It happened AGAIN.

I think players who want to be more villainous are being poorly represented in this thread. Not every villain wants to rule the world or destroy it. Wanting more villainous content does not mean every arc has to have the possibility of devestating vast tracts of land or ruling a pile of rubble. Sometimes it's as simple as the way other villains address you or getting away with a big pile of cash.

Look at Dean McArthur and Leonard's arcs. In both of them you are the big shot, dangerous person who gets to be nice or nasty to them. They are your lackeys, doing what you tell them to do. Plus you get to finish Leonard's arc with a big sack of cash. Equally, as has been said earlier in the thread, after you finish a patron arc, the patron effectively concedes that you are their equal (most times) and decides not to cross you. Even Recluse agrees not to try and abuse your power after you prove how much of a badass you are to him.

Villains are about gaining power. But a lot of the time, the arcs we have simply cast us as lackeys and mercenaries, never wanting to gain much for ourselves other than getting paid. Things are improving though. Tips are an excellent source of villainy and thing such as making the Mortimer Kal introduction into a tip mission was a stroke of genius. So kudos for those, we need more of them please!

But co-op content is a nightmare. Co-op stuff always seems to be heroic in nature, mostly because there seems to be this fear that if there was a co-op task that required heroes to be less than whiter than white, no-one would play it. So it's always the villains that have to put their personal issues aside and play pretend hero. The opening to Redside New DA even makes a joke about it! Although I appreciate that co-op content is a cost saving measure, it's been used too often over the past ten issues to the point where if I see the term 'co-op', I immediately want to go and play something else.

The writers have proven that they're capable of better. So it frustrates me no end when I see the cheap and easy way being taken every single time and just expecting villains to like it or lump it. Blowing up the world is impossible to do in this game. But at least let us get away with some real evil.

Weeping Villains should play the DA arcs - there are some pretty sinful choices that can be made on them

Didn't read past the OP.

Wade made a power grab and played me for a chump - I'm willing to work with the heroes if it means I can get revenge.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shubbie Im very good at taking a problem and making it worse.

You do realize that the badguys lose, right? I mean, the world never really gets taken over by evil, or destroyed by an evil plot.

It's just the way of the universe. There's always a quick witted ex-cop that walks across glass in his bare feet to save the chick. Frodo and Samwise manage to walk across middle earth barefoot past thousands of badguys to make it to Mt Doom and the ring gets destroyed. And after 5.9 movies of Anakin sliding toward evil and becoming Darth Vader, in the last 10 minutes of the final chapter he restores "balance" to the force, sacrifices himself to kill 1 badguy, and skippy-do-da he gets to hang out in the afterlife with his old buddies (i think he has his shoes on). There's always a happy ending. Get used to it.

QR 'cause I only read the first few responses.

When rogues complete the Statesman Task Force, they get a badge called "Saved the World (For Later)". The implication is that, you're not about to let someone else take over the world, because that's what you're going to do!

I think that theme should be evident for villains in almost all co-op zones and missions. It could go even further sometimes maybe, where the villain players attempt to usurp control of the mega-ultra-whatsits, or steal some key component from it.

There's a cool example of this sort of thing from Stargate: Atlantis. While the Tau'ri were able to convince the Wraith to fight alongside them against the Asurans (who were the greater threat), the Wraith were still sneaky bastards and managed to steal several ZPMs from the Lantean replicators during the battle. That later turned them into a much bigger threat at the end of the series.

Let me first say that I'm sympathetic to the OP, in principle.

However; Wade has script immunity and, moreover, he is the antagonist so he has to be the one to take down the protagonist. You can't give that "honor" to the PC and keep the game world consistent. If the PC got to assist, there'd be just as many people unhappy about playing lackey to Wade as there are currently unhappy about not pulling the trigger on Statesman.

We've already seen that the track record of the villains so far in this story arc up to this point is one success after another. Let's look at the hero side:

1) Fail to protect Eastgate from conversion into a pool of lava. (Though Synapse gets a somewhat amusing joke about it.)

2) Fail to protect the true MacGuffin of the arc.

3) Fail to protect one of the iconic characters, Miss Liberty.

4) Fail to protect one of the iconic characters, Sister Psyche, as well as fail to protect or even properly take vengeance upon the poster boy for reformed villainy, Malaise.

5) Fail to protect or warn Statesman.

Notice a pattern here? What do you suppose that chapters six and seven hold for the blue side? Do you also notice that all of those failures are OUT OF THE PLAYER'S CONTROL?

I'm afraid that while the stated frustrations with having to watch Wade succeed and then double-cross you are valid ones, I have to conclude that overall, red-side is the getting better shake out of this story so far.

As for Doctor Doom, now that he's eaten Galactus, he may well find that swallowing the Beyonder is a bigger task than he expected and it may bite him in the ***; especially if you villains get to help the Beyonder do the biting as retribution for Doom's betrayal. Likewise, if the Well finds a way to intercede and that intercession is greased on its skids by the PC's. Maybe you won't get to rule the world or the universe at the end, but maybe you'll get a taste of some cold, cold revenge and if it's served up just right,then you may find that it's delicious, indeed.