomplishments into blue-side missions, because there's no fun in playing a hero if you know you can't win.

If you play a villain and want to give a hero player grief, try PvP. In PvE, I'll demand at least a small chance to succeed.



This isn't a comic, it's a game, and if you involve a player's character you have to account for the possibility that the evil plot to murder a signature character might fail. Scripted victories might be boring if they're too easy, but scripted failures are totally unnacceptable and take away any desire I might have of playing this game.



Don't hold your breath.
The game engine allows it to an extent.

The problem with what you want is they then need to create two different story arc paths, and from there create even more multiple story arc paths, to the point where it keeps branching off twice from every new story arc.

You're basically asking them to account for every possible choice a player could possibly make their character make. That isn't going to happen, and yes I can accept that, because if they didn't people would never see new content.

Figure it's this simple...

"Who Will Die" is 7 arcs long. If they just gave players two different possible endings for the first arc, and then kept branching it off with every new arc, the original 7 arcs would turn into 132 different arcs, that all have to lead back to the same conclusion. A member of the surving 8 dead.

For this arc, Miss Liberty had to die. Thankfully for the villains, they got the choice in their character doing it or not. And for some, they might not have even been the kidnapping type, and may have at that point went, "Whoa whoa whoa. Gonna have to stop you now."

Basically, I realize sometimes you're going to have to change some of the storylines in your head to help them fit into how this will work for your character.

Of course, I play on virtue with lots of RPers, so in the end I also tend to view all storylines it as "yes this happened but not done by any of the characters I'll ever interact with" or else it becomes a matter of "200 people killed her?"

So, maybe I just know when it comes to solo RPing along with the content, I have to change some things to fit, as obviously the writers can't account for everything, even with the tech they have.

BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection

 

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Originally Posted by Twigman View Post
To those that think a hero would try to save Ms. Liberty and skip the missles, you're sadly mistaken. A hero does what is right for the innocent, the vigilante does what he's paid to do. Saving millions is the hero thing ... saving who he's paid to protect is the vigilante
I disagree. But then by that statement, it's the hero who would put Katie back in the network, while the vigilante lets her make up her own mind.

And my character I do picture as a vigilante, in so much as she preferes to decide her own rules rather than be a superpowered police officer.

Kill people? No. Wait around for a warrant? No.

BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection

 

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Originally Posted by Garielle View Post
Out of genuine curiosity, how would killing off Statesman be a cop out? A cop out is usually when someone does the absolute minimum or tries to wiggle out of delivering at all. If it were Miss Liberty who was the answer to "Who Will Die", that would, indeed, be a cop-out because it's a minor character that no one really cares a great deal about anyway. I don't see how killing off the face of Paragon City qualifies though.
I consider it a cop out because it would be, to me anyway, the current devs giving players that "OMG I hated Jack, so I hate Statesman, let's kill Statesman off" what they want, when they only want it because they hated a dev, and not want his signature character removed.

Killing Statesman is like killing Superman. A dumb idea.

Now I'm sure there are people who don't care for Statesman strictly because of the character (though he's nowhere as powerful imo as he was originally displayed to be) but it's so soured by those who have wanted him dead for so long because of that, I think killing Statesman off would just be cop out.

"Oh. Let's kill him off, as most people won't care or be happy about it."

Sadly, this leaves little room for other characters they can kill off without someone saying "OMG [insert trope here]" judging by some current threads.

BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection

 

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Originally Posted by Zemblanity View Post
That's fine with me. You're still leaving out PvP, zones and Arena, the "correct avenue" to shove it to the otherside.

Again, if you want to give heroes grief, try PvP.
There's a good reason I left out PvP. I left out PvP because, for the purposes of this topic, PvP is completely irrelevant. Nothing in PvP has any effect at all on the story. The topic you are discussing is about "story", where PvP does not (and I hope never does) play an important role.

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True, but why does it look worse at lvl 50 than it does at lvl 1? That seems to indicate that the villains are winning, so for those of us who aren't interested in personal tragedy or self-inflicted pain, there's little motivation to log on a hero right now.
I never said it DID have to look worse. The major flaw with your argument is that you are looking at the content introduced in a very narrow window, relatively speaking. In the vast majority of the existing content, the Heroes DO win. Plus, you don't know what the plans are for future content.

As someone else has already said, the pendulum swings back and forth. Give it time and it will come back around. If you really feel you absolutely must be on the winning side (and I get that..a lot of people feel that way), nothing is preventing from rolling a Red side character to play around with for a while. Well, nothing except yourself.

- Garielle
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Originally Posted by Frosty_Femme View Post
I said "ur" which is not a word. It's a sound dumb people make when you ask them to spell out "you are".

 

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Originally Posted by Zemblanity View Post
It makes sense that the players would win in a hero game. Paragon City isn't the right place for a horror survival game.



That's fine with me. You're still leaving out PvP, zones and Arena, the "correct avenue" to shove it to the otherside.



These were very good, because they involved choice. No official canon outside of what each player sets for his own little world. Each player's world IS canon. The premise was different, anyway, you were stuck in a post apocalyptic world ruled by a supposedly benevolent tyrant, and you got to choose your path. You could even shape it to fit your own brand of morality.



There's a reason the Coyote never catches the Road Runner. He'd be eaten. If the heroes win, the world gets to survive another day. If the villains win, the world ends. Galaxy City is gone. Alexis Cole is dead. Short of a retcon, that's it. So a compromise was reached, villains only get to succeed to a point, and heroes sometimes get less than a flawless victory. There's plenty of examples of comic books that messed with that unwritten rule and started killing all of their characters for cheap sympathy ploys. They usually end up either retconned or cancelled.

Of course, City of Villains and Praetoria might survive the death of Paragon City, but for those of us who want to play heroes with any sense of accomplishment, that means game over.

Again, if you want to give heroes grief, try PvP.



True, but why does it look worse at lvl 50 than it does at lvl 1? That seems to indicate that the villains are winning, so for those of us who aren't interested in personal tragedy or self-inflicted pain, there's little motivation to log on a hero right now.

Villains got their happy ending in "vanilla" CoV, they got to beat every hero NPC and even shoved it to the big bad boss, "Hey dude, here's what's going to happen to your helmet in 5 minutes if you keep messing with me!" Heroes never got their happy ending. By the way things are going, they never will.

And as you said, phasing technology allows each player to earn their own accomplishments. Atlas park is still plagued by Hellions - UNLESS your hero decides to arrest them.

Right now you can choose to create your character in 3 different locations, Paragon City (where heroes are expected to win), the Rogue Isles (where villains are expected to win) and Praetoria (where everybody loses, apparently). If the writers let these three worlds collide outside of PvP and then start picking sides, they'll inevitably make some players unhappy.



That's exactly what I was saying. Or ranting ^_^



We all need some therapy, because somebody came along and said "hero" means soft on crime, soft on drugs, soft on corruption, soft on fascism, soft on defense, and we're gonna nerf you back to issue 6 because you don't need superstrenght to pull an old lady's cat out of a tree. And instead of saying, "Well, excuse me, you psychotic, bloodthirsty, goatee-wearing, cigarette-smoking sociopath, go wash your mouth before you end up copycatting the massacre of Columbine", we cowered in the corner and said "Please don't hurt me." No more.
Actually. Isn't part of the storyline, when you leave AP, the Hellions are under control, the cops are wrapping things up and getting the last of them.

That's how I remember it being worded before i21 anyways.

Sadly, you're never going to see it that way, except maybe on a new character, because the tech didn't exsist that way before, for you to wipe off entire enemies off a map just for you.

Now a new character could maybe have this type of deal setup for what you want.

"I completed this arc!" \o/ "Hellions are no more in Atlas Park."

But then of course doesn't that get ruined by...

"Hey Zemblanity mind helping me stop the Hellions making Atlast Park their playground."

"Wait huh? I just wiped them all out. See before you, no Hellions anywhere."

"You blind? I see them them there breaking into a car. There snatching a woman's purse. Oh and look, there's some just loitering about...oh wait...nevermind on that one, another hero just arrested them for the loitering."

I see what you want. I do. I just don't think we're going to see it in a game with so many players. And if we did, I don't see how something like that wouldn't break the immersion.

BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection

 

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Originally Posted by Zemblanity View Post
There's a reason the Coyote never catches the Road Runner. He'd be eaten.
There's also no story. What is the story? "There's a Coyote who's always trying to catch a Road Runner." That's it. Nothing more. The story never moves beyond that. Something like that is good for a few chuckles and perhaps a few passing moments of entertainment, but nothing beyond that.

That's precisely what an MMO developer does NOT want. They want to keep the players engaged. They want to keep them interested. They want to keep them asking what happens next. Instead of self contained issues, where the plot lines are capsulized, they want issues and stories that end in cliff hangers and have us itching for the next issue so we can see what happens next.

- Garielle
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Originally Posted by Frosty_Femme View Post
I said "ur" which is not a word. It's a sound dumb people make when you ask them to spell out "you are".

 

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Originally Posted by Garielle View Post
There's also no story. What is the story? "There's a Coyote who's always trying to catch a Road Runner." That's it. Nothing more. The story never moves beyond that. Something like that is good for a few chuckles and perhaps a few passing moments of entertainment, but nothing beyond that.

That's precisely what an MMO developer does NOT want. They want to keep the players engaged. They want to keep them interested. They want to keep them asking what happens next. Instead of self contained issues, where the plot lines are capsulized, they want issues and stories that end in cliff hangers and have us itching for the next issue so we can see what happens next.
But there's no story here either, no cliffhanger. Villains briefly fought Miss L in 1963, so they might deride some satisfaction from this. But blueside? Heroes were told to escort, then rescue a minor character that they'd never met and means nothing to them. They failed and she died. Meh. No satisfaction. No sense of accomplishment. No sadness either, since it was someone we didn't really care about and there was nothing we could have done to prevent it. Basically, a meaningless waste of time meant to instill a sense of tragedy in Statesman (an NPC). A player's natural response would be "Ok... Now why am I playing this when I could be farming Lambda and WST?"

I could be wrong, though, as many have pointed out. I'd like to be wrong. The story's not even half done. Maybe Alexis had more influence in the player's life than we believe, and we'll be made to care in future arcs. Maybe she'll turn out to be the mysterious letter writer from Ouroboros, and we'll eventually receive a note say "Dear friend, if you're reading this, then that means I'm already dead. Don't blame yourself, it had to happen this way, because..."

Maybe we'll eventually meet her past self, still alive and fully aware of what will happen to her by virtue of the pillar of flame and ice, and she'll explain that, while technically dead, her "actual" death will only happen many years into the future. Ouroborically speaking.

Or maybe this is one of those dumb Manticore plans, like in the comics, and she's not really dead. Maybe she was replaced by a Nemesis automaton. Maybe she was kidnapped by Emperor Cole and replaced by a clone.

Who knows? All I know is that I don't like where this is heading, so a big thumbs down to Episode 3 was needed. I want something good to come out of this, and it's getting harder and harder to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

 

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Originally Posted by Zemblanity View Post
But there's no story here either, no cliffhanger. Villains briefly fought Miss L in 1963, so they might deride some satisfaction from this. But blueside? Heroes were told to escort, then rescue a minor character that they'd never met and means nothing to them. They failed and she died. Meh. No satisfaction. No sense of accomplishment. No sadness either, since it was someone we didn't really care about and there was nothing we could have done to prevent it. Basically, a meaningless waste of time meant to instill a sense of tragedy in Statesman (an NPC). A player's natural response would be "Ok... Now why am I playing this when I could be farming Lambda and WST?"
Okay then, what about all those other escort missions that people can do, and can fail.

Or does it not count as failing when you can just die and die and die untill you can save them? Even if that means resetting the mission at a lower difficulty?

Because, I don't think there's any real sympathy for those other no named get to safety hostages.

And if your hero has been this successful so far and never having failed anything because they could just hit the reset button, why not look at it as "character growth" in that the finally failed.

I really don't recall a superhero in comics who hadnt failed at one point.

BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Zemblanity View Post
But there's no story here either, no cliffhanger. Villains briefly fought Miss L in 1963, so they might deride some satisfaction from this. But blueside? Heroes were told to escort, then rescue a minor character that they'd never met and means nothing to them. They failed and she died. Meh. No satisfaction. No sense of accomplishment. No sadness either, since it was someone we didn't really care about and there was nothing we could have done to prevent it. Basically, a meaningless waste of time meant to instill a sense of tragedy in Statesman (an NPC). A player's natural response would be "Ok... Now why am I playing this when I could be farming Lambda and WST?"
There's no cliffhanger in what you described because..well... that's not at the edge of the story, where one would place a cliffhanger. Think of watching an episode of your favorite TV show. You're watching the story, you have your hero going along, they get into a tight spot, spin around and see a gun pointed at them...cut to commercial. That's a cliffhanger. It happens at the edge, as they cut away from the story. Either at a break, like that, or at the end of an episode.

Sooo.. let's have a look at Episode 3 as.. well.. an episode. What happens in the last scene of the episode? "Who's next?" "You're next, my dear Sharise". (Can't remember the exact dialog, but that's the general idea of it.) That is CLASSIC cliffhanger material. Gets people to want to see what's going to happen her, if she will get out of it, and if so, how.

This is really the first time we have seen true serial content in this game. Usually everything is capsulized and self contained. I rather like the anticipation of waiting to see what happens.

- Garielle
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Originally Posted by Frosty_Femme View Post
I said "ur" which is not a word. It's a sound dumb people make when you ask them to spell out "you are".

 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by BrandX View Post
Okay then, what about all those other escort missions that people can do, and can fail.
If I fail in a mission where I can succeed, it's my failure. My responsibility. This makes me try harder or act smarter the next time around. And I do fail alot in these type of missions. I didn't manage to rescue the guy during the Roy Cooling affair. Villains won that round. I'm not complaining about that.

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Or does it not count as failing when you can just die and die and die untill you can save them? Even if that means resetting the mission at a lower difficulty?
I can also redo the mission in Ouroboros. That's my prerogative. Most of the time I don't bother, if it's my failure then I'll have to live with it.

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Because, I don't think there's any real sympathy for those other no named get to safety hostages.
There's certainly alot more sympathy for the nameless hostages that don't die in a scripted cutscene.

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And if your hero has been this successful so far and never having failed anything because they could just hit the reset button, why not look at it as "character growth" in that the finally failed.
My toon has failed in the past. Alot. Including faceplanting against Hellions and Vazhilok. This felt different, like I was cheated, the same unpleasant feeling of watching your sports team lose a game to a bad referee call. True, the season isn't over yet, but there's been a lot of bad ref calls lately, and it bothers me.

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I really don't recall a superhero in comics who hadnt failed at one point.
Take Spider-man. Failure to prevent a kidnapping? On occasion, though I bet he ended up rescuing the victim at a later date. Failure to apprehend a bad guy? Sure, but again, eventually the bad guy was put behind bars. Getting people killed in his watch? Other than Gwen Stacy and Uncle Ben, both of which were traumatic, life-altering events for Spidey, I don't recall. At least none where Peter would simply shrug his shoulders and say he's off the hook because it wasn't his fault.

 

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Originally Posted by Zemblanity View Post
At least none where Peter would simply shrug his shoulders and say he's off the hook because it wasn't his fault.
To be fair, Pete isn't really a shoulder-shrugging, off-the-hook kind of guy, even when it isn't his fault. That's kind of his dharma.

 

Posted

Garielle, I suspect the OP is not reacting to this specific case (which is, as you note, merely the midpoint of an ongoing story), except in a "final straw" context and/or the latest example of a perceived overall shift in tone in recent content, again since approximately Going Rogue. Put another way, is "well, we won in the end, kind of, but people died and/or we had to do some morally grey things" the way it's going to be from now on, in all new content?

While we're on the subject, I'm going to note something that really rubbed me the wrong way: it was a nearly textbook "fridging." Female character brought in to be killed off and create drama for male supers (Statesman, Manticore, etc) to react to.

My characters at Virtueverse
Faces of the City

 

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Originally Posted by Zemblanity View Post
Heroes were told to escort, then rescue a minor character that they'd never met and means nothing to them.
In the world of Paragon City, according to canon, all heroes know Statesman and the rest of the biggies. If a hero knows Statesman, they know he has a daughter (Miss Liberty) and a grand daughter (Ms. Liberty). Miss Liberty is not some schmoe off the street, SHE IS THE STATESMAN'S DAUGHTER *and* she is the CO-FOUNDER (alongside Statesman) of the Freedom Corps, a very large group to facilitate communication with heroes. In the lore of Paragon City, SHE IS SOMEBODY IMPORTANT.

I am using capslock because you don't seem to realize that you're completely ignoring canon information to support your personal vendetta against this "book" and the way it is being written.

If you can ignore that Miss Liberty is an important part of Paragon City history, and that her loss is pretty big to the city and to all heroes, then surely you can ignore this one piece of a story arc and pretend it happened some other way to make the outcome more palatable for you.

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Originally Posted by Dispari View Post
I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

 

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Originally Posted by Aggelakis View Post
Miss Liberty is not some schmoe off the street, SHE IS THE STATESMAN'S DAUGHTER *and* she is the CO-FOUNDER (alongside Statesman) of the Freedom Corps
And she's Ms. Liberty's mom, which, I mean, every hero who's ever been to Atlas Park should know Ms. Liberty at least in passing. Most of my heroes started there before it became the only choice. Hell, Captain Photon made a point of taking the sentimental journey back to her for his last level-up when he turned 50. So even if he had no other knowledge of Miss Liberty in any other context, he'd still be furious that this had happened.