Put the Statesman Task Force and Lord Recluse Strike Force back as they were

[Piyerus]

I'm wondering if it would be possible to tie which NPC you see (and which arcs or TFs you get) to whether or not you've done the relevant Who Will Die parts, using Combat Phasing. Or whatever the equivalent tech is that controls whether contacts appear or not. There's a few cases already in the game where mission completion will flag an NPC to appear or disappear... completing the Atlas Park main arc making Matthew Habashy's wife appear next to him for example. So you would see Statesman until you do the arc where he's killed, after which he'll be replaced (like he currently is).

 

Not the easiest solution, but it would go a long way to making the city seem more alive.

Edited November 5, 2019 by Piyerus

[Vanden]

13 minutes ago, Piyerus said:

I'm wondering if it would be possible to tie which NPC you see (and which arcs or TFs you get) to whether or not you've done the relevant Who Will Die parts, using Combat Phasing. Or whatever the equivalent tech is that controls whether contacts appear or not. There's a few cases already in the game where mission completion will flag an NPC to appear or disappear... completing the Atlas Park main arc making Matthew Habashy's wife appear next to him for example. So you would see Statesman until you do the arc where he's killed, after which he'll be replaced (like he currently is).

 

Not the easiest solution, but it would go a long way to making the city seem more alive.

Better yet, a ghostly "memory" of Statesman, that gets replaced by the real deal once you start the TF.

[Haijinx]

22 minutes ago, Piyerus said:

I'm wondering if it would be possible to tie which NPC you see (and which arcs or TFs you get) to whether or not you've done the relevant Who Will Die parts, using Combat Phasing. Or whatever the equivalent tech is that controls whether contacts appear or not. There's a few cases already in the game where mission completion will flag an NPC to appear or disappear... completing the Atlas Park main arc making Matthew Habashy's wife appear next to him for example. So you would see Statesman until you do the arc where he's killed, after which he'll be replaced (like he currently is).

 

Not the easiest solution, but it would go a long way to making the city seem more alive.

While I prefer the Ouro solution, maybe this kind of thing is possible.

 

On Goldside arcs you often are given the choice on whether to kill certain NPCs that are also contacts.  And they disappear afterwards. 

 

 

[molten_dragon]

I'd be fine with doing it from a story perspective.  We already have Penelope Yin showing up at various ages in different parts of the game, so I don't see an issue with having Statesman dead in some parts and alive in others.

 

From a gameplay perspective, I vastly prefer the Penelope Yin TF to the Sister Psyche TF, and would rather that stay the default version, but I'd be fine with Psyche being the contact.  STF and MLTF are identical except for the character giving out the mission, so that one doesn't really matter gameplay-wise.  And I don't play redside and don't really have an opinion on LRSF.  

[Razor Cure]

The old RSF was truly epic. I remember doing it way way back, before IOs (I forget what issue it was). I had my very first 50, a fire/invul brute, and heard people talking about how HARD it was, how almost no teams could actually succed. One guy said that the Devs had a contest, for the first team to finish, becuase even they couldn't win! No idea how true that is, but back then..it seemed pretty likely.

So I got a team together with a few friends to try it. This was after I did a LOT of research, with the general info being..'take a stone brute and 7 corrs' OR 'nukes and shivens and there is still a huge chance of failing.' We loaded up on both, made it to the final mission after about two tough hours. We tried rushing. Death. We tried pulling. Got one, then the rest would come, every single time (compare that to lolSTF when the most you fight at once is 4 AVs, and you can easily pull them if you need to).

In a nutshell, we failed, which hurt, but I totally felt like we did our best!

Now of course, with IOs and incarnate stuff and side switching (for example, one tank and an emp fender could do the job of that stone/7corr villian team), both are way, way easier.

However..for non incarnate teams, the extra difficulty in old RSF compared to STF seems a bit unfair to me.

Add it to Oro and let the hardcore people run it if they want to.

[Doc_Scorpion]

13 minutes ago, Razor Cure said:

Add it to Oro and let the hardcore people run it if they want to.

That assumes the Homecoming team have it.  Not a safe assumption.

[Haijinx]

9 minutes ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

That assumes the Homecoming team have it.  Not a safe assumption.

This is a decent point.  If they don't have them then this whole thread is moot.

[Vanden]

2 hours ago, Razor Cure said:

One guy said that the Devs had a contest, for the first team to finish, becuase even they couldn't win! No idea how true that is, but back then..it seemed pretty likely.

This sounds like a heavily corrupted retelling of the challenge put forth to the player base while issue 7 was on Test. They said the first team to complete it before it went live would get a free year of subscription to CoH/V, but didn't expect anyone to be able to do it. (They were right.)

[Solarverse]

Comic books are famous for bringing back dead characters...

 

So, let's use that information and create a story where Statesman and Sister Psyche are brought back, with...wait for it...brand new Task Forces!

[MetaVileTerror]

No, thank you.  I prefer the two of them very, very dead.  Happened to the three most deserving characters, and one of the least deserving.  If anyone should come back from the dead, let it be Malaise!

[Razor Cure]

I dont know..all the deaths in the Sig Arcs are pretty stupid.

States dies just because he develops sudden idiot syndrome and cant work out the normal, weak human guy would NOT have a plan..

Sis dies because manti is a tool, and cant just kock her out (stunning arrow, anyone?)

Malaise just randomly turns into an evil dick. Granted, he was always very dark, but I thought that made him a more interesting hero (kinda like how Scirocco is a villain, but conflicted). He basically had zero motivation for the entire thing, nothing was built up. One min he is a dark hero, happy to help. The next, bam. Evil.

[MunkiLord]

36 minutes ago, Solarverse said:

Comic books are famous for bringing back dead characters...

 

So, let's use that information and create a story where Statesman and Sister Psyche are brought back, with...wait for it...brand new Task Forces!

I like this idea. But I want the final fight to be non tower Recluse, his four lackeys, and the Freedom Phalanx. 

[Vanden]

3 minutes ago, Razor Cure said:

Malaise just randomly turns into an evil dick. Granted, he was always very dark, but I thought that made him a more interesting hero (kinda like how Scirocco is a villain, but conflicted). He basically had zero motivation for the entire thing, nothing was built up. One min he is a dark hero, happy to help. The next, bam. Evil.

Malaise had been evil since issue 4.

 

23 minutes ago, MetaVileTerror said:

No, thank you.  I prefer the two of them very, very dead.  Happened to the three most deserving characters, and one of the least deserving.  If anyone should come back from the dead, let it be Malaise!

I'm not talking about bringing them back to life, just putting them back in the TFs and clarifying that the events of the TFs happen before they died.

[MetaVileTerror]

Sorry Vanden; I was replying specifically to Solar's idea.

[Razor Cure]

2 minutes ago, MunkiLord said:

I like this idea. But I want the final fight to be non tower Recluse, his four lackeys, and the Freedom Phalanx. 

Ooh yes. Like States come back but as an EVIL States. Maybe Tyrant somehow uses his last powers and his connection to Tartarus (or whatever it was to transfer his mind into States' body. The States breaks the hell out of his city hall memorial, wrecks Atlas (cause, fun. And Atlas could appear as teh ruined atlas maps).

But then, the Phalanx, LR and goons, fresh from their cooperation in the Sig Arcs and DA story line, all rock up to try stop him.

 

[MunkiLord]

1 minute ago, Razor Cure said:

Ooh yes. Like States come back but as an EVIL States. Maybe Tyrant somehow uses his last powers and his connection to Tartarus (or whatever it was to transfer his mind into States' body. The States breaks the hell out of his city hall memorial, wrecks Atlas (cause, fun. And Atlas could appear as teh ruined atlas maps).

But then, the Phalanx, LR and goons, fresh from their cooperation in the Sig Arcs and DA story line, all rock up to try stop him.

 

This works for me. I'll go along with any story reasons if we get to fight all those AVs and Heroes is one big ass battle. Fuck it, throw in Tyrant too! 

 

ALL HAIL EMPEROR COLE

[MetaVileTerror]

uh, the A.M.A.s revealed that the plan -WAS- to have Tyrant come back, actually, and don the mantle of Statesman during the First Invasion of the Battalion.  But that Primal Statesman would stay dead.  I'll see if I can find the link . . . 

 

Found it.

https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Lore_AMA (2014)

Q)Would Tyrant redeem himself and take Statesman place? (@Night Prowler)

A) Chris Behrens (Baryonyx) - There were some idle discussions that mentioned this as a possibility. To my memory, it was not settled, however.

A) Matt Miller (Positron) That was my plan. After he broke Praetoria he would see the error in his ways and redeem himself taking up the mantle of his former enemy. I know some of the writers pushed back on this saying that “Statesman is dead-dead, no backsies.” I would like to point out that this respected that and also got us our marketing poster-child back at the same time. :)

A) John Hegner (Protean) - I had a vision for Tyrant’s redemption as basically playing out similar to Hannibal Lecter. When the going gets tough for Earth, Vanguard turns to the one man who has been the Well’s Champion for some insight into how to stop Battalion. Cole basically points out that what Earth is lacking is a symbol to rally behind. Statesman was that symbol for Primal Earth, just as Emperor Cole was that symbol for Praetoria.

In a massive PR move, Lady Grey and Vanguard basically convince the world (and the players) that Statesman has been resurrected. But really it’s Emperor Cole just carrying the symbol forward in order to rally Earth’s forces. I had ultimately wanted him to try to sacrifice everything in one last hurrah, but Cole’s curse would be that he could never become the man he was destined to be on Primal Earth, and would be forced to survive time and time again, never achieving the redemption and glory in death he so desired.

This truth would come out issues later and cause some massive issues between Ms. Liberty and Vanguard.

Edited November 6, 2019 by MetaVileTerror
Additional Information

[golstat2003]

10 hours ago, MetaVileTerror said:

uh, the A.M.A.s revealed that the plan -WAS- to have Tyrant come back, actually, and don the mantle of Statesman during the First Invasion of the Battalion.  But that Primal Statesman would stay dead.  I'll see if I can find the link . . . 

 

Found it.

https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Lore_AMA (2014)

Q)Would Tyrant redeem himself and take Statesman place? (@Night Prowler)

A) Chris Behrens (Baryonyx) - There were some idle discussions that mentioned this as a possibility. To my memory, it was not settled, however.

A) Matt Miller (Positron) That was my plan. After he broke Praetoria he would see the error in his ways and redeem himself taking up the mantle of his former enemy. I know some of the writers pushed back on this saying that “Statesman is dead-dead, no backsies.” I would like to point out that this respected that and also got us our marketing poster-child back at the same time. :)

A) John Hegner (Protean) - I had a vision for Tyrant’s redemption as basically playing out similar to Hannibal Lecter. When the going gets tough for Earth, Vanguard turns to the one man who has been the Well’s Champion for some insight into how to stop Battalion. Cole basically points out that what Earth is lacking is a symbol to rally behind. Statesman was that symbol for Primal Earth, just as Emperor Cole was that symbol for Praetoria.

In a massive PR move, Lady Grey and Vanguard basically convince the world (and the players) that Statesman has been resurrected. But really it’s Emperor Cole just carrying the symbol forward in order to rally Earth’s forces. I had ultimately wanted him to try to sacrifice everything in one last hurrah, but Cole’s curse would be that he could never become the man he was destined to be on Primal Earth, and would be forced to survive time and time again, never achieving the redemption and glory in death he so desired.

This truth would come out issues later and cause some massive issues between Ms. Liberty and Vanguard.

I'd actually prefer if they did this instead. Would be a more interesting story then just bringing Statesman back to life.

Edited November 6, 2019 by golstat2003

[Erydanus]

The reality is that the original devs made the decision to advance the game's meta-narrative. They did not do so with perfect smoothness. You can be doing the Faultine story arcs with Penny Yin before heroism and then turn around and visit her in IP and "years have passed" while if you do (iirc) the Lady Grey TF she's still a trainee.

 

It used to be zone / level progression indicated time, but that just isn't the way it is anymore. As soon as Who Will Die went in things were advanced. It's unfortunate that they didn't have the scripting technology to have the game world update as you do this content, so that for instance Darrin Wade is standing around to give you his story and then vanishes once you do Who Will Die? But of course the complication there is that it's possible to start WWD at a very low level and then do Darrin's original arc and then do the higher level parts of WWD.

 

Basically the OG devs kind of screwed this all up and it's just not going to get untangled now. I don't think there's much use gnashing teeth over it. Remember when you're reading comics, the characters you know and love will often show up in other titles miswritten, mischaracterized, have conflicting continuity, etc. There's also the fun of say, a limited series going on that is supposed to be a big shared universe event and then it stalls out and in the meantime your favorite title gets rebooted. So basically this game is doing a REALLY good job of emulating a comic book universe... unfortunately.   

[Vanden]

But after the Death of Superman story, they didn't recall all Superman stories written previously and replace them with extremely similar stories only with the Flash or Green Lantern taking Superman's role in the story.

[MunkiLord]

2 hours ago, Vanden said:

But after the Death of Superman story, they didn't recall all Superman stories written previously and replace them with extremely similar stories only with the Flash or Green Lantern taking Superman's role in the story.

I would like to see alternate comics of some of these. See how many heroes can pull off some of the victories Superman did. 

[boggo2300]

On 11/5/2019 at 9:18 PM, molten_dragon said:

I'd be fine with doing it from a story perspective.  We already have Penelope Yin showing up at various ages in different parts of the game, so I don't see an issue with having Statesman dead in some parts and alive in others.

 

From a gameplay perspective, I vastly prefer the Penelope Yin TF to the Sister Psyche TF, and would rather that stay the default version, but I'd be fine with Psyche being the contact.  STF and MLTF are identical except for the character giving out the mission, so that one doesn't really matter gameplay-wise.  And I don't play redside and don't really have an opinion on LRSF.  

Lord of the Rings online did that with the advance of the Fellowship of the Ring across Middle Earth,  it's really distracting and breaks immersion a lot, personally I hated it there, and honestly I get around the Penny thing by not going into Faultline 😄

[megaericzero]

Personally, I would like the option to see Statesman as the contact for the STF in Independence.

 

Implementing it in a way that those who prefer Ms. Liberty can have Ms. Liberty, perfect. If it can be done with phasing, awesome; if it has to be done via Ouroboros, that's fine.

 

It just feels odd missing the archetypal "red, white, and blue" hero because of the existence of iconic characters like Captain America, Superman, Optimus Prime, All-Might, and ... well ... Statesman.

I don't really know of Jack Emmert aside from him being an early dev for COH and leaving for CO so, to me, Statesman has only ever been the NPC - not the avatar. Same with Sister Psyche.

It looks like people have had notably negative experiences with Jack, though, so it's understandable for them to want characters in the game that are distinctly his creations to be gone.

[boggo2300]

On 11/6/2019 at 3:15 PM, Razor Cure said:

I dont know..all the deaths in the Sig Arcs are pretty stupid.

States dies just because he develops sudden idiot syndrome and cant work out the normal, weak human guy would NOT have a plan..

Sis dies because manti is a tool, and cant just kock her out (stunning arrow, anyone?)

Malaise just randomly turns into an evil dick. Granted, he was always very dark, but I thought that made him a more interesting hero (kinda like how Scirocco is a villain, but conflicted). He basically had zero motivation for the entire thing, nothing was built up. One min he is a dark hero, happy to help. The next, bam. Evil.

Only one I'll disagree on is Statesman, he was ALWAYS an idiot who couldn't figure out anyones motivation and plans, sort of CoH's Dr Manhattan

 

[Call Me Awesome]

13 hours ago, boggo2300 said:

Only one I'll disagree on is Statesman, he was ALWAYS an idiot who couldn't figure out anyones motivation and plans, sort of CoH's Dr Manhattan

 

Without the intellect of a Dr Manhattan.  Sometimes it was a good thing he didn't wear sneakers since I'm not sure he could tie his shoes.

 

Still, I'm not really sure why there'd be a question about Oro for the STF, other than the contact who assigns the TF, some of the flavor text and LR's rant at the end there's no change in the STF/MLTF.  Same missions, same enemies, it's all still the same.