Scirocco's Patron Arc encapsulates everything I don't like about Redside writing

[sonderjack]

Spoilers herein for Scirocco's patron arc, as the title might suggest.

 

I needed to pick and complete a patron arc to get the last of the VEAT story missions (which was a whole nother letdown actually) so off I went to learn about my options and make my selection. I knew that Scirocco had been drifting toward the rogue side of things during Live, and saw that his “just because I’m a villain doesn’t mean I have to hurt people” ideal was in line with my character concept, so I went with him.

 

I’m a roleplayer at heart, and I think that’s my problem.

 

Anyway, off I go to help Scirocco. Bring Ghost Widow back to life? Great! So his plan to make every villain into a nice person may be a little bit contrary to the idea that free will is a good thing, but that sort of villainy is exactly the sort of villainy I am here for!  Except it turns out that I am not there to help Scirocco, I am there to betray him… whether I like it or not… and for motivations that my character does not have.

I get that his plan can’t succeed, for the sake of the game’s narrative. But to have no choice other than to run off and blab to the Arachnos guy, then do what he tells me when that is absolutely not what my character would do? That rankles. I didn’t like doing it one bit, but there’s not even a way to say “never mind” once you’ve started a quest arc.

 

And then after I had to do what I didn’t want to do, Scirocco reminds me of it every time we talk for the rest of the arc. Oh, and he reminds me of why I did it, too. It’s because I am a selfish bad betraying mean poopyhead. 

 

What I would have liked ideally was the option to continue working with him and fail. Maybe Arachnos found out and thwarted us; maybe some heroes found out and stopped us because they believe that the ends (a world without villains) does not justify the means (taking away freedom to choose). That’s a fair chunk of development work, though, and might be impractical. In the absence of that, I would have liked the option to say to him, “Yes, I betrayed you, but not for the reasons you think.” Just adding another few dialogue options in a non-voiced game is relatively simple, I think.

 

But instead the game’s writers decided for me what my character did and why, which I find really ironic given the nature of moral objections to Scirocco’s plan. Usually I am willing to concede that the "problem" with redside content is is really that it's just not made for me (and yes, yes I do love goldside!) but right now I'm just really unhappy that "this NPC will be your patron" really meant "you will be this NPC's betrayer." 

[ArchVileTerror]

What you describe has been a frequent complaint regarding player agency in this game.  I'm right there with you.  We have a number of threads which tackle it, and I welcome you to check them out.

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/5395-for-those-who-dont-play-redside-why-not/

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/9949-the-twinshot-trap/

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/11903-redside-does-not-need-more-rogue-content-it-needs-more-villain-content/

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/15645-why-dont-you-play-on-the-villain-side/

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/16089-everlasting-redside-low-population/

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/17506-weekly-discussion-45-favorite-and-least-favorite-story-lines/

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/17554-make-red-side-great-again/

 

and, of course:  https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/18029-community-project-adding-villainous-depth-to-redside-missions-and-story-arcs/

 

Edited June 1, 2020 by ArchVileTerror
Additional URL added.

[Greycat]

Yep. One of the ones that got me well before patron arcs was one of the villain morality missions - where you're told you had the choice to share power with frostfire or take it all, regardless of what it meant. I *believe* it even said that at the time, you knew sharing would make the mission go better or something...

 

Didn't fit my characters at all.

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

Well to be fair you are also talking about wildly different eras in the games development when your talking Gold Side and its fairly decent selection of options in branching arcs and options for the role players like us was made in the games final days, showing off as many of the tricks, sharpest graphics etc that the devs had to use.

 

Meanwhile the VEAT patron arcs were made way way way back in the earliest days of red side. Red side was still under the control of Jack E back then. And he was pretty heavy handed with the hero side stuff, the red side was just gonna be that much worse. When i play redside I tend to do very little content and do a lot of street sweeping and random paper mishes. SFs when they suit my characters. Or AE arcs. I do this because to actually embrace the real red side content, you either need to go full arachnos lackey, or full arachnos mind slave that will eventually shake free of the programming and go rogue. Thats really the only 2 flavors of origin in rogue isle we got that make sense with most of the content you will be able to do. I did a Sky Raider that was deep undercover spying on Arachnos once which kinda worked ok. But yeah over all red side writing is heavy handed in the extreme.

 

Gold Side wasnt perfect but I myself am sad we never got to see that approach taken in revamped old zones blue side. I had hoped we would eventual of gotten a revamped galaxy city start that would branch to other revamped areas and use a more complex story branching system akin to gold side even if it could only be hero/vig. Though Id of voted to see more co op zones or give up on the needless division of red and blue access anyways since it wouldnt matter in non pvp zones.

[tidge]

2 hours ago, sonderjack said:

And then after I had to do what I didn’t want to do, Scirocco reminds me of it every time we talk for the rest of the arc. Oh, and he reminds me of why I did it, too. It’s because I am a selfish bad betraying mean poopyhead.

We'll still let you join a PUG, even if you are a mean poopyhead.

 

[ShardWarrior]

2 hours ago, ArchVileTerror said:

What you describe has been a frequent complaint regarding player agency in this game.  

Agreed and this has been a complaint for as far back as I can remember even on live.  This is a common problem for theme park MMOs where your character is just along for the ride.  The overall story narrative for CoX is not a sandbox outside of AE.  I truly would love to see branching story arcs implemented some day.

[MTeague]

Agreed entirely.  Scirocco's plan cannot be allowed to proceed... but the player should have the OPTION to betray him successfully, or the OPTION to try to back him and fail at their combined bid.

 

The ultimate outcome may have to be railroad plot.

But you should have choice along the way.

 

Any tabletop Dungeons and Dragons DM worth their salt could find a way to accomodate some player agency even within certain constrained bounds of their game world where they don't plan to let the player past certain boundaries.  You still let the player TRY, you just don't necessarily let the player SUCCEED.

 

I mean, admittedly, the one character I've done Scirocco's arc on was more of a Doctor Doom-ish character, and had no intention of allowing Scirocco to succeed, since that would have forced him to give up his own plans of world domination, and even his own desire for world domination.  But other players may have an undercover longbow agent (as they briefly touch redsdie for a patron arc), or they may just have a character who's been borderline between rogue and blueside and wondering whether or not there's really a better way to live, and would want to try to help Scirocco.  Maybe they have to get squashed like a bug as Arachnos brings the hammer DOWN.  But they shoudl be allowed to try if that' their thing.

[Naraka]

Couldn't you, I dunno, roleplay that the betrayal happened for some reason other than your will and you have to secretively imply this to Scirocco?  He nods and then pretends to be upset with your "choice" and plays that part to keep up appearances to spying agents that are watching you and his' interactions?  Could even have a humorous angle as he might be playing the part up a bit too strongly, so strongly that it might even sound not genuine, like an actor hamming it up too much.

 

I dunno, maybe I'm just weird and I enjoy someone handing me a narrative script but kind of morphing the direction of the delivery more so than I like just reading a bunch of options in a "choose your adventure" story that all resolve to the same ending.

Edited May 4, 2020 by Naraka