Hero Corp; What's the point?

[Scarlet Shocker]

It used to be, several millennia ago, that they were a significant organisation, now they've dwindled into... nothing.

 

We used to have to visit them to discover their role as new characters, to adjust our difficulty, to understand their significance in keeping order in Paragon but they've been superseded by Longbow (and to an extent Vanguard.)

 

They seem pretty redundant now, and I find that surprising. At face value they should have a significant role to play in the modern game, from vetting and mentoring powered personnel from  Praetoria, to ensuring that Rogues and Vigilantes don't cross the line on the mainland side of Primal Earth. They should be handing out significant missions at high level, even Incarnate level to ensure that the right side doesn't lose the eternal struggle, but instead we get... nothing. Zilch, nada, narry a peep from an organisation that once held huge sway over the city.

 

Is it time to repurpose them or are they so redundant they should be disbanded and pensioned off (and there's an arc or two in itself as disgruntled Hero Corps agents refuse to go quietly.)

[roleki]

I'm down for Watchmen: Hero Corps Edition, so long as Statesman doesn't get to be the Adrian Veidt of this scenario.

[TheZag]

One of the devs had a topic for submitting hero corps costumed characters.  The end date for that submission has passed awhile ago but means they do have some plans for the group.  No idea to when any changes would go live though.

 

[Icono04]

The fact that Hero Corps are "...selling their super-powered services to those willing to foot the bill" [quoted from the wiki] makes them difficult for writers of story arcs to use in any high-ish level storylines.

Truly epic save-the-world stories need that constant sense of impending doom, and there is not much tension if the heroes stop in the middle of a huge battle and say "Well, that's my 9-to-5 for the day, time to go home. I will be back tomorrow to battle the lovechild of Ruladak and Hamidon which is steadily eating the universe. No universe-saving between 10-12 AM, though - I have to attend a workplace sensitivity seminar then. Mmmhhh, maybe there will be donuts at the meeting!"

 

I exaggerate, of course, but I do think the paid-by-the-hour mindset of Hero Corps lends itself well to low level heroics but not so well to grand, epic showdowns. Hence their redundancy in large parts of CoX gameplay, IMHO.

[Skyhawke]

They're obviously a Nemesis plot.

[huang3721]

Longbow's purpose is to counter and destroy Arachnos, while Vanguard's is to protect Earth from alien/interdimensional incursions. They can't do much against an unaligned, super-powered American lunatic hell-bent on doing nasty things. (Usually, this is where FBSA steps in).

 

Hero Corps is more or less an Auction House. They match Supers with people or governments willing to pay for their service. They also have a global reach (something that Freedom Corps is lacking). If I'm not mistaken, aside from the Freedom Corps, no other entities have the same capability as the Hero Corps. 

 

I don't think they are redundant. Maybe because they don't show up often in the later part of the game, they seem superseded. Just leave them alone until the HC Team can figure out a story or two featuring those guys. 

[srmalloy]

2 hours ago, Icono04 said:

...there is not much tension if the heroes stop in the middle of a huge battle and say "Well, that's my 9-to-5 for the day, time to go home. I will be back tomorrow to battle the lovechild of Ruladak and Hamidon which is steadily eating the universe.

" Wait — what time is it? Are we getting overtime for this? If we're not getting overtime, I'm out; base pay isn't worth missing my kid's Little League game."

[Clave Dark 5]

2 hours ago, Icono04 said:

The fact that Hero Corps are "...selling their super-powered services to those willing to foot the bill" [quoted from the wiki] makes them difficult for writers of story arcs to use in any high-ish level storylines.

Truly epic save-the-world stories need that constant sense of impending doom, and there is not much tension if the heroes stop in the middle of a huge battle and say "Well, that's my 9-to-5 for the day, time to go home. I will be back tomorrow to battle the lovechild of Ruladak and Hamidon which is steadily eating the universe. No universe-saving between 10-12 AM, though - I have to attend a workplace sensitivity seminar then. Mmmhhh, maybe there will be donuts at the meeting!"

 

I exaggerate, of course, but I do think the paid-by-the-hour mindset of Hero Corps lends itself well to low level heroics but not so well to grand, epic showdowns. Hence their redundancy in large parts of CoX gameplay, IMHO.

But if employment practices, both good or ill, aren't one of the epic battlegrounds of the current age, I don't know what is. 

 

Does this hero dare risk the ire of his boss by staying on the clock and accruing overtime to stop the forces that threaten Earth? 

 

If he's not being paid fairly, would fighting back make the hero a villain? 

 

And what of mentalist heroes who tool about the city surreptitiously siphoning up everyone's mental data without informed consent, doesn't that make them villains???

 

I could go on.  😃

[Greycat]

If we did more outside Paragon / the Isles, I think we'd see more of Hero Corps - they *do* have a presence in the rest of the world with Rent-a-supers.

 

They *could* have more of a presence, but they'd still be used somewhat sparingly - hired out as meta-bodyguards for various people, for instance. ("The Peruvian ambassador will be arriving with his hired Hero Corps bodyguards...")

 

I will say lore tidbits seem to have some interesting hints of Crey having ideas for them. (And I'll plug my *ancient* - as in first published around AE's launch, so it doesn't really take advantage of newer toys - arc, Hero Corpse, while I mention this.)

[Mr. Apocalypse]

6 hours ago, Skyhawke said:

They're obviously a Nemesis plot.

Everything is a Nemesis plot. Excuse me now, while i put on my foil helmet!

[Snarky]

Hero Corp, when you absolutely positively have to have max propaganda!

[Go0gleplex]

Hero Corps....counter mercs against the Sky Raiders. :P Or Malta. 

 

But yeah...you can't exactly trust "heroes" that pay more attention to what they are getting paid vs having an actual ethical commitment to the safety of the general public. One of the things in the wars of old; mercs could turn on you in the middle of battle simply by getting paid a better offer making them the worst sorts for inclusion into a military force. 

 

Still...they could serve as an interesting faction; finding them on missions doing questionable things as foes or turning around on another mission and having them come in as allies. But then, we have the Legacy Chain which seems to fill that function it seems.

[A Cat]

12 hours ago, Skyhawke said:

They're obviously a Nemesis plot.

They're sponsored by Crey, so they're probably a Crey plot of some sort. 

[Healix]

12 hours ago, Mr. Apocalypse said:

Everything is a Nemesis plot. Excuse me now, while i put on my foil helmet!

[Scarlet Shocker]

I've never encountered this in game (that I remember) - is this just back story on the Wiki, or is it a significant part of storied lore? I always saw Hero Corps as mentoring newbies but that still seems... less than ideal.

 

It also seems difficult to me to conflate hero and mercenary. Many of your descriptions of them have made them sound more like Vought, which could be interesting.

 

Perhaps part of the issue is that they lack a contiguous arc - a bit like PPD, who we encounter at low level then vanish and suddenly reappear as Kheldians.

[Hyperstrike]

Hero Corps is essentially a private corporation for superhuman services.
They're a private, commercial offering, where simply registering as a hero has you working with local, state and national government.

[UltraAlt]

19 hours ago, Icono04 said:

I exaggerate, of course, but I do think the paid-by-the-hour mindset of Hero Corps lends itself well to low level heroics but not so well to grand, epic showdowns. Hence their redundancy in large parts of CoX gameplay, IMHO.

 

I agree.

Just like there are are some enemy groups that cover a certains span of levels to be replaced by another group, Hero Corps is meant to be the starting level, Longbow mid range, and Vanguard for the higher levels through 50.

 

It isn't really that Hero Corps is useless.

At this point, it seem to me that it is about who is the group that covers the 50+ content. (On that I play the end-game, but still, even so...)

[biostem]

The topic of in-universe monetary wealth is never really addressed in-game, and I think that's where Hero Corps would really fit in.  With as creative as we can be with our characters, they never have to worry about making rent or finding their next meal.  There's also no notion of factional allegiances, beyond being a hero, villain, or Praetorian, (and even then, you can generally move between hero and villain on-demand).  I suppose they could add some Hero Corps arcs that reward a lot of inf, but you lose some of your character's autonomy in some way - like maybe locking you out of some other content.  Perhaps the police radio gets replaced with a Hero Corps job board, and while you get increased inf from doing them, you get reduced inf from all other sources or something.

[High_Beam]

Do not trust Rebecca Foss or Hero Corps.  Countess Crey's vehement support of them during their initial attempts to establish themselves in the United States should say volumes, as should the Freedom Phalanx's opposition to their presence.

 

My head canon has them as being traitors to humanity when the Battalion arrived, having all Hero Corps employees go all Order 66 (the chips that were implanted as part of their employment agreement) on the metahuman community just before arrival.  Furthermore advanced Crey Clones were used to replace HC staff that were less than compliant without anyone's knowledge.

[Greycat]

12 hours ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

I've never encountered this in game (that I remember) - is this just back story on the Wiki, or is it a significant part of storied lore? I always saw Hero Corps as mentoring newbies but that still seems... less than ideal.

 

 

I don't know about a "significant" part of lore, but their lore is scattered through the game. Some of the Faultline (new and old) markers talk about them, for instance, since their Paragon HQ was there for a while before "mysterious power suited figures" attacked it.  They also do talk about Crey (or at least Countess Crey) supporting them.

 

So, yeah, headcanon for me has pretty much always had them being a source of "raw material" for the Revenant Hero project, among other things.

 

Honestly, they *could* be interesting. it's just that the only thing done with them in game is "So you want to change your settings..." and some plaques.

[Random Axis]

23 hours ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

I've never encountered this in game (that I remember) - is this just back story on the Wiki, or is it a significant part of storied lore? I always saw Hero Corps as mentoring newbies but that still seems... less than ideal.

 

It also seems difficult to me to conflate hero and mercenary. Many of your descriptions of them have made them sound more like Vought, which could be interesting.

 

Perhaps part of the issue is that they lack a contiguous arc - a bit like PPD, who we encounter at low level then vanish and suddenly reappear as Kheldians.

 

Maybe rebrand the police scanner as the Hero Corp app? Then running missions is the hero version of doing some work for Uber/DoorDash/etc. Then the main company can be mercenary, but all the money happens in the background and doesn't sully the player's hands.

[Timeshadow]

This is actually a really interesting potential angle. People have made the comparison between Hero Corps and mercenaries. One way that could play out is to treat them like a PMC (Private Military Contractor). They come in when some government somewhere needs to augment its superpowered capabilities and they're not exactly married to the ideals of truth, justice, and the American Way. 

 

I'm imagining high level arcs where Malta or some other international faction needs to be dealt with "off the books." The FBSA doesn't want their fingerprints on the job so they bring in HC to run the in-universe equivalent of covert action. It would have more Vigilante/Rogue themes than the traditional superhero morality you get from Longbow or the, "We're taking extreme measures to save the multiverse," vibe of Vanguard. 

 

Might be a good way to give our more morally ambiguous characters some actual content outside of running tips. 

[Techwright]

14 hours ago, Random Axis said:

 

Maybe rebrand the police scanner as the Hero Corp app? Then running missions is the hero version of doing some work for Uber/DoorDash/etc. Then the main company can be mercenary, but all the money happens in the background and doesn't sully the player's hands.

 

Personal opinion:  I'd not be down for rebranding the police scanner.  It just means another group of characters (police) needing a repurposing.  What I would be down for is a second level of scanner missions:  random missions that automatically come in as tougher assignments or assignments with a higher percentage of crazy stuff happening (timers, bombs, nests of evil Kheldians, etc.) 

 

8 hours ago, Timeshadow said:

This is actually a really interesting potential angle. People have made the comparison between Hero Corps and mercenaries. One way that could play out is to treat them like a PMC (Private Military Contractor). They come in when some government somewhere needs to augment its superpowered capabilities and they're not exactly married to the ideals of truth, justice, and the American Way. 

 

I'm imagining high level arcs where Malta or some other international faction needs to be dealt with "off the books." The FBSA doesn't want their fingerprints on the job so they bring in HC to run the in-universe equivalent of covert action. It would have more Vigilante/Rogue themes than the traditional superhero morality you get from Longbow or the, "We're taking extreme measures to save the multiverse," vibe of Vanguard. 

 

Might be a good way to give our more morally ambiguous characters some actual content outside of running tips. 

 

I'd been thinking along those lines as well.  Hero Corp to me seems like something straddling everything from Pinkerton Security to Private Military Contractor.  You'll have some that are 9-to-5, like white hat tech security, some investigative and undercover ops that definitely aren't 9-to-5, and mercenary security ops at the other end of the spectrum.    Considering a lot of very interesting Private Military Contractor stories I've seen in the news these last two decades, everything from Blackwater to Wagner, I'd say there are plenty of crazy story opportunities for a Hero Corp update.

[Greycat]

2 hours ago, Techwright said:

 

Personal opinion:  I'd not be down for rebranding the police scanner.  It just means another group of characters (police) needing a repurposing.  What I would be down for is a second level of scanner missions:  random missions that automatically come in as tougher assignments or assignments with a higher percentage of crazy stuff happening (timers, bombs, nests of evil Kheldians, etc.)

 

 

... you know, honestly this would fit in *really* well with our grey alignments.

[Shred Monkey]

I could see them giving out a series of non-combat missions, with players doing things that are easy with powers, but not so easy without them.  I'm not sure how to make that fun and rewarding, but it'd be thematic.

 

edited... I have an idea on making non-combat missions rewarding... have them give desirable temp buffs.... Like XP multipliers or influence multipliers.

Edited November 24, 2023 by Shred Monkey