The Well, Praetoria, and Incarnates; Problems with Writing?

The problem with telling people to ignore a storyline they don't like is that it feels like skipping content. If there were an alternative "screw your stupid Well, I'm going to invent my own Well, and it'll do what I say and be covered in chrome" sort of plot, that would work. Since there's not, though, it plays like the game assumes you'll be beholden to the Well, so much so that it might even assume you are even if you choose to ignore Well content specifically because you don't want to be.

The Well:

Ignored as source of metahuman power on virtually all my characters. I don't even run the arc anymore now that you can unlock it with Astral Merits. My namesake is a former scientist that had no knowledge of the thing and got her powers through experimentation...yeah. The list goes on. The sooner I can avoid railroading of my character's motivations, the better.

Praetoria:

Nice new starting area, loved First Ward content. Not a fan of everything Incarnate being tied to it. I can get to 50 without interacting with the Praetorian storyline and I can run endless task forces divorced from it, yet once I start the Incarnate path, I'm cooked.

Praetoria is a great starting zone but again denotes a tendency by the developing team to get "new shiny" syndrome and abandon it; you never use the "shifting" system of being part of the Resistance or Loyalist factions in First Ward or in any other content. Granted, branching arcs do require more tech, but those choices are generally the culminating part of an arc. How fun would it be to either let Diabolique go instead of seeing her torn asunder? Perhaps you betray Makwa instead of helping him? Still, you can't reproach the Devs too much as they've gone a bang-up job with this zone overall, and I hope to see 30-40 zone along the way.

The trials are a nice way to convey the "first strike" into Praetoria, and they are repetitive, but so is most MMO content. It would be nice to have alternate way to improve though and we'll see if Dark Astoria is that way...

So really you're just another guy whining because his favorite villain group isn't getting the spotlight all the time. Seriously, I3 was seven years ago. Get over it. It's all kinds of stupid to continue holding Paragon accountable for that.

No one else cares. It's not an objective design flaw when Paragon makes a game that other people like instead of you, and they never promised you the 5th Council would be important or even go on existing. Your bruised feelings are just that: Yours. So you deal with them. ParagonWiki is down because boo SOPA, but there's not even that much difference between the two villain groups to begin with. Given that "Champions clone" is your idea of "innovative game design," I'm guessing you just hate change.

Forgive my lateness to the discussion, but the issues about the Well didn't bother me too much (because I just chose to ignore them mostly and embrace them on just one occasion only because the character concept was that he was a god already and just had to regain his lost abilities) until the last few SSA's and writing generally.

And I have to agree about the Well; the instant you declare that your 'Origin of Power' trumps all others is really powergaming/writing of the worst order. It's like saying in the most childish way that 'my hero beats up your hero' and the kid saying that is fact shouting it until the other kid shrugs their shoulders and goes home bored. It's a sort of 'winning' (oh the irony of that phrase after Charlie Sheen) that isn't electing to incorporate a character's story or concept, but one that is railroading not only said concept but all subsequent stories and decisions afterwards.

It's a form of pre-determinism. The presumption that your power comes form this source means in turn you'll 'automatically' be interested in gaining more, listening to those who supposedly have knowledge about it, and oppose those who are using it for ends that you have 'decided' are misguided/evil. There's no room for even an illusion of free will at this point, which to me is a staple of any game to be enjoyable and invested in.

We've had branching dialogue for a while, but no options to challenge the notions of the Well being the source of 'my' power, or even find a player-driven alternative that yields the same result. It's not difficult writing at all; all you have to say is talk about the many things the Well can represent but not actually be. Let the player fill in the gaps there and suggest that the Well is a conduit for that. Denying that illusion of choice and interpretation really is bad writing, no matter how you cut it. It's as if doing so would encourage you to look behind the curtain and find the Wizard there, all bells and whistles and nothing more.

To then have the Well be sentient and apparently somewhat insane? So the player influence so heavily touted as our achieving Incarnate power is in the hands of a sentient being that can forcibly control others? Why do we not challenge or even question this? For heroes, surely this must be reminiscent of Praetoria's mind control at the very least? It's skipping basic story logic let alone continuity. It's also the beginning of many, many plotholes that revolve around those two elements that we see playing out in other stories where NPC's either act drastically out of character or simply not act at all, dispensing with either common sense or caution or even both.

There's an implicit suggestion on the part of the story writers here to essentially 'hand-hold' the characters and then railroad them on courses of action they may not wish to take. And by that I don't mean players have a hissy fit and refuse to do the mission, I mean that the incentive and positive engagement with the story is missing to do this. The player cannot help if they see the logic gaps and question why they are serving an essentially insane sentient power source that they have seen in the Alpha Slot story possess the most powerful beings in Paragon City. Consent and obedience are considered a given until very late in the story, as we have discovered.

Why should we question at this point? Surely the Well has been able to control us, as we are further down the proverbial food chain than Lady Grey or Statesman? But the story tells us we do without first querying why we haven't done so already.

The Well is far better served in being something like The Force, which is something everyone can tap into in some form or another, regardless of belief or intent, with both good and bad consequences for doing so, and is also a living entity. The instant sentience is given to this concept turns the notion of Incarnatedom from self-achievement to a partnership and at worst a indentured servitude. It takes away from a sense of achievement a player has done and becomes something given to a player, but with strings attached, which goes against the very psychology of playing for reward.

When you have fundamental errors in storytelling at this level, it's not hard to then start looking around and seeing it in other aspects of the story connected to the Well.




S.

I look at it like this...Not every character needs to be incarnate.
The incarnate story doesn't lend itself to every character.
We are not gonna have Captain America wake up one day to find out his powers were the result of some cosmic entity. I have 5 level 50s and all but 1 lends itself to enhancement from mystical means.
Amun-Re, my blaster is based on the Egyptian God....it works with him
Captain Champion, my tank is loosely based on Captain Marvel(shazam) and it world with him.
Mr Quantum, my Peace bringer is a cosmic powered entity and it works for him.

Black Spider, my scrapper, is loosely based on Spider-man and doesn't lend itself to a cosmic up grade...so with him I pull a Marvel.

Marvel a few years ago introduced a character with the same powers as Spider-man and he got his powers from a spider-totem-god...fans freaked because they thought Marvel was changing Spidey origin and its all been swept under the rug.
I have incarnated him but in my mind i explain it away as a new abilities the suit had that he just discovered (his origin is during the rikti invasion he fell into a arachnos secret lair and was enveloped in an arachnos war suit and thats where his powers come from)