Could Oberst Straxt be a bit less, uh... racist?

[CraterLabs]

So I've not had the pleasure of playing through his actual story arc yet, I only had one villain in the range of the new Striga Isle content, and I think she's too high in level for his normal story, but I *can* get his repeatable missions, and honestly I kinda like having repeatable mission pool options in zones even if I don't use 'em much. His tone when he sends you out to fight The Warriors or The Family makes me a little uncomfortable, though.

 

And honestly, I'm kinda glad that it is, I suspect this was an intentional artistic choice to help remind the player that fascists are evil (like, *real* evil, not fun Saturday morning supervillain evil) and there's a genuine temptation to gloss over how evil a Nazi might be by focusing on the bombast and megalomania, so in that regard I'm kind of happy that the game isn't letting the player off the hook for the company they keep. In that regard he's kinda like Mr. Bocor or Westin Phipps, one of those "uncomfortable" villain contacts.

 

Buuuuut I think he's going a little too far in that direction. The send off for the mission to fight the Warriors made me uncomfortable, and the send off for the mission to fight the Family made me even more-so (even paused for a second to wonder if I was doing a hate crime for money, which was a bit more gritty realism than I wanted from my Ninja Scientist who opens Portals To The Ninja Dimension to Summon Ninjas). My initial hesitation about working with a 5th Columnist was set on hold with his introductory text basically saying "don't worry, you're not having any allegiances with me, this is strictly about doing business that I pay you for" but his dialogue got rid of that, heh. At least for me.

 

So, uh, yeah. I can't speak to whatever his "main" content is yet, but the repeatable missions make me uncomfortable. Maybe the Warriors could be messing up supply lines and the Family could be demanding tariffs or tribute or something (and they already know the best ways to smuggle into and out of Port Noble, so it's harder to get around them than the Council? I dunno.)

 

Anyway, thanks again for all your hard work, dev team, you guys rock, even if these two killtask missions didn't land for me. You're awesome.

[Psi-bolt]

I've been listening to a podcast recently about the rise of fascism in Italy and Germany in the 1920-30s.  The 5th Column are people who, with the hindsight of history, still ascribe to the views that led the world into chaos and led to tens of millions of deaths.  I haven't played this contact, but if he's making you uncomfortable, then that's probably good writing.  

[Super Atom]

It might help if you could include what he specifically says that is bothering you word for word. This contact was a point of great contention in the feedback already. However I'm gonna have to agree with Psi-bolt here, if the nazi is making you feel icky for working with him, they did a goodjob not making him look like he's good in any way.

[PeregrineFalcon]

If the devs dial back the horrible things that the Nazi says then that will make him look less evil.

 

Why do you want the Nazi to seem less evil?

[Player2]

2 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

Why do you want the Nazi to seem less evil?

 

Great question.

[ZamuelNow]

All of my villains, from the most Saturday morning to the most heinous, are more than glad to punch Nazis.  I haven't looked at the mission in question (because my villains won't work for Nazis) but being more overt with the 5th Column's racism probably helps separate them from the Council.  Council probably still has a number racists within it but they leaned harder into the vampire/werewolf/luchador side of things.

[Super Atom]

7 minutes ago, ZamuelNow said:

 they leaned harder into the vampire/werewolf/luchador side of things.

 

WHAT

Edited February 23 by Super Atom

[MGoblin256]

3 minutes ago, Super Atom said:

 

WHAT

They're referring to Galaxy troops, which do honestly kinda look like Luchadors thanks to their costumes.

[Ghost]

9 minutes ago, Super Atom said:

 

WHAT

Those damn Luchadores

I knew they couldn’t be trusted!

 

 

 

[PeregrineFalcon]

18 minutes ago, ZamuelNow said:

All of my villains, from the most Saturday morning to the most heinous, are more than glad to punch Nazis.  I haven't looked at the mission in question (because my villains won't work for Nazis) but being more overt with the 5th Column's racism probably helps separate them from the Council.  Council probably still has a number racists within it but they leaned harder into the vampire/werewolf/luchador side of things.

So your villains are ok with committing mass murder, but they're not ok talking to a Nazi? How is the Fifth Column worse than any other villain group?

 

And no, I'm not defending Nazis. Although someone's going to jump in and accuse me of that in 3... 2... 1...

[Super Atom]

7 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

So your villains are ok with committing mass murder, but they're not ok talking to a Nazi? How is the Fifth Column worse than any other villain group?

 

And no, I'm not defending Nazis. Although someone's going to jump in and accuse me of that in 3... 2... 1...

 

idk about no worse than ANY villain group but there are some that match up in evilness

 

 

like the fuck the trolls do to you man

Edited February 23 by Super Atom

[biostem]

Given what the likes of Dr. Vahzilok does to people, some bad words are inconsequential...

[Lazarillo]

Honestly, it'd be fine if there were just, say, a mission to kill him and keep all the stuff you stole for yourself at the end.

It's super frustrating, because it's not like the writing is bad, but Striga's worthy of better than demanding villains be nice to nazis.

 

Which is weird, because we all know what any villain of real salt is going to do to a nazi.

Edited February 23 by Lazarillo

[PeregrineFalcon]

17 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

Honestly, it'd be fine if there were just, say, a mission to kill him and keep all the stuff you stole for yourself at the end.

It's super frustrating, because it's not like the writing is bad, but Striga's worthy of better than demanding villains be nice to nazis.

 

Which is weird, because we all know what any villain of real salt is going to do to a nazi.

That isn't really a problem with this story arc, it's a problem with CoH villainside as a whole. No player agency. This was recently discussed in a different thread.

 

Als no, not all villains dislike Nazis. You do because you are a good person. Most villains either agree with the Nazis or don't care about them one way or the other.

[Ruin Mage]

36 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

keep all the stuff you stole for yourself at the end.

Fun fact: That's how the arc ends!

 

Spoiler

You kick the 5th out *and* keep the stuff. You basically set the Column's attempts back.

 

[Lazarillo]

8 minutes ago, Ruin Mage said:

Fun fact: That's how the arc ends!

Not unless it was changed from its initial beta form, and there was certainly never any indication of such in the patch notes.

[Lockely]

29 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

Not unless it was changed from its initial beta form, and there was certainly never any indication of such in the patch notes.

 

Haven't had a chance to play it again yet, but

Spoiler

I saw folks talking about it on General yesterday and the consensus was that it had a rewrite sometime during the RCs to have you betray him eventually.

 

[Lazarillo]

12 minutes ago, Lockely said:

Haven't had a chance to play it again yet, but

  Hide contents

I saw folks talking about it on General yesterday and the consensus was that it had a rewrite sometime during the RCs to have you betray him eventually.

 

Noted. Given that I'm hardly the only one who had complaints about this, it surprises me that they wouldn't have made some acknowledgment of such, but I'll do another check of it on beta, because if that spoiler content is true, that'd be a major boon.

[Lazarillo]

1 hour ago, Lockely said:

Haven't had a chance to play it again yet, but

  Reveal hidden contents

I saw folks talking about it on General yesterday and the consensus was that it had a rewrite sometime during the RCs to have you betray him eventually.

 

Update: nope, still exactly the same as it was before.

[CraterLabs]

12 hours ago, Super Atom said:

It might help if you could include what he specifically says that is bothering you word for word. This contact was a point of great contention in the feedback already. However I'm gonna have to agree with Psi-bolt here, if the nazi is making you feel icky for working with him, they did a goodjob not making him look like he's good in any way.

 

He is written well, yeah, and I was on the fence about if I should even mention anything. And there's certainly value in writing that reminds you that bad guys are, well, bad (one might even make the case that City of Heroes doesn't do enough to remind us how racist Lord Nemesis is). I think the reason it stood out to me here was that it was included as part of a mission being given to the player.

 

The phrases that give me trouble are, when he's talking about The Warriors, saying "The Warriors are suspiciously Greek and not even fit to recruit", which threw me off balance a little. Then about the Family, he says their "Italian origin makes them susceptible to Council propaganda" (I coulda sworn it said blood instead of origin last night, but that's what I get for playing CoH after 5 in the morning I guess, heh) and that no matter how much they claim to love freedom, the Center's rhetoric will always "tug at the heartstrings of the Italian gangster." This sort of colors his send-off text where he calls them "degenerate drug dealers, and worse" which on its own probably isn't bad, but in the context of the previous comments makes it feel a bit like the kinds of othering comments that people use about groups they don't like these days (though City of Heroes certainly has a number of fine, upstanding mission contacts who say similar things about the Skulls and Trolls, so it feels unfair to call this line out on its own.)

 

Ultimately, it's not a lot, it certainly could've been worse. But I feel like pairing those comments with jobs being given to my character is an invitation from the game to participate in his opinions, which I don't wanna do. Kinda why I don't play missions from folks like Phipps. And player agency in dealing with their contacts is something that City of Heroes is usually pretty good at. From voluntarily choosing to fail a mission from Marshall Brass as a villain, to being a hero who foolishly takes on way too many bosses at once in Dark Astoria to try to save somebody, this is a game that's good about giving you the opportunity to play the character if you mind be of a mind to disagree with how your contact wants things handled.

 

Anyway, maybe I'm overreacting. Just wanted to mention that it made me uncomfortable. I wanna see what his actual story arc is like soon, but I don't think I want any of my current villains in his level range wanna play ball with this particular bad guy, heh.

Edited February 24 by CraterLabs