Statesman back in the LRSF

[siolfir]

2 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

As long as its not some major chore, then why not?

I think the problem is that the original devs never considered adding it to Ouroboros (as they did with the Sister Psyche TF; it was asked back then) and so it would be a chore to duplicate and move. Not an impossible one, but I don't know what all it would entail and would think it's probably not trivial.

 

Edit: and I like the idea, if it's something easy. I personally feel that the only change to the LRSF that was positive was changing it so you get the code from the tech instead of having to lead him to the computer; all of the others, including lowering the level of the Freedom Phalanx at the end, were "meh" at best to "what were they thinking?" at worst.

Edited February 8, 2020 by siolfir

[MunkiLord]

5 hours ago, VileTerror said:

Well, it could also fall to -us- to volunteer our time to try and hash out the timeline, as a community.
We just need to come to some consensus on things like "what year is it now?"

Have you ever seen comic book/superhero fans try to "hash out timelines" and other details of continuity? I feel this would not be a constructive use of anyone's time. But it would be amusing.

Edited February 8, 2020 by MunkiLord

[macskull]

10 hours ago, Bentley Berkeley said:

Pardon me while I gag.

 

But seriously Statesman was the avatar of a vile rapist of a god. Sister Psyche was a body thief. No matter the attempts at portraying them as good and heroic, the fact is both of these characters are better off dead as neither really represents an icon worthy character.

 

You all dont seem to be aware of one of the more common negative nicknames for coh city of sidekicks, it was the over hyped up characters like States and Sis that helped created that sense in some players.

 

Bad enough CCs are now held at the statue of Statesman in KW. Likely why I barely bother to go attend them to see costumes and read bios now days as I cant stomach the sight of that Tyrant State.

Dude I want some of whatever you are smoking.

[Doc_Scorpion]

3 hours ago, Haijinx said:

This has been suggested before and it seemed popular then.

 

As long as its not some major chore, then why not?

The first question to ask is whether or not the HC dev team even has the original LRSF code.

[nihilii]

13 hours ago, Bentley Berkeley said:

But seriously Statesman was the avatar of a vile rapist of a god. Sister Psyche was a body thief. No matter the attempts at portraying them as good and heroic, the fact is both of these characters are better off dead as neither really represents an icon worthy character.

If you follow all the stories, in the overall context of the game Statesman is portrayed as a flawed/troubled character more than good and heroic.

 

A lot of the NPCs praise his deeds and look at him as an icon, yes. As it should be - people respect power, and retrofit virtue when it suits the narrative. Compared to a normal human he's not merely the avatar of a god... He *is* a god. And much closer to the god that smites you with storm than whatever god our mostly godless "Thou Shall Not Offend" modern world might conjure!

 

Even most supers aren't close to his power level. So there's room for admiration and resentment, worship and jealousy... The whole City of Sidekicks complaint was always dumb IMHO, the game gives you agency to do what you want for the most part. Arrest thugs with extreme prejudice if that's your thing, or flip the finger to all your contacts and go hunting in the Shadow Shard. It's not like players were ever forced to do specific content tied to the Freedom Phalanx, but somehow some people expect everything be tailored to their very own power fantasy.

 

Sidenote, from this post and others I feel you're projecting a lot of "2020 Social Justice" into your posts and man, you've got to lay off that stuff. It's nothing but poison for the mind, outrage culture refined from the clickbait of previous years. Sister Psyche's body snatching pales in comparison to cynical capitalists stealing minds by the millions, feeding them a steady diet of fake values and empty causes all for the sake of making more money. There's nothing good that comes from letting others convince you to shut out information because it's "problematic".

 

 

[dangeraaron10]

Wasn't Tyrant eventually due for a redemption arc of sorts, or at least a character growth moment, where he dons Statesman's attire and fills his role after his death?  

 

Kinda weird that, to my knowledge, Statesman and Psyche are the only NPC Heroes on the CoH splashscreen with the rest being generic, and those are the two NPCs not with us anymore.  At least on Primal Earth.  Regardless, it feels a bit unbalanced for Heroes to keep losing NPCs while Recluse gets his girlfriend back.  I seen a suggestion once that noted this unbalance, and the suggestion stated that Heroes should get Hero 1 back to balance it out more.  

[nihilii]

8 minutes ago, dangeraaron10 said:

Wasn't Tyrant eventually due for a redemption arc of sorts, or at least a character growth moment, where he dons Statesman's attire and fills his role after his death?

That's his backstory in the cancelled NCSoft MOBA, anyway: https://masterxmaster.gamepedia.com/Statesman

[dangeraaron10]

3 minutes ago, nihilii said:

That's his backstory in the cancelled NCSoft MOBA, anyway: https://masterxmaster.gamepedia.com/Statesman

Huh.

 

I didn't even realize NCSoft tried its own take on Heroes of the Storm.

 

😕

 

Little insulted they used CoH characters after shutting the game down.  

 

I guess, alternatively, you can give Ms. Liberty a bigger role since I always imagined she'd be the natural replacement for Statesman.  She is his granddaughter, after all.

[nihilii]

1 minute ago, dangeraaron10 said:

I guess, alternatively, you can give Ms. Liberty a bigger role since I always imagined she'd be the natural replacement for Statesman.  She is his granddaughter, after all.

I wish they went that route. Within the LRSF, could have had her power up between mission 4 and mission 5, even. Badass in chief instead of damsel in distress. 😉

[Blackfeather]

It's called the Ms. Liberty Task Force these days, I suppose...it does make sense.

[Doc_Scorpion]

7 minutes ago, dangeraaron10 said:

Kinda weird that, to my knowledge, Statesman and Psyche are the only NPC Heroes on the CoH splashscreen with the rest being generic, and those are the two NPCs not with us anymore.

 

IIRC, the splash screen art actually predates the full design of CoH and in particular the final designs of many of the characters.

Just to the right of the early version Statesman (no cape as he wears, or wore, ingame) is an early version of or either Miss Liberty or Ms Liberty.  IIRC, the gentleman just to the right of her is an early version of Synapse.  The character with the dreadlocks is an early version of Back Alley Brawler.

 

[dangeraaron10]

Just now, Doc_Scorpion said:

IIRC, the splash screen art actually predates the full design of CoH and in particular the final designs of many of the characters.

Just to the right of the early version Statesman (no cape as he wears, or wore, ingame) is an early version of or either Miss Liberty or Ms Liberty.  IIRC, the gentleman just to the right of her is an early version of Synapse.  The character with the dreadlocks is an early version of Back Alley Brawler.

Huh.  With States and Psyche so close to their current looks, and the others are so drastically different I wouldn't have known otherwise.  

 

The more you know!

[DR_Mechano]

12 hours ago, Sakura Tenshi said:

and thus, it falls to our new volunteer dev team to try to make sense of it all.

 

Heck a major plotpoint introduced all the way back in issue 12 was Requiem mentioning Cimerora was not his only temporal stronghold, implying he had more throughout history, but that's never brought up.

 

As an aside note, I feel Penelope Yin replacing Sister Psyche in TF terms was okay since Penelope's TF is distinct. Though ironically it does downgrade in one respect by removing the unique Noise Tanks from Psyche's TF.

 

Yeah the whole 'temporal stronghold' thing was another point in the build up to the Council/5th Column war that seemingly got dropped. The problem with CoH live is that you'd have writers who had their own personal pet projects setting up stories and then leaving at which point the writers who remained weren't interested in pushing them since they weren't their own personal projects. As mentioned the entire praetorian war that Going Rogue was based around was pretty much 1 writers baby and so when he left the devs just sort of wrapped it up and left all these threads hanging with Dr Aeon wanting to move on to The Battalion storyline with very little idea on what to do with the remaining threads.

 

For example at one point Praetor White was going to become a mission contact with his merry group of refugees as the backing to the story (hence why once you complete Marchand's arc all of them can be found sitting around Swan in Brickstown) but nothing ever came of it.

[Lines]

I'm also in the camp of 'definitely keep him dead'. Death is so rarely revered or even permanent in superhero fiction that it's refreshing to have an impact here.

 

I'd like to see the plot develop so that Emperor Cole takes the mantle and takes the place in the LRSF, but that process should happen organically.

 

Though I agree Miss Liberty may as well be involved in that final fight. Why did someone dump her unconscious body there anyway?

 

Maybe Hero 1 could stand in as well?

Edited February 8, 2020 by Lines

[Chris24601]

3 hours ago, dangeraaron10 said:

Regardless, it feels a bit unbalanced for Heroes to keep losing NPCs while Recluse gets his girlfriend back.  I seen a suggestion once that noted this unbalance, and the suggestion stated that Heroes should get Hero 1 back to balance it out more.  

To be fair, if the game hadn’t been shut down, Sirocco and Ice Mistral we’re going to get a heel/face turn and become heroes (you can definitely see the groundwork in the Dark Astoria arc). This would have let Red Widow slide in and replace him as one of the patrons. 

1 hour ago, DR_Mechano said:

For example at one point Praetor White was going to become a mission contact with his merry group of refugees as the backing to the story (hence why once you complete Marchand's arc all of them can be found sitting around Swan in Brickstown) but nothing ever came of it.

I always figured it was just a cool bit of zone phasing like Matt Habashery’s wife being by his side after you rescue her to reflect that the team you helped was continuing their heroic mission (in a general offscreen sense).

 

And to be fair, the New Praetorians arcs were literally on test when the shutdown happened so it’s not like the devs left it hanging because they lost interest; they left it hanging because they lost their jobs and the whole game shut down.

 

Another dangling plotline was BAB getting hospitalized by the guy sent to “break” him (seen in the personal mission at the end) while you were out fighting the Petrovic brothers and I wonder if the intent wasn’t to phase him out so there’d be less confusion between him and up and the redeemed Marauder going forward in a variation of the “One Steve Limit” trope (i.e. Battle Maiden can stay because she’s an evil twin and could get a redesign to fit Malta’s aesthetics, but two heroic Michael Whites couldn’t last)

 

I do want to reiterate too that a possible reason the State’s version of the LRSF isn’t already on Oroboros is that the old version just may not have been part of the leaked code and therefore not recoverable without a lot of effort akin to writing a new SF from scratch.

 

I also agree with the idea that they should have subbed a powered up Ms. Liberty in for States in the Freedom Phalanx instead of just leaving that hole. Let Posi be the leader due to experience sure, but giving States’ slot on the team to his granddaughter makes thematic sense.

[DR_Mechano]

1 hour ago, Chris24601 said:

And to be fair, the New Praetorians arcs were literally on test when the shutdown happened so it’s not like the devs left it hanging because they lost interest; they left it hanging because they lost their jobs and the whole game shut down.

 

Another dangling plotline was BAB getting hospitalized by the guy sent to “break” him (seen in the personal mission at the end) while you were out fighting the Petrovic brothers and I wonder if the intent wasn’t to phase him out so there’d be less confusion between him and up and the redeemed Marauder going forward in a variation of the “One Steve Limit” trope (i.e. Battle Maiden can stay because she’s an evil twin and could get a redesign to fit Malta’s aesthetics, but two heroic Michael Whites couldn’t last)

 

I also agree with the idea that they should have subbed a powered up Ms. Liberty in for States in the Freedom Phalanx instead of just leaving that hole. Let Posi be the leader due to experience sure, but giving States’ slot on the team to his granddaughter makes thematic sense.

Huh I didn't know they were only up on test, had assumed that they were in the game prior to that. So fair enough on that front.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if that Skulls plotline was to set up to replace BABs with redeemed Marauder. As I suspect that certain villain groups were clearly in the running to get an 'incarnate boost' like the Tsoo and Banished Pantheon did. Malta was clearly the next in line with Battle Maiden's nanite technology and stolen Praetorian tech being used to boost them into threats for Incarnates (I mean it makes sense, they're the dedicated anti-super faction but it was clear they'd been outclassed by the time Incarnates became a thing, so naturally they're going to take notes to counter these new uber powered individuals).

 

The Council and 5th Column are clearly being set up as incarnate level threats with Requiem having Reichsman (an actual incarnate who is on par or more powerful than our version of Statesman according to the lore) and the Council having access to Praetorian tech.

 

I also agree that adding in a powered up Ms. Liberty would have made a lot more sense in the LRSF and hope something can be done in that regard.

[Vanden]

1 hour ago, Lines said:

I'm also in the camp of 'definitely keep him dead'. Death is so rarely revered or even permanent in superhero fiction that it's refreshing to have an impact here.

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.

 

5 minutes ago, DR_Mechano said:

I also agree that adding in a powered up Ms. Liberty would have made a lot more sense in the LRSF and hope something can be done in that regard.

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.

Edited February 8, 2020 by Vanden

[EmperorSteele]

Maybe Ms. Liberty could use Excalibur in the fight (I know the lore says she shouldn't be able to, but maybe the fea will let her draw it just this once as payback against the villains)? Give her some suped-up broadsword attacks in addition to her regular moveset, and maybe a level shift as well to represent her getting a taste of Incarnate power.

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

6 hours ago, nihilii said:

If you follow all the stories, in the overall context of the game Statesman is portrayed as a flawed/troubled character more than good and heroic.

 

A lot of the NPCs praise his deeds and look at him as an icon, yes. As it should be - people respect power, and retrofit virtue when it suits the narrative. Compared to a normal human he's not merely the avatar of a god... He *is* a god. And much closer to the god that smites you with storm than whatever god our mostly godless "Thou Shall Not Offend" modern world might conjure!

 

Even most supers aren't close to his power level. So there's room for admiration and resentment, worship and jealousy... The whole City of Sidekicks complaint was always dumb IMHO, the game gives you agency to do what you want for the most part. Arrest thugs with extreme prejudice if that's your thing, or flip the finger to all your contacts and go hunting in the Shadow Shard. It's not like players were ever forced to do specific content tied to the Freedom Phalanx, but somehow some people expect everything be tailored to their very own power fantasy.

 

Sidenote, from this post and others I feel you're projecting a lot of "2020 Social Justice" into your posts and man, you've got to lay off that stuff. It's nothing but poison for the mind, outrage culture refined from the clickbait of previous years. Sister Psyche's body snatching pales in comparison to cynical capitalists stealing minds by the millions, feeding them a steady diet of fake values and empty causes all for the sake of making more money. There's nothing good that comes from letting others convince you to shut out information because it's "problematic".

 

 

Lad lad lad you wrote a lot but didnt seem to say much other then blather on about your personal politics.

 

My anti Statesman view dates back to year one. and solidified into a long running RP pov after the whole ED thing. Understand I approved of ED and other changes but loathed Jacks heavy handed and often deceptive approach and interaction with the player community.

 

Thus began my digging into the lore of every so called heroic NPC to push their flaws and failings first and foremost when talking about them. No matter how one wants to spin it, behavior like Sister Psyches extending her life by using anothers body has long been held as an act of ultimate evil in comics and old school RPGs like D&D. Statesman might be a flawed man, and he might be barely clinging to some self control and humanity, but he is also the phsyical avatar of a god( aka energy parasite in coh) that our RL myths( which are historical fact in coh) time and again highlight Zeus forcing himself on helpless mortals.

 

While you can dismiss the city of sidekicks nick name, it was a long standing one, and a point of contention with in the vocal forum base that they wanted story arcs and NPCs to stop being treated has miles above their own characters.  The sig story arcs show the devs like Posi had far less of the big head issue that Statesman had.

 

Frankly you can keep your personal views and RL politics to yerself. Go watch some Jordan Peterson or some other vile bile spewer.

[Chris24601]

1 hour ago, Vanden said:

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.

According to the lore she’s a Martial Arts/Invulnerability Scrapper (though I suspect that’s more a function of Scrappers not having the Super Strength set... she’s depicted in other media as having super-strength in the “lift great weights” sense) and does have the Lightning Bolt and Thunder Strike powers as well so she’s already got some of Zeus’ strength (as did her mother). I don’t see why she couldn’t get a bit of boost by some means.

 

Yeah, the power of Zeus got spread far and wide at the conclusion of the Pandora’s Box SSA, but another point of that arc is that the power always gathers, flows and pools where strength already exists.

 

So Ms. Liberty could have gotten more of Zeus’ dispersed powers than others since she already had some for it to pool with and BOOM, like a thunderbolt, her powers get an upgrade.

[siolfir]

22 minutes ago, Bentley Berkeley said:

Frankly you can keep your personal views and RL politics to yerself. Go watch some Jordan Peterson or some other vile bile spewer.

Pot, meet kettle.

 

Your reply even talks about how you used your RL personal views about Jack as a developer to look for in game reasons to hate on the characters so you could spew some bile about it.

 

Seriously, take a step back and look at what you're posting.

[Sakura Tenshi]

Pretty sure SHE'S not supposed to use Excalibur herself, but I'd love to have Ms. Lib 'respec' by managing to draw Excalibur out and become a Titan Weapons scrapper. Crit-Arc of Destruction on the whole SF! >:D

 

As a side note on the "city of sidekicks" thing: I still prefer blueside over redside. I remember my first year playing City of Heroes and not really seeing mention of Statesman outside the game manual and thinking he was just a generic NPC they made up. Let it sink in that you can go a good while without knocking Statesman actually existed before the later tutorial. Compare that to Recluse where no matter how many times you kick his ass and prove yourself better, they still lord the whole 'ARACHNOS IS YOUR MASTER, NOW KNEEL DOWN AND [censored]!'

Edited February 8, 2020 by Sakura Tenshi

[DR_Mechano]

I do find it odd, the only time I've ever heard the sidekicks thing is in regards to DCUO since you're basically always someone elses lackey or sidekicks (whether it be doing things for Brother blood or saving the Teen Titans in the aftermath of that heroside).

[Vanden]

1 hour ago, Bentley Berkeley said:

My anti Statesman view dates back to year one. and solidified into a long running RP pov after the whole ED thing. Understand I approved of ED and other changes but loathed Jacks heavy handed and often deceptive approach and interaction with the player community.

 

Thus began my digging into the lore of every so called heroic NPC to push their flaws and failings first and foremost when talking about them.

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.

 

1 hour ago, Chris24601 said:

Yeah, the power of Zeus got spread far and wide at the conclusion of the Pandora’s Box SSA, but another point of that arc is that the power always gathers, flows and pools where strength already exists.

 

So Ms. Liberty could have gotten more of Zeus’ dispersed powers than others since she already had some for it to pool with and BOOM, like a thunderbolt, her powers get an upgrade.

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.

[nihilii]

3 hours ago, Bentley Berkeley said:

Frankly you can keep your personal views and RL politics to yerself. Go watch some Jordan Peterson or some other vile bile spewer.

Sorry if this sounded offensive. My angle is more of a "you're better than that" than "you're Hitler/Stalin". FYI, I'm not even american/anglo. I'm just a guy who read many of your other posts and think you've got good things to bring to this community.