Vanden

I think you mean two terror cells. But Max practically outright tells you Malta is planning on using the three operatives' talents to become incarnate-level threats; Sakura Tenshi claimed that killing the operatives was somehow kicking the problem down the road, but letting them back into Malta's hands fits that description far better. That arc takes place long before incarnate stuff. Roleplaying that arc as trying to make up for helping Malta in DA would be willfully ignoring the actual lore of the game. So is completing the rescue missions in Ouroboros, as was also suggested here. But right now that's the only option you have if you want the badge, all you can do is save those operatives and then stick your fingers in your ears and go "la-la-la-no-I-didn't."

Sounds like a good reason to toss the current version.

This was really all there is to write. There’s plenty of heroes who would take the option, and, more importantly, it gives players a way to earn the badge that requires these missions without having to help Malta.

One of them is already in police custody, so how would you complete the mission for that guy for badge credit, while leaving him exactly where he is?

Now I never used the word “heroic,” and I said they could make taking the option give you Vigilante or Rogue alignment points.

That's why he wouldn't figure out that you're killing the operatives unless you kill all three. He still has no choice but to work with you; you're the incarnate, you're the one who stands a chance of taking down the Knives of Vengeance.

The Malta group is one of the most despicable enemy groups in the game, so being forced to work alongside them in Dark Astoria puts a bad taste in my mouth, to say nothing of actually helping them. You do have the option to skip the missions where you actually help Malta, but you need to complete those missions if you want all the badges, so heroes are being subtly railroaded into helping Malta. What would fix this is giving players the option to kill the three Malta operatives they're supposed to rescue. The missions would play out largely the same, but at an appropriate time in the mission you get the option to kill the Malta operative in a dialog window; they're all unpowered humans, so it would make narrative sense that they'd be easily put down by an incarnate. Then, after the mission your character just tells Max the operative died in the rescue attempt. This would also open up some other neat possibilities: taking this option could give you a point into your Rogue or Vigilante alignment bars, and if you kill all three operatives Max figures out what you've been doing, and you could throw his logic about how the two of you working together is the only way to survive right back at his face. Then, the last mission of the arc plays out with any killed operatives not granting their benefit, as if you hadn't run the missions at all, but you still get credit towards the badge for doing all the arcs in DA.

I don't see why we need to put the old version in Ouroboros rather than restore the SF to its original state with a single line of text explaining that it takes place prior to SSA 1. The new version isn't worth preserving, it's the exact same TF with one different AV, two missing AVs, and some slightly altered text.

Can't you just use the slider in the options window to set all windows to 80%, then /wdw_save_file with the small windows and have a bind to /wdw_load_file when you want to switch to the 80% scale?

Ugh, no more long, grindy badges. I'm still annoyed that Homecoming added a whole bunch of new ones, like the ones for rejecting recipes and inspirations, and the ones for story arcs.

Yeah, this is exactly what I'm talking about. You want to push this narrative so bad that you're either ignoring or missing that Zeus is not the same person as the Well of the Furies or Statesman, two very important aspects of the lore. The SSAs are not side stories, they're major story arcs, more important than most TFs, even.

When a player uses them, yes, but not when an NPC uses them.

Yeah, it's a different mechanic at play there. The powers you all listed are all pseudo-pets, and when they're used by NPCs their life gets tied to the target of the attack, so when the target dies, the pseudo-pet dies. I think it should be fixable, since I believe there are pets in the game that don't die when the caster or target dies, so the mechanic should already be coded.

https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Story_Bible

Ms. Liberty doesn't have any of Zeus's powers, because she had her powers while Statesman was alive, and after Statesman died his powers were destroyed. Incarnate powers form into a sort of "build" as an individual incarnate develops them. Statesman's powers were developed by Zeus, and inherited by Imperious and then Statesman after Zeus's death. Prometheus explains in-game that if an incarnate dies but then comes back to life, they would still have their powers only as long as no one else inherited them while they were dead. After Statesman's death and the events of SSA, the powers of Zeus are gone; the building blocks still exist, but they don't have the "build" they used to. Ms. Liberty's powers are her own, not the ones used by Zeus.

I really like Rularuu and the Shadow Shard. I wish it hadn't taken the game being cancelled and a lore bible document being leaked to find out what the deal was with the Shard, though.

I would rather we not go back and add new mechanics to existing sets. That would change the feel of playing the sets, and it's nice to have some straightforward, uncomplicated sets.

So essentially you refuse to separate a character with his creator and conflate them as if they were the same person, and intentionally try to take the most negative possible interpretation of a character as the baseline. It sounds like you shouldn’t be trusted in any lore discussions. The conclusion of SSA 2 sees Statesman’s specific powers destroyed and the power that made them up dispersed. You can write that Ms. Liberty gets a powerup, but having her get the same powers as Statesman directly contradicts that. And if you replace Statesman with someone with different powers, you miss the point of this complaint; the suggestion keeps showing up because people miss fighting big lightning bolt boy.

199X was already 1X years ago when the game launched.

This is a byproduct of another bug fix; I don't remember the full details, but completing a Max mission in flashback before completing his missions normally would somehow make you unable to proceed with the DA storyline. They fixed that, but as a side effect Max never leaves the active contact list.

No one's talking about resurrecting Statesman here. Putting him back in the LRSF doesn't require anything more than a line of text at the start of the TF that says it takes place before the events of Signature Story Arc #1. Ms. Liberty doesn't have the same flashy powers as Statesman. The issue here isn't that the last mission of the LRSF needs an 8th archvillain, any archvillain, but that it needs Statesman. And you can't just write some quick excuse to give Ms. Liberty his powers for one fight, because it would contradict the events of Signature Story Arc #2.

That’s how most pets summoned by NPCs work; they target a player or another NPC and summon the pet as “belonging” to the target. This also means the pet’s life is tied to the target, not the summoner, and will despawn if the target dies.

I'd love to see you finish Project Spelunker.

Hm, that's got to be an oversight then.

You got some old info. All you have to do is speak to specific tailor NPCs (cosmetic surgeons) and you can change your gender per costume slot. That was added long before the shut down.