SSA Favoritism or "Dammnit writers, throw Heroes a bone!"

I already know who the architect is, and frankly, given I've already given away what happens from parts 1-4 in this thread? There's no reason to hide it.

And honestly, if what you said is the case? Then it's incredibly poor writing on the part of the devs. Who's going to care about the Arc on Blueside if they don't feel motivated to play it because the writing forces idiocy?


As Mokalus said, I -could- be calling doom and gloom early. A distinct possibility I realize. I'm just feeling a little sore from the fact that the story THUSFAR feels like nothing of a series of "Look-at-how-stupid-Heroes-are".

And hopefully get the chance to get some seriously righteous payback.

A victory on the side of evil every now and again builds tension and makes the villains much more menacing and threatening. I imagine that's what the first few parts were for, along with Statesman's death. Build up the villains and give us a reason to hate and want to them, rather than present us with a bag of HP that the game tells us we should hate as is the case with most TFs and the like.

Also, constant victory on the side of evil just makes for a depressing story where there is absolutely no hope whatsoever. The villains get boring, and heroes become laughable. This is why I believe the story will soon pick up and the heroes will layeth the smacketh down.

Reminds me of the storyline of the Justice storyarc painted by Alex Ross.

If anyone doesn't know about Justice, look it up.

As for the bolded, have you actually tried to READ the Praetorian arc for the trials? LOL, you're complaining about this here? Really?

...What's the problem with the Incarnate Trials?

Honestly I've heard Venture and some others say how the Praetorian Arc and iTrials are "poor writing" but never ONCE was any actual examples given of this.

Could you clarify for me?

I don't disagree with this, but there IS (as someone mentioned before) a rather big problem with this, is when one person's story doesn't match up with someone elses.

Whose story becomes the valid one then?

For a different storyline that'd be great, like some random story arc in Talos or something that deals with you and the enemy groups there. But this specific story needs to reach a specific conclusion, and that gets heavily complicated by story trees. This story does have something unique that no other one does, though, in that you can experience it from both the hero's and the villain's perspective. Nothing else out there does that.

Would be awesome to see branching storylines elsewhere, though, not gonna lie.

Yours.

Nothing

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.

Then, why are your villains building unstoppable war machines? A hero, or heroes or heroine and heroines as the case may be, brought down before the unstoppable war machine is the whole point. It's unstoppable, isn't it?

Not to put too fine a point on it, but seeing as they specifically said "Who Will Die?", I wonder if some people are missing the nuance. What if, it's not a matter of somebody killing Statesman as it is him sacrificing himself either to save somebody close to him or to save the city or even the world.

If the devs are going to put their premier hero in the guillotine, then shouldn't his death have meaning beyond just another punching bag for the players to kick around yet again, as I assume a good deal of players have had more than one opportunity to defeat Statesman in the past.

I disagree to an extent, I think #3 & 4 had some issues but I think the earlier ones were good. Before doing the arcs, my main hero, (who hasn't done the Midnighter's content yet) as the arc implies wouldn't know Darrin Wade from Joe nobody, or would at most think he's a small time artifact dealer (a point which at least I felt) the Midnighter's themselves try to downplay. Secret societies & their secrets... Remember your hero most likely would have no idea what your villains do for Wade in his arc.

I think it's more even, yes He 'lost' because of a technicality, but so does your villain character and the evil spirit who made the artifact! The mastermind, has to come away with something for his efforts, otherwise the story would end. So I think it's more:
Villains 0, Heroes 0, Wade .5 (he didn't succeed in the plan after all).

On the surface, yes it seems a total victory for the villains, but is it? On both sides, you plow through the Rulu-Shin and destroy ones of their most successful front operations and defeat a bunch of Rularuu's servants weakening them substantially. This part was not a part of Wades plan, sure he might blow it off but it defiantly sets his long-term goal back a bit. Plus, he got the info he wanted, yes, but that info was about a special ability of Numina, which wasn't what Wade wanted to hear! So he's setback, yet again.

So heroes .5, villains 1, wade 1.0

As some of the others pointed out, you have to build up the main villain and make it look like he's starting to win to build him up, especially such a relatively minor villain from our perspective.

Now I haven't played the villain side of this yet, and I did do the Calvin Scott TF back in the day which changed some dialog for me (which was the most awesome thing I've seen in awhile, I love that! Just wish it affected more in part 4). This part, as much as I was moved by Alexis' death, part of it made no sense to me, but not her dying or not being able to stop it. Although, yes I would have wished we could have, for Malaise to want an audience for his 'art' or something maybe. I defiantly got from the story that everyone from Manticore on down knew it was a trap, but Alexis insisted on going, So there no "Heroes are forced to fail to see through the obvious trap" We saw through it, Alexis is just as stubborn as her father, and what could we have done? Not gone? That's not very heroic.

Am I pissed that Manticore insisted on saving her himself? Yes, but not at the writers, that is Manticore's character, he thinks he knows/is better equipped and more experienced at this. What makes me upset is the way they worked going back to Paragon as part of the plot. Alexis is kidnapped, missiles are going to go, and our heroes (and Manticore) have to go all the way back to Paragon and let her die? That’s the bad writing part in my opinion. They should have done something more like the latter part, a series of inter connected maps.

As for the missile launching anyway, that's not a direct failure on your heroes part, from what I've read, the villain arc happens in-between, after you stop the missiles as a hero your villain turns it on and launches it. Much like the last bank you saved in a safeguard mission, does knowing that the next day, some villain succeeded in robbing it because you weren't there diminish your hero? I don't think so, it's the common theme of
not being able to be everywhere and save everyone. If it's anyone's failing, it's Longbow's for not securing the site after you stop it.

This is where I think some of the premise falls short again, I love everything that happens inside Psyche's head. I admit I've been hoping to take Malaise down since the Scott TF (and Psyche forcing him to be good it kind of makes me uneasy too). Because of that, and what was said to Manticore in Part 3 about trusting Malaise, I defiantly felt railroaded into stopping Manticore (or at least not blasting malaise when the song started). Now I did accidentally play these out of order (4 then 3 so I was really confused), so it's possible I missed some dialog option because of that if it's tied to some flag. But I'm ok with that, heroes don't let other heroes kill prisoners especially ones with their wife stuck in his head, which never turns out well for her. It also goes again into Manticore's character that he has to solve everything himself and doesn't seem to trust others a lot.

As for Malaise's reasons, well despite you claiming these aren't for those who keep up with lore, if you play the Scott TF in Ouroboros, you'll see a lot of his reasons. Basically he's a psycho, and Sister Psyche's been mind dominating him for years to be good. He resents her for forcing him to go against his nature and abandon his 'art' He's also mad because of heroes like her his 'art' isn't appreciated more than him saving people while being forced to be a hero.

Also we do save Psyche! That was pretty obvious from the arc. We are the only ones who can go in and save her, unfortunatly, yes like in the Scott TF, she's out of it for awhile, so yes Wade's plan gets a bit father a long, Psyche's out of the way. However, she's alive, that usually comes back to bite villains in the butt later.

While yes he dies, saving him isn't our goal in the arc, our goal is to stop that missile, and Wades plan (freeing Rularuu). We have to do it and be the hero because Statesman's not up to the task and dies. Killing Statesman is the goal of our player villains. So yes villains get to laugh because they killed Statesman, only to find he wasn't the biggest threat and it doesn't matter because they still loose in the end! What's more important? Saving Statesman, or the City & the world? Which one would a hero save if you can't save both?

As for the branching storylines idea, I welcome more of them! Different stories are already in the game, as I’ve said my play through seems a little different then those who haven’t done the Scott TF. Also my letter from Requiem is different from a lot of others, both are still valid and don’t break the game or immersion in my opinion, with different dimensions and Ouroboros being available.

Thing is, the villains aren't getting any full victories either. I just think that you can't score the villains a point without having to give the heroes one as well. It's not the missions that are skewed in favor of the villains, it's your scoring system. Both sides end up with gains and losses.

Red side has gotten plenty of love for the past ten issues or so.

Let's take a stroll back in time, shall we?

Issue 21
Galaxy City destroyed. The heroes were all derp derp while Recluse knew it was coming and even prevented the heroes from knowing about it.


Issue 20
BAF: geared towards villains. Killing mental patients isn't heroic. We must be killing them because they are explicitly not able to be controlled or contained.

Mortimer Kal Strike Force: Gives villains a perma-temp power and a Notice of the Well.
Heroes Sutter TF version gives them jack squat.


Issue 19
Vincent Ross' arc has you being powered up and taking on an army of heroes.
The counterpart hero arc clearly had less work put into it, no temp power and a recycled Faultline villain brought back to show heroes failed at bringing him to justice in the first place.


Issue 18
Fort Trident and the Crucible added. The villain's Crucible is a populated, cool looking map full of Easter eggs and in jokes where villains are praised by the NPCs. Trident is a stark Longbow base where heroes get to watch the Freedom Phalanx quarrel.
Winner: Villains


Issue 17
Villains get the clone epic with MacArthur and Silmon, arguably some of the best solo content in the game to that point.

Heroes get threatened and dissed by Agent Nance and his army of ninjas. Until the rewrite where he became a passive aggressive sycophant. Again, the villain arcs introduced are arguably much superior to the counterpart hero arcs.


Issue 15
Reichsman TF: Villains get a cinematic in their TF and heroes get to clean up the villains' mess. Villains get to channel the power of the Inner Circle while heroes get a drawn out beat down on a sack of HP and a bunch of NPCs who logically have no place showing up to help Reichsy.


Issue 13
Cimmeroan arcs. Again, the arc is about villains going out an doing stuff while heroes are almost purely reactionary and are just there to clean up the mess. Villains get GW in a thong and heroes get Daedalus.


Issue 12
VEATs versus squids.
'NUFF SAID



Yeah, villains get no love, except that they've gotten the better deal whenever there's been comparable blue side content or feature added for the past 10 issues. Villains get the better arcs, they get better stories, they get more rewards and heroes get useless glowing lobsters.



.

Actually, I agree with this. The first SSA wasn't bad, but it wasn't that good. SSA2 was actually a lot of fun, at least from the hero-side of things. Sure, Tami and Tommy got played, but Numina wasn't reallyh a damsel in distress, plus she got away unharmed from it all, and the Rulu Shin were cool, if tragic bad guys.

SSA 3, on the other hand, just sickened me and ensured that I'm never going to play SSA 4, 5, 6 or 7, nor will I ever replayed SSA 1, 2 or 3. That's a shame, since SSA 1 and 2 were pretty cool, but SSA 3 ruined them for me. First Praetoria's world half empty, then First Ward's crapsack world, then the Atlas Park and Mercy Island war crimes, and now this. After this, I might as well go back to Silent Hill for a pleasant, uplifting vacation by comparison.

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 totally baffled as to where you're getting that it looks like they DIDN'T. Just because they didn't succeed doesn't mean they didn't try. And the story's not over with yet. As others have said, it's damn common for heroes to take a pummeling in a story arc in comic books before ultimately scraping out a win, and sometimes that win is barely by the skin of their teeth with heavy casualties along the way.

Oh lord...I agree with Johnny.

On the subject of SSAs; those are free alignment merits. The story is absurd. OK, we're taking an unarmed civilian into hostile territory. We are equipping her protectors Manticore and [hero] with their standard hospital teleporters. But despite have the technology and knowing full well the extremely high likelihood the whole thing is a trap, we don't give Alexis a teleporter. We don't have a hero guarding Alexis who could put her into a force field or other protection despite the Phalanx having a Force Field Controller on staff.

Basically, the SSAs depend on heroes drinking the stupid juice. Hence, I run them as quick as I can, then run SSA1 every week for the A-merit.

He sent Arachnos troops to help the Resistance in the low-level Praetorian content. A less active stance is still getting things done without him needing to provide additional help once the heroes get involved, so why not use them?

So heroes are getting content where they're railroaded through, treated like idiots, and everything falls apart despite any action they do by things happening off-camera. This has happened for years in villain content, so all I can say is "welcome to the club".

Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.

Originally Posted by Brillig It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.

Yup. Which is why I hate most villain content.

Not to mention what must be thousands of Longbow operatives with that power set. Or Synapse who could zip her away from danger before anyone could blink. Or have Manticore call up Dark Watcher and his teleporting expertise; he's got no love for Statesman, but he's still a hero.


.

My mother always said that two wrongs don't make a right.

My point is that this is PRECISELY what I've been complaining about since City of Villains began. The last thing I want to see happen is for heroes to suffer the same fate. On the contrary, villains need more self-made villainy. Make better content for everybody, not worse content for all for the sake of parity.

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 situation is similar to the second Rikti invasion, where Nemesis didn't step in until he thought that we were going to ruin his plans - in the current Praetorian war, Recluse has no need to step in, because everyone is already working towards his goal of destroying Tyrant.

The genre savvy people know that heroes are often dumbed down to get the story to where they want it