SSA #7 Story Discussion ** SPOILERS **

For me it was the other way around... On my PB I was forced to drop into Dwarf form because of her damn holds (and she even held me through that!); Rula-Wade on the other hand, I dropped like a sack of potatoes, no effort at all.

Same. In spite of Vigilante = blueside, it treated me like I was a villain.

Ran WWD#7 three times on my (currently Vigilante) main badger, trying to see all the dialogue trees. The only difference I could get was battling in space solo instead of with the villain Big Bads, and attacking Vanguard during the press conference instead of a showdown with Manticore in the hallway. Wonder if Infernia will really try to defeat me "next time we meet" since I didn't play mean until the third run-through?

Hmmm, if I went back full Hero if I could get the Vanguard salute in the hallway?



Ah, well that answers that question. Guess I skip going Hero if Manticore is still going to be mad at me. No proud march down the hallway of saluting Vanguard for me. Oh, well.

I'm guessing the options are based on which souvenirs the player has that trigger the different dialogue/endings.



I did actually defeat every. single. target. on that map the first time, trying to trigger any interesting NPC chatter. Not worth it. Flew directly to Scirocco the other two times.



I went out of my way during my second run to try and trigger a consequence from Recluse for this very reason, too. Pity nothing happened except he and his patrons did not show up.



I thought it already did.

Scirocco started by saying to me, "My former pupil gone hero. It seems you've accomplished something that I could never hope to achieve, but that is neither here nor there."

Choosing "Scirocco, it's not to late for you to change your ways, just like I did." gets "Scirocco lets out a slight smile, shaking his head. You are not tied to Arachnos as much as I am. If I were to leave unspeakable things would happen. As well... where would I go? Perhaps there are those who would accept you, but I have disgraced my family name and those who I fought together with during the old war. No person would accept me after what I've done. The only option is to continue moving forward with where I am. That is the only thing I can do. The question now is what you are going to do next."

I thought this was because I completed all of Scirocco's missions/patron arc while badge hunting redside. Does he have these dialog options for everyone? Just for those who have done redside WWD#1-6? Just for those, like me, who have run redside WWD#1-6 and Scirocco's patron arc?



Yeah. Add my disappointment too at the lack of flavor descriptions. It's hard to want to hunt for Easter Eggs when even the normal eggs are not in place.



Not including the ship Penelope Yin and the others stay behind on where they "got your back", there are at least eight (link to screenshot): One up too high to fly to, one you enter (SS Barry), four more floating mid-air, the half-sunk ship at the bottom of the pile, and the tip of a hull off to the side.

[NPC] Lord Recluse: Mako, go recover any information from those submerged boats.

Submerged boats, plural. Yikes. The kill count climbs. Such high, unseen deaths went for me from shock value to numbing too-many-to-absorb reaction.



Pretty sure this is unlocked by doing the DD incarnate trial. I read this new dialog a couple weeks ago, after the new DA zone released and before WWD#7 went live. His other dialog unlocks have also been because of completing various incarnate trials. Prometheus is all about level 50+ incarnate content, while WWD has been level 10 - 50. In short (too late!), Prometheus's new dialog is not a reaction to Wade or his action, it is in response to the events in Dark Astoria.



My Ill/FF controller also had no significant problems with Ghost Widow or Rula-Wade, but she's built for soloing.

I was much more annoyed that the space beams took of 75% health each 30 seconds, ignoring that my heavily enhanced force fields looked exactly like Penelope Yin's bubble. Even PFF didn't spare me. While my Phantasm and Phantoms and Lord Recluse waltzed around oblivious to what was playing whack-a-mole to my health.

On one hand it was nice that I didn't have to worry about getting my pets under cover by Yin every half-minute, but it was more than a little immersion breaking that I was the only one on the map feeling the blast.

Originally Posted by Venture I'd never use a nuke in a superhero universe. You nuke a city, you kill 1.5 million people minus one. The last guy not only gets superpowers from the explosion, but ones that let him survive a nuke...and wow, is he torqued off

On yesterdays Ustream Aeon said that if you had run any villain content that the game recognizes that and reacts accordingly. So even if you're a Confirmed Hero, it seems you'll get attacked by Manticore. I'm curious to see if this is true.

That explains why my confirmed hero, who had done both sides of the arc as a vigilante up until SSA4 or 5 (she'd then gone through the system to get back to hero), got the villain ending (not just attacked by Manticore, but asked questions that were obviously for villains, like whether I'd killed Ms. Liberty). That's intentional? That sucks. I'd have liked to have known that before hand, now that my main character can never, ever get the hero ending for the arc. It's kind of dumb, too, because I'd done the heroside versions with her first, every time, making it impossible for her to have actually done what she did villainside (I only ran them because they were vague about whether there would be badges for these arcs, and I guessed we'd probably wind up with one on each side for completing all 7).

That space mission was awesome, by the way.

I dont know if that's cheated really. Going for badges was an option one didn't have to do. At most maybe the older villains who had no choice but to play redside due to AT restrictions at the time.

Buuut...I think this is awesome! It means your actionshave a little more effect ont he story, and that is always a good thing!

That's only for the pure of heart

That would be "Let Me Murder Malaise While In Legal Custody" True Hero Manticore?

Boy, is he ever putting on airs if he cannot tolerate Vigilantes and Rogues and must therefore attack them.

I don't think this is true. I've only run it once, but it was on my main who I've taken around the morality wheel once for badges. Meaning he started out as a Hero, then went Vig, then Vil, then Rogue, and back to Hero. He was confirmed Hero at the time I did this arc, and I only ever did the heroside versions of the SSA. Manticore did not attack me (or even show up).

So either Aeon is mistaken, or he specifically meant the SSA content itself, not just any villain content.

Well, it's Manticore. He's basically the Batman analogue, and therefore is allowed to be hypocritical about the amount of punishment he deals out to criminals. (E.g. Batman won't kill, but he has no problem putting criminals in full body casts due to the beat-down he lays on them. Never mind that anything could go wrong during recovery and the criminal could still die.)

It also means it's time for blueside to have PPP equivalents. If going red just to get a defense shield, which you have no way of doing staying blueside for corruptors as an example, brands you a villain for all of eternity, the redside restriction must go.

Redside gets all of blueside's pools and never has be be branded a hero.

That's an unfair and false view. A villain who has redeemed himself/herself isn't inherently less pure than the hero who simply has not fallen yet. It would depend entirely upon the "story" of the character and the character of the character.

A hero could be a hero always, a hero turned vigilante turned villain turned rogue turned back to hero, a villain become rogue become hero, a Praetorian to hero, or a Praetorian to villain to rogue to hero.

In real life or in a crafted fictional story we would know more of the character of the hero but in the game it ought to be programmed to treat one who is currently a reinforced hero as a hero. They can view any villain, rogue, vigilante or even a hero with some vigilante tips done as someone to suspect but any full blown hero who just saved the world ought to be given respect.

Payback's a you-know-what. It's time for all the vigilantes in the game to take on Manticore and for all true-blue heroes to ostracize him for killing his wife like Superman voting out Flash from the JLA for killing many years ago.

That's not the reason that came out of his mouth during the arcs. Which ones were you playing?

I'm not saying it's a direct quote, but one of the reasons Wade decided to do all of this was that it "wasn't fair" that he didn't have super-powers and could be squished like a bug any time someone wanted to off him.

See, that's the problem (and thank you SwellGuy). Mally *is* pure of heart and likely the one of my characters who best exemplifies that. That she started redside before side switching was even consideredan option, since the dominator powerset fit her concept *best* and the idea of her stuck, a hero among villains, suited her story. That should not penalize her now that she is a confirmed hero.

Hopefully Kyasubaru's experience will hold true for her. :-P

Wade does not steal Rularuu's power. He steals Rularuu himself. What he attempted was a merger with Rularuu in which he would be the controlling mind. That's why he specifically targeted Statesman and Sister Psyche. Statesman for his raw power and Sister Psyche for her mind-riding ability.

Unfortunately, Wade's fatal flaw was that he thought like a villain. (Villains, take note.) His plan was never to ascend personally, it was to steal ascension from somebody else. He played a variation on the Doom Gambit and he failed because, like Doom, he allowed himself to be drawn into a conflict before he had complete control. Similarly, he failed to reckon on Rularuu's basic nature continuing to assert itself. Faathim was probably correct. Rularuu would have devoured Wade's consciousness over time. You could see the first hint of it happening during the climactic battle when Ruluwade says "We are Rularuu. We are eternal." (This probably also accounts for Wade's mental state at the end of the story. It's not that the PC's traumatized him or that the backlash harmed him, it's that Rularuu already lived up to his title of "The Ravager" and devoured part of his soul/mind.)

It isn't really clear why he took the last obelisk with him. It may have been for show or it may have been that he utilized it in some fashion. If it had been a straight-forward theft of powers, then besides being a way-too-obvious ripoff of the Doom Gambit, he would have had to destroy Rularuu in order to keep the powers and that obviously did not happen.

In any case, Wade attempted a shortcut to Ultimate Power and it backfired because there's no shortcut to ascension. It's a transformative experience and Wade was attempting to become a god WITHOUT undergoing a transformative experience. He wanted to be himself with godlike power. That weakness was his downfall.