Villains

[Thunder]

OK, I'm a comic book guy from way back. I played CoH from the beginning.  I have several hero alts running around.  But I ccan never get a villain pasrt level 6 before I delete them.  I'd love to play a villain, but I've never been able to get into the right mindset.  I guess I'm a hero at heart..LOL.  What are some of the best ideas for a 50 year old comic fan to get into a villainous state of mind?

[spjones]

Not had time to get into a Villain yet with HC but Back in the old CoH/V days  used to envision them as anti-heroes hunting the real villains (Dexter-ish) or those who aren't happy about the circumstances they are stuck in and (in the latter days of the game) wanted to work toward something they could better live with.  Some I even envisioned as ex-heroes or formerly normal folk who were framed or stumbled into villainy.  And sometimes i'd just play them as an over the top, scenery chewing, monologging, stereotypical villain.

[Wolf Bonne]

I never make villains, just people who're put or born into tough situations, making do with whatever they can get, making whatever the most positive choices they can in dire times, and /sometimes/ that can be violent or extreme. It's not always a choice for all my characters to be in the Rogue Isles, it's just where they are, where their home happens to be. If I were to make a villain proper, I'd probably make them someone who is petty about something going on in Paragon City, or with one of the heroes there, maybe establish them as coming from one of the villain gangs.

[Zumberge]

A basic reason or motivation to start out with would be that the villain wants something and is willing to put their own wants and desires over the needs of others.  It's about pride, and pride (it is said) is the sin that leads to all others.  From there you figure out how they take steps to get it.

[Charistoph]

OK, I'm a comic book guy from way back. I played CoH from the beginning.  I have several hero alts running around.  But I ccan never get a villain pasrt level 6 before I delete them.  I'd love to play a villain, but I've never been able to get into the right mindset.  I guess I'm a hero at heart..LOL.  What are some of the best ideas for a 50 year old comic fan to get into a villainous state of mind?

 

To start off with, who are your favorite villains?  After 50ish years, you should have some.  From there, have your character starting out from there.

 

OR

 

Play an undercover Hero.  They're there researching the Rogue Isles and getting all the information so they can point out the weak points to the Freedom Phalanx at the right time to strike at Lord Recluse.

[_NOPE_]

I've played exactly ONE villain to 50, and maybe a half dozen to around level 12ish.

 

I forced myself to the 50, just to do it once, the rest were out of curiosity for the power sets. I don't have the stomach to play the role and read the mission texts about what my characters are doing. I just... Can't.

 

Hero Forever.

[Charistoph]

I've played exactly ONE villain to 50, and maybe a half dozen to around level 12ish.

 

I forced myself to the 50, just to do it once, the rest were out of curiosity for the power sets. I don't have the stomach to play the role and read the mission texts about what my characters are doing. I just... Can't.

 

Hero Forever.

 

Heh, my altoholism didn't let me play a single CHARACTER to 50, either Villain or Hero.  I only pushed one of heroes high enough to get Granite because he was my Global handle.  I did have a Villainous Brute up in his 20s, though, a bouncing Dark/Fire.

[_NOPE_]

As a high functioning autistic, I have a variation on altoholism...Mainitis.

 

I literally remade The Philotic Knight with the same power sets on EVERY server, and got him to 50, on EVERY server

The reptitiveness and familiarity with the playstyle was... Calming to me.

[Thunder]

Thanks guys,  i think I have an idea....This was very enlightening

 

[Healix]

As a high functioning autistic, I have a variation on altoholism...Mainitis.

 

I literally remade The Philotic Knight with the same power sets on EVERY server, and got him to 50, on EVERY server

The reptitiveness and familiarity with the playstyle was... Calming to me.

 

[Doctor Brainbottle]

Well, this can be broken up into two questions: how do you PLAY a villain, and how do you get through red-side mission content?

 

To PLAY a villain, have a compelling character concept. My main is "Doctor Brainbottle", a cybernetic brain in a jar who commands an army of killer robots. He is a megalomaniac who's plan to "rule the world" is merely the first step in a larger plan to conquer all of time and space in every dimension, and then control it all with his mind as a GOD!!! MWAH HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAA!

 

In case it actually needs to be said, Mastermind is a great class to play for a megalomaniac. Robots are especially powerful at end game, but don't wait until end game to be a megalomaniac. Megalomania isn't just about "being" powerful, it's about being irrevocably convinced you DESERVE power. Leave your pathetic minions to die when the battle turns against you, and mark your words that those enemies will PAY for being obstacles in the path between you and your glorious DESTINY!

 

And this gets into how to get through red-side mission content. It can be annoying, but be annoyed AS A MEGALOMANIAC. These jabbering mission-contacts are a means to an end, so you will tolerate them for now, but soon.... things will be different. MWAH HA HA HA HAAA!

[Leogunner]

I think making/playing a villain is the easiest and simplest type of character to play as.  Not because I'm a villain or evil person but because, when put into perspective, a villainous mindset is merely a self-centered/self-interested person which is practically 90% of the population when you stop and think.  I mean, would you sacrifice your life or well being to save the life of your children?  Yes, most likely.  How about the children of a complete stranger?  Possibly, to uphold your principles.  How about some random douche that likely could let you rot if the circumstances were flipped?  What I'm getting at is it's not the villains that are difficult to rationalize or step into their shoes, it's the heroes with the abnormal principles, ideals and reactions to situations.  If it weren't the case, we wouldn't celebrate heroic deeds like we do (if everyone is saving orphaned midgets from a burning building on every other Tuesday, less people would care).

 

Another reason I think players have a difficult time playing a villain is because they get into the mindset of "I have to be the biggest, baddest guy on the block and have aspirations to rule the world!".  But ruling the world is an empty gesture to begin with.  Players overlook the simplest of motivations that drive people to act: things like overthrowing a corrupt system or the age old adage of an eye for an eye.  Admiring a charismatic individual who one feels upholds ideals you agree with.

 

When playing a villain, it's easy to follow a story and get into the mindset of my character and "rewrite" the responses my character has to certain sets of stories.  It's too easy.  Playing a hero is merely popular but more difficult because heroes are meant to share the same idealistic principles, i.e. they are a collective.  Villains are meant to be individualistic so forming a narrative consideration for story events is actually easier.

 

But that's just my take.  I'm usually pretty contrarian.

[Skyhawke]

I got a couple villains to 50 back in the old days.  Honestly?  It was catharsis.  The real world can be a bitch at times and sometimes, after say...a long and stressful ride from work, being a villain was a great way to release steam.  Being a hero scratches the main itch, but sometimes...sometimes, a walk on the dark side is what's needed.  My bad guys never were "world domination" types.  They were always either wronged and out for revenge or just plain tired of the status quo and snapped.  We all have bad days.  Channel that anger into something destructive.  ;D

[Charistoph]

Back before Sunset, I had a villain who was the equivalent of a frankenstein monster put together by a team of 5th Column and Vahzilock 'scientists'.  He was awakened shortly before the lab he was created in was hit by a hero, so he retaliated and was sent to the Zig.  While in the Zig, he learned from other villains, books, and the internet.  Once released by Arachnos, he went about doing things to get power and control.

 

My current villains include an Earth/Fire Dominator who is one of the few survivors to make it through a crack in the crust to be above the surface.  His current purpose is to amass power to go back and take control of his home, but he may get distracted. 

 

My other villain is a Dark/Dark Sentinel Hellion whose group smashed up a shadow imp and used the bits in his tattoos to take its power into himself.  It mostly worked, but now he attracts souls like lodestones and thirstily seeks more to add to his throng.

 

I have a Praetorian going through the Power story line that will go Villain that is a magical time traveler who ended up in the past of a different universe than he intended.  That doesn't change his eventual goals to be the magical power of the planet, it just needs to go by a different route than he intended.

 

And then I have a Crusader Praetorian.  Think a humanoid godzilla brute that creates chaos with his savagery and radioactive skin.  He's just there for the chaos.  He's one of the ones that wants to watch the world burn.

 

So, yeah, so many ways to write a villain.  But that's only IF you want one.  You could always go Rogue for a little bit to get the exploration badges, after all.

[jack_nomind]

This always works for me.

 

[Myrmidon]

OK, I'm a comic book guy from way back. I played CoH from the beginning.  I have several hero alts running around.  But I ccan never get a villain pasrt level 6 before I delete them.  I'd love to play a villain, but I've never been able to get into the right mindset.  I guess I'm a hero at heart..LOL.  What are some of the best ideas for a 50 year old comic fan to get into a villainous state of mind?

 

The best villains always think of themselves as the Hero in the story. Start with that.

[Pixie_Knight]

OK, I'm a comic book guy from way back. I played CoH from the beginning.  I have several hero alts running around.  But I ccan never get a villain pasrt level 6 before I delete them.  I'd love to play a villain, but I've never been able to get into the right mindset.  I guess I'm a hero at heart..LOL.  What are some of the best ideas for a 50 year old comic fan to get into a villainous state of mind?

 

I've had a few motivations for villains. My first one, Mistress Poison, had been a lowly genin in a powerful ninja clan. One who wasn't particularly skilled at most of the craft, but very good with poisons. She was power hungry and ambitious far beyond her skill in stealth or combat. So she poisoned her clan's Kage and took over. Throughout her career as a villain the one goal that dominated it was the acquisition of ever more power. It wasn't enough to be the Kage of a powerful ninja clan. She had to be the most powerful person anywhere. The one who has no equals. And to achieve this goal, she is willing to do anything.

 

My Arachnos Soldier VEAT has a backstory based on things I learned during the level 40+ story arcs Mistress Poison did. Arachnid Huntress was once a cop in Kings Row. She worked in Vice, and was under cover trying to infiltrate the Skulls. Since at the time  the Skulls didn't allow women to become full members, she had to pose as a Skull member's girlfriend. When that particular group of Skulls decided to flee Paragon to the Rogue Isles the Chief of Police for Kings Row and higher ups in both Police and other agencies decided this was a prime chance to start getting real intel on the gang's leadership. After all, it was suspected the upper echelons of The Skulls were based out of Mercy Island. So the undercover cop went to Mercy with the gang members. Problem, she was latent psychic. And someone in Arachnos picked up on this. She got kidnapped, brainwashed, and shoved into the Wolf Spider program (due to lacking the aptitudes needed to become a widow). A few years later, and she no longer knew her original name and was a loyal member of Arachnos. Only she was getting extremely tired of being the punching bag for those 'destined one' pieces of scum that kept swarming all over Mercy Island. She was tired of being hospitalized by every would-be up and comer.

 

So when she was contacted by a certain former member of Arachnos regarding an audacious plan to fake being a Destined One, well, Arachnid Huntress considered this her chance at getting some payback on those 'heroes' and the 'destined ones'. As well as all the rank and file Arachnos members who had kept crushing her chances of advancement on the grounds of "there's no such thing as a real female Wolf Spider." But as she goes on, as her force of will alters the very fabric of destiny, the brainwashing is starting to wear thin. So once again after completing the Patron arcs (and thus the Project Destiny storyline) she'll start the path towards redeeming herself and becoming a Hero.

[ChairKicker]

I started playing this game with CoV, so obviously I made a bunch of those before considering heroes, but there were two I properly developed as characters.

 

One was a Dark/Dark Stalker, Musarshttir or something unpronounceable like that. Before ending up on Earth, she was one of the dragons that were eating Yggdrasil's roots along with Niddhog. She was fed up with eating roots, though, and decided to leave her siblings to go look for fresh meat. She met dwarves along the way, which ended up badly for both the dwarves and her, and long story short, she pissed off the kind of people who could throw her all the way to this dimension, where she gained a humanoid shape. She quickly ended up in a SG with other similarly-themed villains around nordic mythology, and only had to be reminded on occasion not to eat specific people. In personality, she was a lot like a placid half-domesticated wolf willing to follow whoever would feed her meat. Not inherently evil, but very incompatible with human society.

 

 

The other one, I can't remember her name, was a Gravity/Radiation Dominator (IIRC). A more straightforward villain. She was part of a cutting-edge, top secret space program 50 years ago, which went horribly wrong. Several decades later, she landed back on Earth, having turned into a half-zombified, half-cyborg thing with powers I would quantify today as quantum manipulation. Her patience and sanity snapped when she realized the project she was part of was officially erased from all records, and nobody even acknowledged her existence. She therefore turned to villainy out of your good old revenge and sadism and what else. She was very fun to play, I'd like to redo a Dominator along the same lines with the same aesthetics...

 

 

Nowadays, I've only made one redside character, though I'm planning to make a bunch more once I figure out the concepts. There's Celaenian, a Dark/Ninjitsu Stalker (look, I wanted to try out something other than a dark secondary, don't think too hard about that one) who's an eldritch abomination brought from a parallel plane of existence, fitted with prosthetics so she wouldn't just keel over dead due to the different laws of physics, and unleashed into the Rogue Isles to "show them all". Nobody briefed her on what "show them all" means, though, so she's running around, trying to figure out the laws of this strange world, and starting to develop an identity and personality as she interacts with people. Most of these interactions involve death, that being said. Somewhat inspired by the aforementioned first Stalker, except she's a lot more alien in mindset and less motivated by feeding habits. She just doesn't realize all the implications of death and touching people in a way that they would define as a "violent attack", and she never might, depends on the direction she takes.

 

 

Other than that, I'm thinking about others. A Mastermind character who's virus-themed, and very much a classic, cackling, flamboyant villain with no excuse. A demon summoned here, except that back home he was more like an accountant or tech support than a warrior or warlock, but he'd rather not clear that misunderstanding. And then, there's also that Resistance agent in Nova Praetoria, The Panic, who believes she has very good intentions but can be considered at best a antihero, at worst a deluded villain depending on who you ask...

 

 

 

 

I'm just more drawn towards villains overall. When I was a kid, I was so interested in Batman: TAS with its loads of villains with very different motivations, most of them understandable, some even justified. While I do have a soft spot for the unrepentant, moustache-twirling classic villain, I also like having characters with some degree of ambiguity or reasoning behind them. Even now I'm making blueside characters, they tend to not be nice, rational, or pleasant people...

[XsorrowerX]

My villain character is from a far off galaxy, here to "collect" the energy of this world so that he can fuel the dying star that keeps his planet and race alive. He is a hero to his people. Obviously, not to anyone else on this world. I basically made him sort of a cosmic vampire, dark/electric brute that sucks energy from others and grows in strength. I have hardly had the time to play him though, and mainly am focused on my heroes at the moment.

 

Overall, I tend to like characters that are borderline grey, though I do have a few heroes who are very heavy towards the good scale.

[markofantares]

My villains are usually bruisers or characters who think they are right. See them here: Havoc Bane, Nefarios Ghast, Timecrusher, Steel Dominion, Screaming Psilence, Vythlasz

 

My heroes are always Vigilantes. I can't play a Superman type.

[PFlux]

You know how I did it?  I pictured my hero in my mind.  Created a mental comic book, and my CoV character is the arch-nemesis of that hero. 

I'm a goody two shoes type of person, this allows me to work out any issues I have without actually having it effect the real world.  :)

[subbacultchas]

I much prefer the villainous AT's in most respects. I just don't tend to play them redside anymore. And that's a shame, I used to love redside quite a bit, but blueside just has more to offer.

[eldriyth]

OK, I'm a comic book guy from way back. I played CoH from the beginning.  I have several hero alts running around.  But I ccan never get a villain pasrt level 6 before I delete them.  I'd love to play a villain, but I've never been able to get into the right mindset.  I guess I'm a hero at heart..LOL.  What are some of the best ideas for a 50 year old comic fan to get into a villainous state of mind?

 

 

If you would "Love" to play a Villain you wouldn't be on here making this stupid post. We don't need heroes who think they can turn bad on red side. You would be eaten for lunch.

[markofantares]

If you ever felt belittled, scorned, deprecated, bullied. If you've ever felt weak. If you've ever felt like an outsider.  You have the potential to be a villain.

 

As has been said, some villains just see the world differently: Thanos was someone you could empathize with - He wanted to save the universe...By sacrificing a few.

[Charistoph]

As has been said, some villains just see the world differently: Thanos was someone you could empathize with - He wanted to save the universe...By sacrificing a few.

 

Well... One Thanos was.  The 616 Thanos was a nihilist who destroyed half the universe as a bouquet to his love.