The Paradox of the Well of the Furies

[Erratic1]

14 hours ago, Ukase said:

All the science and ingenuity Reed Richards came up with, I don't think I ever saw him use a ray gun. (he could have, I didn't get to read every issue) 

 

There was that time he used one on his son....

Spoiler

[

 

Edited September 15 by Erratic1

[Scarlet Shocker]

On 9/14/2024 at 12:42 AM, PeregrineFalcon said:

 What would you replace it with if you had the ability to do so?

 

Oh I definitely have some ideas... it would obviously involve Nemesis, who seems to imagine himself the greatest chess player without recognising his limitations.

 

I think I recall Positron, in an AMA once saying that Lady Gray was a sleeper agent. I suspect he was at best being mischievous with that, but I would probably riff on that a little too.

 

It'd probably be based around Mender Silos fabricating this entire tall tale around Ouroboros at the end of the universe, and every time a player character uses it to get from place to place through time a tiny tiny part of their power is siphoned off to his giant temporal space battery which he is using in his war against the Kheldians.

 

He's at war with them because in their home world they are guarding a great and powerful force and bits of that force have dribbled into Primal Earth due to their dealings with us. So he's trying to steal it for himself and take over the universe.

 

Oh and the Kheldian in the Ouro. Twilights Son? He's either very very stupid, a traitor or a simulacrum, whichever you please.

 

And the bit where you beat up the bad guys in the crashed Ouroboros? Those "bad guys" had rumbled him and had almost managed to beat him if it wasn't for us pesky kids...

 

so it becomes kinda circular but hopefully a bit more interesting, gives us a bit more control of our own destiny and I hope perhaps a little more amusing.

Edited September 15 by Scarlet Shocker
TS

[Snarky]

I kill stuff with superpowers.  Which gets me MORE superpowers.  
 

and you had me at “kill stuff”

[Triumphant]

5 hours ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

 

Oh I definitely have some ideas... it would obviously involve Nemesis, who seems to imagine himself the greatest chess player without recognising his limitations.

 

I think I recall Positron, in an AMA once saying that Lady Gray was a sleeper agent. I suspect he was at best being mischievous with that, but I would probably riff on that a little too.

 

It'd probably be based around Mender Silos fabricating this entire tall tale around Ouroboros at the end of the universe, and every time a player character uses it to get from place to place through time a tiny tiny part of their power is siphoned off to his giant temporal space battery which he is using in his war against the Kheldians.

 

He's at war with them because in their home world they are guarding a great and powerful force and bits of that force have dribbled into Primal Earth due to their dealings with us. So he's trying to steal it for himself and take over the universe.

 

Oh and the Kheldian in the Ouro. Twilights Son? He's either very very stupid, a traitor or a simulacrum, whichever you please.

 

And the bit where you beat up the bad guys in the crashed Ouroboros? Those "bad guys" had rumbled him and had almost managed to beat him if it wasn't for us pesky kids...

 

so it becomes kinda circular but hopefully a bit more interesting, gives us a bit more control of our own destiny and I hope perhaps a little more amusing.

 

Well, it's definitely not more hackneyed that the established incarnate lore. 😄  Of course, as others have said, I think it's too late the change it, at this point.  With all canon, in all entertainment media, I just ignore the things that seem stupid and retrofit it in my brain, with whatever actually makes sense.  For example, I regard the Star Wars prequel trilogy as merely a vague outline of historical events, written after the fact, by someone that had access to incomplete and inaccurate information.  And the sequel trilogy?  Well, it just didn't happen.  The New Republlic exists, yes.  And there are some Imperial Remnants that still tangle with them, yes.  The call themselves the 1st order, or something.  But Han Solo didn't die like an two-bit extra, impaled on the end of his kid's lightsaber.  Luke isn't a bitter old hermit.  The Imps didn't build a 3rd, planet-sized death star weapon.  So on.

[FDR's Think Tank]

I guess if you WERE going to scrub the Incarnate Content from the game.... you'd bounce back to the most obvious move, which is raising the level cap.

What that would mean for characters is a different question...

-Do you allow more slots in powers after level 50?

-Do you give players the ability to open a tertiary Power Set... or rely on Pool and Epic Pool Powers to fill the gaps?

-Do you give players the ability to further modify existing powers outside of the slot system (because at a certain point, more powers isn't as important as developing existing abilities.)

-What Zones do you open up to go beyond Level 50?

 

Interesting idea, but it will NEVER be explored on Homecoming Servers. You would need to host your own server and mod it to taste using this mindset.

 

Now, something that would be compatible with Incarnate might be that at level 50, you're able to access Alternate Universe versions of your character that exist as different Archetypes. Only one Archetype can be active at a time and it would function similar to how alternate builds/costumes function. You simply get the ability to build out every possible archetype using that same character name. This would be a very different version of endgame content, but also allows players to hunt down stories and missions they didn't complete with that character on their first (or following) runthrough(s).

 

Then you pave the path for saying "We can have loads more content before Endgame, since the whole game is also endgame, in it's own manner." I realize that technically, this is what Ourobos is for... and you could still use it to do this.... but I think this version is more Elegant.

[Scarlet Shocker]

I wasn't advocating deleting the content from the game. If you got that impression I expressed it wrong. I'm fundamentally against content removal for any number of reasons - not the least of which is while I might hate something others might love it and given I'm not in charge of the game then I don't get to impact others' play negatively.

 

What I would advocate is that the story is modified somewhat (retconned is the phrase all the cool kids use these days I understand) and another story of duplicity laid on top of it to explain it. (See above.)

 

I actually think the powers and power trees in the Incarnate system works reasonably well. I have some minor issues with them but fundamentally I think they add more to the character progression than they remove. My big gripe is the story of the Well itself, but I also have huge issues with some of the IContent. TPN above is one of my big gripes but the biggest is

 

Spoiler

where Cole blows up (himself? and) Praetoria  - despite you having beaten up every single one of his allies, agents and henchmen, you are reduced literally to the role of bystander in your own story as his story takes precedence over yours. But you and a whole bunch of your mates who might be the greatest superteam in the known Paragonad universe cannot stop a lunatic from destroying his world.

 

I'm all for dramatic interludes but that took the real biscuit and for me capped off a pretty miserably written experience.

 

Some of the content was good and well written. UG trial for example. The Lambda and BAF showed us that we could take on Praetoria and win.

 

On the other hand I strongly dislike that you cannot join the Loyalists at the end of the Praetorian arc. Even if you loathe Cole and what he turns out to be, there is a compelling case that you might believe after all you've seen that his ultimate goal was not as misguided as first appears.

 

That makes no logical sense and the Resistance is even worse.

Spoiler

Calvin Scott being insane and a sudden handwave "oh we're not married old chap, you're deluded" makes me WTF every time I read such a poorly executed cut scene.

 

I must admit I was initially resistant  (no pun intended) to the increase in power levels since they might ruin existing content but that balance is reasonably well dealt with and the game was crying out for some further power progression that wasn't simply an additional 30 levels bolted on at the end of your first 50.

 

(One of the things I truly loved about The Secret World was its lack of levels - your character progression was amazing there even with the clunkiness of the power wheels and other game issues. But it did take a bit to get your head around but not poorly so.)

 

So... TL;DR - no don't scrap it. Do something good with it. The cake has been made, but is singed around the edges and raw in the middle. That's not an insuperable challenge with a bit of imagination and quality writing.

[Snarky]

15 hours ago, Triumphant said:

 

Well, it's definitely not more hackneyed that the established incarnate lore. 😄  Of course, as others have said, I think it's too late the change it, at this point.  With all canon, in all entertainment media, I just ignore the things that seem stupid and retrofit it in my brain, with whatever actually makes sense.  For example, I regard the Star Wars prequel trilogy as merely a vague outline of historical events, written after the fact, by someone that had access to incomplete and inaccurate information.  And the sequel trilogy?  Well, it just didn't happen.  The New Republlic exists, yes.  And there are some Imperial Remnants that still tangle with them, yes.  The call themselves the 1st order, or something.  But Han Solo didn't die like an two-bit extra, impaled on the end of his kid's lightsaber.  Luke isn't a bitter old hermit.  The Imps didn't build a 3rd, planet-sized death star weapon.  So on.

Wow.  You really made me glad i never watched the star wars sequels. 
 

(except the one where they stole the Death Star plans… which i guess was a prequel?  Very good)

Edited September 16 by Snarky

[Jimpy2]

On 9/13/2024 at 6:52 PM, Scarlet Shocker said:

 

 

It seems so fractured that the Well can do whatever it likes and holds to no game logic or semblance of reason.

 

Is it too late to scrub it from the game and come up with something that makes sense in terms of game lore and human logic?

unlike most of my friends who play the game, you actually read the lore. There is one person I play with who never reads anything other than the mission objectives. He’s the first to comment that the mission is stupid. I say just kill the baddies and move on. 
 

my problem with the game isn’t the incarnate system but the general power dynamics of higher level mobs. I have a fire/willpower super enhancement set decked out incarnate tank. I discovered one day that Eochai couldn’t kill it. One on one I couldn’t kill Eochai either. After some experimenting, I discovered most giant monsters couldn’t. Jurassik could but he was the only one. But if I go to PI and I could get killed one on one by many of the devouring earth monsters. Even some AVs can kill me. It doesn’t make sense, so I try and ignore it unless I can use it to my advantage. Around Halloween a couple years ago, a group of 5 of us, were taking on Jack in Talos. We weren’t getting very far, so I put my tank on auto taunt, loaded my second account and got my radiation debuffer. It worked. It may be illogical that it works that way, but it does so I just file it away until needed.

[Scarlet Shocker]

54 minutes ago, Jimpy2 said:

unlike most of my friends who play the game, you actually read the lore. There is one person I play with who never reads anything other than the mission objectives. He’s the first to comment that the mission is stupid. I say just kill the baddies and move on. 
 

my problem with the game isn’t the incarnate system but the general power dynamics of higher level mobs. I have a fire/willpower super enhancement set decked out incarnate tank. I discovered one day that Eochai couldn’t kill it. One on one I couldn’t kill Eochai either. After some experimenting, I discovered most giant monsters couldn’t. Jurassik could but he was the only one. But if I go to PI and I could get killed one on one by many of the devouring earth monsters. Even some AVs can kill me. It doesn’t make sense, so I try and ignore it unless I can use it to my advantage. Around Halloween a couple years ago, a group of 5 of us, were taking on Jack in Talos. We weren’t getting very far, so I put my tank on auto taunt, loaded my second account and got my radiation debuffer. It worked. It may be illogical that it works that way, but it does so I just file it away until needed.

 

"And there came a day, a day unlike any other, when Earth's mightiest heroes and heroines found themselves united against a common threat...."

 

I don't have a problem with what you've described, because fundamentally the game is a team game and is meant to be played by several people. (Remember, in Avengers, Hulk had to leave because he's OP, and MCU pulled  a crappy stunt in Endgame to take him out of the equation too.)

 

I read some Lore. I don't read it all, I wouldn't in any way consider myself an expert but I was minded to in this instance simply because the WotF story was such arsewater, and nothing I've read or seen Lore-wise has changed my opinion of it.

 

I'm very aware I could head-canon it in a different direction but that's a poor fix at best. Such a great game, frankly, deserves better story telling. That, perhaps, is my biggest beef with it. If the game itself was mediocre and less important to me I wouldn't give a flying wossname but I do because I love the game and set high expectations of it.

 

 

[Scarlet Shocker]

4 hours ago, Snarky said:

Wow.  You really made me glad i never watched the star wars sequels. 
 

(except the one where they stole the Death Star plans… which i guess was a prequel?  Very good)

 

to be fair, there's very little good about Star Wars. Most of the stories are ripped from elsewhere - that's really obvious in IV - but it doesn't require the audience to think very much so it's popular.

[Triumphant]

8 hours ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

 

to be fair, there's very little good about Star Wars. Most of the stories are ripped from elsewhere - that's really obvious in IV - but it doesn't require the audience to think very much so it's popular.

 

Well, I agree with you, for the most part.  It's more or less 30's era pulp serials (Flash Gordon, etc.), re-tooled for a modern audience.  Still, there's good pulp and bad pulp.  And there's respecting the legacy material, which the prequels do poorly (IMO) and the sequels don't do at all, except in the sense that they copy/paste certain things from the original trilogy.  This is all my subjective opinion, of course.  I don't want to be too dogmatic about it.  Star Wars fans can be persnickety enough as it is. 😄

 

12 hours ago, Snarky said:

Wow.  You really made me glad i never watched the star wars sequels. 
 

(except the one where they stole the Death Star plans… which i guess was a prequel?  Very good)

Rogue One was very good, I agree!  It's my 4th favorite SW film after the original three.  👍

Edited September 16 by Triumphant

[Jacke]

On 9/15/2024 at 10:22 AM, Scarlet Shocker said:

But we also know that Mender Silos and his crew of ne'er do-wells, with a very very dodgy past, are less than straight with us poor saps who they are recruiting for a battle at the end of time. (Something I cannot decide is more influenced by Michael Moorcock or Douglas Adams.) It would be relatively easy to say "they're lying to you" and turn that into a thing - they say it's the Well, Posi couldn't disprove that, but then it turns out to be something else entirely (Or perhaps it is a kind of well but not how they described.)

 

Reference the bold text:  Why not both?

 

Throw in some Isaac Asimov too (The End of Eternity (1955) which does seem to be awfully like a recent production of a large studio....).

 

 

On 9/15/2024 at 10:22 AM, Scarlet Shocker said:

Conclusion: I think there's more that can be done with the story, and make it interesting as well as exciting - but it would take some skill and craft to do so and probably conflicts terribly with all the plans that the Devs currently have. And even if it didn't, I doubt they'd tell us 😀

 

Welp, doing more with the story would be good.  Guess it would start with fixing some past issues.  As hard as that would be.  Maybe some day.