The "greying" of Longbow

[BasiliskXVIII]

Longbow's entry to the game with City of Villains was intended as a way to deliver a heroic group for villains to fight in lieu of tearing through hordes of colourful caped heroes. From the start there were missions that showed some indications of some not-very-nice people within Longbow, (Lt. Harris obviously comes foremost to mind) but for the most part they were "the good guys" alongside groups like Wyvern and the Legacy Chain. Enough so that when the RWZ was revamped, the intro to Vanguard missions made a point of showing that Longbow doesn't like their policy of "we'll do anything it takes, including working with villains, to push the Rikti back," as a way of contrasting the "shades of grey" morality of the new Vanguard group over the "pure white" heroics of Longbow.

 

Now, player interpretation isn't necessarily in lockstep with the game's portrayal. They are, after all, an American-based paramilitary organization operating within the boundaries of a sovereign nation. In the heat of the Iraq War and some uncomfortable parallels to acts which were seen as not entirely legitimate, this obviously coloured perception of the group, but at least on paper and in intent, they were supposed to be good people attempting to do good things — to the point where Ms. Liberty is positioned as a figurehead of the organization.

 

With Going Rogue, though, there was an increasing turn towards portraying Longbow as much more vigilante-aligned. I've been running a lot of tip missions, and there are an awful lot which depict Longbow "taking the law into their own hands", many with paper-thin justifications. Now, the Doylian explanation for this is that they're already established as a 1-50 level group, making them easy to slip into content in any level range, and it's an opportunity to give hero characters more opportunities to deal with them for badge progress and such without needing to go villainside. But I do feel like there's something disappointing about this. I think Longbow are pretty boring to fight in the game, and I don't actually love their concept that much, but as one of the few groups that we have that are supposed to be unabashedly good, it would be nice to see a bit more of that from them as well.

 

I suppose what disappoints me most is that it feels like there aren’t any truly untarnished NPC factions of "good guys" left in City of Heroes. Nearly every faction, even those that were once positioned as paragons of heroism, has been shaded with moral ambiguity, corruption, or outright villainous tendencies over time. And while complexity in storytelling is valuable, there’s also something to be said for having at least one group that represents the ideal of unwavering, incorruptible heroism. Longbow, for all their flaws, could have filled that role—but instead, their increasing drift into overreach and self-righteous vigilantism has made them feel indistinguishable from many of the other factions operating in the game. It would be nice to see a storyline where Longbow actually acknowledges and addresses the problem elements within their ranks, not just as a convenient excuse for more combat missions, but as a genuine reckoning that allows them to come out stronger, more principled, and ultimately better. Heroes should be allowed to stumble, but they should also be allowed to rise again, and I think City of Heroes could use a few more groups that remind us what that looks like.

[Techwright]

Sooo...some sort of civil war within one of the hero groups, whether fists or political, that either causes a split or refinement of the organization?  It'd be a little bit like the Fifth Column/Council civil war, but I could see it.  In Longbow's case, you're either going to have to get Duncan to step down and another to step into the leadership role, or it will have to split into factions of white and grey hats.  Ms Liberty, at least from my experience, exhibits a bit too much hubris at times to pull off a pure-white overhaul of the group.

 

That said, I can think of one story plot that might transform the full organization: the sacrificial play.  Have either an individual or a small squad known to be the "more principled" of the organization, protest the direction it is headed, be derided by others, then be annihilated in a standing-in-the-gap moment while maintaining their pure status.  This should cause shock and a rethink by all who survive in the organization.

 

 

1 hour ago, BasiliskXVIII said:

I suppose what disappoints me most is that it feels like there aren’t any truly untarnished NPC factions of "good guys" left in City of Heroes.

 

But that's actually real life, too.  Name any "good guy" group that people respect, and if you dig into their history enough, you'll find some pretty bad people and moments.  It is the policing of themselves, or the arrangement to be policed by an outside oversight group, that continually helps refine the group to maintain that "good guy" reputation.    It is nice to have, in concept, a group that cannot be corrupted.  It is quite another to find it in real life.  I do like the idea of Longbow internally policing themselves, though.

[BasiliskXVIII]

7 minutes ago, Techwright said:

Sooo...some sort of civil war within one of the hero groups, whether fists or political, that either causes a split or refinement of the organization?  It'd be a little bit like the Fifth Column/Council civil war, but I could see it.  In Longbow's case, you're either going to have to get Duncan to step down and another to step into the leadership role, or it will have to split into factions of white and grey hats.  Ms Liberty, at least from my experience, exhibits a bit too much hubris at times to pull off a pure-white overhaul of the group.

 

That said, I can think of one story plot that might transform the full organization: the sacrificial play.  Have either an individual or a small squad known to be the "more principled" of the organization, protest the direction it is headed, be derided by others, then be annihilated in a standing-in-the-gap moment while maintaining their pure status.  This should cause shock and a rethink by all who survive in the organization.

I think a "gang war" among Longbow isn't necessary, and the Homecoming Devs have already said with the Warriors overhaul that they don't really want to retread that ground. But it might make a decent future story arc or something, where the tensions within the group brings you into a position where you're forced to bring a reckoning against them. Ms. Liberty might be hubristic, and maybe that could be played up as being made worse with the death of Statesman, feeling the weight of the legacy heavy on her shoulders, but I don't think she's so far gone as to be irrecoverable. And it might be a good chance to give her some more character development, where she gets to admit she's been blinded and resolves to do better.
 

21 minutes ago, Techwright said:

But that's actually real life, too.  Name any "good guy" group that people respect, and if you dig into their history enough, you'll find some pretty bad people and moments.  It is the policing of themselves, or the arrangement to be policed by an outside oversight group, that continually helps refine the group to maintain that "good guy" reputation.    It is nice to have, in concept, a group that cannot be corrupted.  It is quite another to find it in real life.  I do like the idea of Longbow internally policing themselves, though.

Yeah, but that's why it's fiction, right? The whole premise of superheroes is "what if someone with power was actually a decent human being, too?" Which, as reality shows us, is clearly fantasy. Maybe the problems with (insert virtually any group intended to be responsible for the public good here) are not resolvable. But so long as City of Heroes is supposed to be leaning into wish fulfillment, can't it give us that too?

[Greycat]

I don't know. Longbow's - I don't want to say always, but seeing them fight a purse snatching with a flamethrower's always seemed a bit much. 
(Granted, we have fire blasters, so it's an odd moral point to take.)

 

I mean, in part I kind of like (and kind of don't) having Longbow have a squeaky clean image in Paragon, and showing them not *quite* as clean in the Isles - though, again, given what they're supposed to be, some of their "ugh, these people, there's no saving them" dialog has always felt off. It always *felt* like there was supposed to be a sort of ... moral stepping stone? ... from them to Wyvern, who *would* do whatever (including killing villains) - to where I'd used that as a part of one character's storyline. (Villain redeeming herself, fiance - or rather fiance-to-be - killed as "collateral damage" by Wyvern in front of her.)

 

And of course it's a big enough (and isn't it UN-backed?) organization to have a whole range of opinions and viewpoints from "we can save them" to "not worth it," and we get to see that in the tip missions especially.

 

That said, seeing some tip missions with longbow *trying* to get through to save or redeem "hardcore" villains (and maybe even starting to succeed) wouldn't be amiss, running alongside the "You don't understand, it's the only way" ones we have.

[Forager]

Can you give an example of a group like what you describe? An untarnished faction? It could be from anywhere, fact or fiction.

[Skyhawke]

1 hour ago, Forager said:

Can you give an example of a group like what you describe? An untarnished faction? It could be from anywhere, fact or fiction.

 

 

[huang3721]

Longbow was Ms. Liberty's idea. If I am not mistaken, she wants to redeem Stefan Richter. She reformed a group of misfits into the Vindicators before, so she probably thought she could reform her grand uncle, too. The plan was simple: destroy Arachnos, then drag the old stinker back to the States. For the first part, she needs firepower (provided by NATO) and a division to command. The law-abiding and peace-loving Freedom Corps won't do, so a new division has to be made out of it. The Longbow is born.

 

IMO, Longbow is not turning grey. It's already been grey since its conception.

Edited 9 hours ago by huang3721

[El D]

Nebulous real-world influences aside, I wouldn't mind Longbow - and Ms. Liberty - to get some more earnest portrayal. In-fighting amongst the 'good guy' organizations is a classic plot device and can work, but CoX has plenty of those arcs at the moment. Let Longbow and Arachnos get back to the G.I. Joe vs Cobra arrangement that the game overall painted them with, and for the love of all things comic book don't have Libby do anything like The Widow in Red again. Given their edits to that arc HC seems pretty solidly conscious of that but man, it still irks me. Having the player character come in to solve the problem is necessary for there to be content, but the writing doesn't have to go out of its way to make the contact dangerously incompetent.

 

Frankly that feels like it tracks for a lot of the issues players have with Longbow - most of them can be chalked up to poor writing or antithetical portrayal. Akin to how some comic characters act differently when appearing in other books (like Captain America in X-Men runs...). Longbow's actions in the Isles are emphasized as much more violent and brutish, but that's also from the perspective of a villain. It also could be that the Isles just does that to anyone who stays there long enough, though that's melding alignment restrictions and game mechanics into lore at that point. Tweaking their NPC comments to be aimed at the player villains/rogues or the villain groups of the Isles and explicitly not the citizens could help things. Heck, add in an arc where Longbow is legit helping the citizens of the Isles with supplies and safety against the villains and the player villain goes to shut that down. More independent, actually villainous Redside arcs and better Longbow portrayal all in one.

Edited Friday at 04:10 PM by El D

[Snarky]

22 hours ago, BasiliskXVIII said:

Longbow's entry to the game with City of Villains was intended as a way to deliver a heroic group for villains to fight in lieu of tearing through hordes of colourful caped heroes.

 

I suppose what disappoints me most is that it feels like there aren’t any truly untarnished NPC factions of "good guys" left in City of Heroes. 

That is because, in this case, CoH accurately reflects the real world.

 

I HATE Longbow.  I started as a villain, and they have been kicking my butt for a long time.  And me theirs.  I wish there was a badge for 10,000 Longbow, and 100,000!

 

Longbow are accurate, in my opinion.  NO "good" groups in the real world have EVER stayed 100% moral.  The higher their standard, the farther they fall from reaching it.  Especially over time.  Many humans are idealists, especially when young.  You see these folks race to join the fight, "do right" and "change the world"  Years go by.  If they survive, and are somehow still at it, they have seen a LOT usually.  And they are just "trying to get by" "doing the best they can in the situation" "make it to retirement"  "...get revenge for the wrongs they have personally seen, whether their superiors/order/group would agree... in a public statement that is..."

 

Longbow is another in a long long line of all too human organizations that turn highly moral motivated children into warriors, into veterans, into morally questioning and morally questionable fighters just trying to make it through the day getting it "mostly right"

[BasiliskXVIII]

11 hours ago, Forager said:

Can you give an example of a group like what you describe? An untarnished faction? It could be from anywhere, fact or fiction.

Starfleet, at least as depicted up until TNG era. Yes, there's some asterisks where badmirals go rogue, but for the most part, the organization is shown as being a morally good, stabilizing force whose purview is intended as primarily diplomatic and peace-keeping, which follows the rule of law and upholds and enables self-determination among its citizenship. The knights of the round table might be another in their original form.

 

The inevitable problem with this kind of question, though, is that any long-standing organization which stands for good in media, inevitably gets some cynic behind the reins and goes "well, this isn't realistic, we need more drama. So let's smear crap all over this."

 

5 minutes ago, Snarky said:

Longbow are accurate, in my opinion.  NO "good" groups in the real world have EVER stayed 100% moral. 

Sure, but I'm also not playing City of Murky Real World Bullshit. If we can accept that anyone would live in Paragon City at all with all of its constant alien, zombie and Nemesis invasions, where crime is so overwhelmingly prevalent that you can stand on any street corner in the city and see at least three active assaults, attempted murders, or extortion attempts, and yet still accept that there's a functioning municipal government and police infrastructure then it really feels like we're already conceding that the way things work in the real world is not how they work in Paragon City. And that doesn't even account for the superpowers. 

 

I can acknowledge that in the real world, someone who got godlike powers like Superman would basically inevitably turn into a despot. Or they would give up on all the crap and go to live as a hermit somewhere. Best case scenario, Paragon City should turn into The Boys, worst case, Kingdom Come. Because there's just no way that someone with that much power is gonna happily look out for the public good indefinitely without eventually reaching a breaking point and deciding that they're done with humanity's crap. Even if they started with the best intentions, that's gonna get worn down real quick. Look at any bureaucrat. Give the average person the authority to say "no" to things, and overwhelmingly they will use that power at any time. And yet no one is jumping up to say "well, superheroes are unrealistic!" They are. We all know they are. That's the fantasy, that bad people are held accountable and that good people are so inexhaustibly good that they can't be stopped. I just want to be able to suspend that disbelief to a hero group too.

[El D]

1 hour ago, Snarky said:

That is because, in this case, CoH accurately reflects the real world.

 

I HATE Longbow.  I started as a villain, and they have been kicking my butt for a long time.  And me theirs.  I wish there was a badge for 10,000 Longbow, and 100,000!

 

Longbow are accurate, in my opinion.  NO "good" groups in the real world have EVER stayed 100% moral.  The higher their standard, the farther they fall from reaching it.  Especially over time.  Many humans are idealists, especially when young.  You see these folks race to join the fight, "do right" and "change the world"  Years go by.  If they survive, and are somehow still at it, they have seen a LOT usually.  And they are just "trying to get by" "doing the best they can in the situation" "make it to retirement"  "...get revenge for the wrongs they have personally seen, whether their superiors/order/group would agree... in a public statement that is..."

 

Longbow is another in a long long line of all too human organizations that turn highly moral motivated children into warriors, into veterans, into morally questioning and morally questionable fighters just trying to make it through the day getting it "mostly right"

 

 

Longbow isn't real though. Neither is the setting of CoH, despite how much actual world history and influences it might mirror. It's all a narrative construct, and within that narrative construct we already have multiple organizations that fulfill the 'group that does questionable actions and slides along the scale of heroism' niche. Wyvern, Vanguard, the PPD, the Resistance, even Malta at the extreme end of the 'fully abandoned even the pretense of morality' spectrum (not that they had any to start with).

 

I'm not opposed to an arc where Longbow takes accountability for their questionable agents and actions from prior content - that could actually be a fun way to progress the faction, honestly - but the catch that they absolutely can't be paragons of morality because 'those doesn't exist in the real world' is an odd restraint to keep in a game where superpowered weirdos in spandex have dance parties in interdimensional nightclubs.

Edited Friday at 10:46 PM by El D

[Sovera]

1 hour ago, Snarky said:

That is because, in this case, CoH accurately reflects the real world.

 

I HATE Longbow.  I started as a villain, and they have been kicking my butt for a long time.  And me theirs.  I wish there was a badge for 10,000 Longbow, and 100,000!

 

Longbow are accurate, in my opinion.  NO "good" groups in the real world have EVER stayed 100% moral.  The higher their standard, the farther they fall from reaching it.  Especially over time.  Many humans are idealists, especially when young.  You see these folks race to join the fight, "do right" and "change the world"  Years go by.  If they survive, and are somehow still at it, they have seen a LOT usually.  And they are just "trying to get by" "doing the best they can in the situation" "make it to retirement"  "...get revenge for the wrongs they have personally seen, whether their superiors/order/group would agree... in a public statement that is..."

 

Longbow is another in a long long line of all too human organizations that turn highly moral motivated children into warriors, into veterans, into morally questioning and morally questionable fighters just trying to make it through the day getting it "mostly right"

omg, you're back.


Ahem. Anyway, yes, I've always disliked this. Mind you that I am not a fan either of pure and untarnished heroes. Them having flaws and overcoming them is a better narrative, IMO, than just being naturally so good and perfect.

 

That said it's a difficult line to thread too. And it often becomes repetitive. (Tony Stark&Carol Danvers' drinking problem). And after reading so many alternate superhero stories with original characters where they are problemative (violent, or corrupt) I have yet to find a good hero-but-with-flaws concept that has grabbed me. Heck, even the Punisher (who is not a role model) is 'perfect' in that I don't remember a story where he killed a bad guy only to have later info surfacing showing he was innocent after all.

 

So might as well keep them clean and untarnished since they are aspirational. As was brought up many times the best Superman stories are not the ones he runs around at super speed punching bad guys to the moon but where he is a good person and thanks to his abilities he can reach out further and farther than most to spread that.

 

 

Longbow as the good guys would please me more, and then have some sort of vigilante group with good intentions but Punisher like behavior.

 

22 hours ago, Techwright said:

But that's actually real life, too.  Name any "good guy" group that people respect, and if you dig into their history enough, you'll find some pretty bad people and moments.  It is the policing of themselves, or the arrangement to be policed by an outside oversight group, that continually helps refine the group to maintain that "good guy" reputation.    It is nice to have, in concept, a group that cannot be corrupted.  It is quite another to find it in real life.  I do like the idea of Longbow internally policing themselves, though.

 

I think Green Lanterns have always been shown to be a power for good. The one bad GL that I remember (I am an avid GL fan but don't know everything) was Sinestro who was cast down the moment his slow decline was revealed.

Edited Friday at 10:56 PM by Sovera

[biostem]

Aren't the Legacy Chain kind of the "lawful good" faction?  Sure they're zealous in their approach, and don't really have a presence on blue side, but they exist...

Edited Friday at 10:54 PM by biostem

[BasiliskXVIII]

1 hour ago, Snarky said:

Longbow are accurate, in my opinion.  NO "good" groups in the real world have EVER stayed 100% moral.  The higher their standard, the farther they fall from reaching it.  Especially over time.  Many humans are idealists, especially when young.  You see these folks race to join the fight, "do right" and "change the world"  Years go by.  If they survive, and are somehow still at it, they have seen a LOT usually.  And they are just "trying to get by" "doing the best they can in the situation" "make it to retirement"  "...get revenge for the wrongs they have personally seen, whether their superiors/order/group would agree... in a public statement that is..."

 

I've been thinking about this some more and I'm not sure I can agree with this premise. Every group is obviously going to be only as strong as their weakest link, so in the real world we have to make some allowance for the fact that there may be some failures in the lower branches. But there's plenty of groups who've been around forever and who provide an aggregate good. Think about your municipal humane society or homeless welfare groups. At larger scales there's organizations like Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) and the Red Cross/Red Crescent. Habitat for Humanity. The thing is that the news doesn't report on "Group does nothing controversial, continues to make world a better place", and even if they did, let's face it, people wouldn't read it.

[Snarky]

25 minutes ago, BasiliskXVIII said:

 

I've been thinking about this some more and I'm not sure I can agree with this premise. Every group is obviously going to be only as strong as their weakest link, so in the real world we have to make some allowance for the fact that there may be some failures in the lower branches. But there's plenty of groups who've been around forever and who provide an aggregate good. Think about your municipal humane society or homeless welfare groups. At larger scales there's organizations like Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) and the Red Cross/Red Crescent. Habitat for Humanity. The thing is that the news doesn't report on "Group does nothing controversial, continues to make world a better place", and even if they did, let's face it, people wouldn't read it.

oh i never said longbow was evil or bad.  one of the most annoying things about them is the river of ever hopeful would be do-gooders swelling their ranks.

 

longbow is not a secret society, nor do i believe it has a corrupt core.  i simply, and by my nature unchangeably, believe that with the power longbow has it will inevitably cause bad things to happen, have personnel within it's ranks abuse power, have 'cliques' that form inside who are following the rules....but some of the pages they made up themselves, in an honest (and probably doomed) effort to make things better.  and then the Lt Harris problems arise everywhere.  even, or especially, with groups like Longbow.

 

and lastly, the war that Longbow fights will continually weigh down those who fight the battles.  and they will become, inevitably, a tad bit grey.

Edited yesterday at 12:00 AM by Snarky

[El D]

2 hours ago, Snarky said:

oh i never said longbow was evil or bad.  one of the most annoying things about them is the river of ever hopeful would be do-gooders swelling their ranks.

 

longbow is not a secret society, nor do i believe it has a corrupt core.  i simply, and by my nature unchangeably, believe that with the power longbow has it will inevitably cause bad things to happen, have personnel within it's ranks abuse power, have 'cliques' that form inside who are following the rules....but some of the pages they made up themselves, in an honest (and probably doomed) effort to make things better.  and then the Lt Harris problems arise everywhere.  even, or especially, with groups like Longbow.

 

and lastly, the war that Longbow fights will continually weigh down those who fight the battles.  and they will become, inevitably, a tad bit grey.

 

You know, this could actually be an interesting path for an subversion of that whole 'an entire faction splits off from the main one for X reason' story arc plot that CoH has already done multiple times over. Having instances like this crop up in Longbow but the organization addresses them promptly - with the requisite player involvement of course - would be a way to include this aspect while still maintaining Longbow as the 'top shelf reputation' hero group, emphasizing that they actually take accountability for it rather than letting it fester (when they can). Given the example of Lt. Harris it's already canon that Longbow isn't immune to such issues, but this would also account for Longbow not being plagued by broad in-fighting as some of the other groups have been. They have bad eggs but not nearly as many, so why not let the player get involved as to why?

 

In-retrospect your assessment was more nuanced than I realized and my prior post was overly dismissive, so for that I apologize.

Edited 23 hours ago by El D

[BlackSpectre]

On 3/6/2025 at 5:00 PM, BasiliskXVIII said:

he whole premise of superheroes is "what if someone with power was actually a decent human being, too?" Which, as reality shows us, is clearly fantasy. 

You can be a decent human being and be sent to jail. You can be a decent human being and make really bad decisions because... well... there is so much guesswork in life and life is complicated. Sometimes too complicated for our meager human intelligence and perception. You can have good intentions and get evil results. Doesn't make you a bad or even a gray person... just a very unlucky, ignorant, or unwise one.  Unforeseen consequences even. As such, the true hallmark of a decent person is the desire and striving to make things right if they break something (assuming that's possible). 

[twozerofoxtrot]

On 3/7/2025 at 8:11 AM, BasiliskXVIII said:

Longbow, for all their flaws, could have filled that role—but instead, their increasing drift into overreach and self-righteous vigilantism has made them feel indistinguishable from many of the other factions operating in the game.

Your perspectives on the faction are yours to have, but you might be reading into something that was never there.

As a player who only ever interacted with the game on Live via CoV, not ever having played a hero or blueside/goldside until 2019, Longbow always appeared to me as self-righteous vigilantes, and a sort of sneering, tongue-and-cheek parody of American mercenaries overseas.

 

What you saw in them, I never did. What you see in them now what I always did.

As for the truly good and honorable heroes? That's for us to play. 

And that's probably the point.

[Crasical]

The Legacy Chain never actually do anything wrong, I don't think, they just have bad vibes, and aren't actually very *effective*, they kind of get crushed out of existence with huge numbers of their order getting wiped out by the player villain in the Striga and Blood Coral arcs.

 

The PPD are, despite a lot of the playerbase/characters professing to hate cops, mostly portrayed as honorable and upright. A handful of dirty cops in Kings Row, the one time that they thought they were being denied lifesaving medical tech (Which, with how *obscenely* dangerous police work is in Paragon, wasn't entirely unfair) and Blue Steel freaking out and beating a guy mostly to death that one time.

[biostem]

Longbow are just the particular PMC that got a notable hero's backing and a veneer of legitimacy;  The vast majority of their members are just guys with guns.  Sure, they have some superpowered individuals, but so does Crey and other groups.  You don't really see them helping cats out of trees or little old ladies cross the street, so what actually makes them better than other "good" groups?  Heck, the PPD seem to do more to aid regular people, and who doesn't appreciate a nice Hawaiian shirt?  

[FupDup]

The Wyvern are more of the "vigilante" kind of hero faction than Longbow, especially after the events of Who Will Die (Manticore was supposed to turn vigilante/edgy after that arc and he's the one who bankrolls Wyvern). 

[JJDrakken]

Longbow are corrupted shit birds. 

 

They are like any large Organization with nearly unlimited funds.  They eventually become corrupt. Not all of em, but a good chunk.  If you follow all Longbow stories through Red, Tips, & RWZ. 

 

You'll realize oh...these guy are dickheads for the most part.  I basically consider them Hardcore Well Funded Far Right Wing Militias.  Again not all of them, but enough of them.  Just follow stories and read up on them through out the game.  You'll see the gradual corruption of them.

 

I even have a toon based on them.  Called Mocking Bow(TA/A Defender). Who was a prisoner of theirs.  He was small time crook just trying survive on the Rogue Isles. But got caught in a "sweep" on Mercy Island. Then tortured, locked up, and abused till he was free during The Zig break out.   (Redside tutorial).

 

The Zig is basically U.S. Guantanamo Bay.  Again something started to try keep the piece from all violent villains, but eventually went same route as Longbow.  With them just passing off prisoners to Crey, Longbow, etc.. for "reasons"

[keyguardactive]

I think of Longbow as reflecting their leadership. They are run by a superpowered teenage girl, so they are by their nature idealistic, short sighted, and reactionary. 

 

If I had the pencil on this, the story would be that NATO and Freedom Corps decide to go in a different direction and appoint Lt. Tendaji the new Director. He takes over and elects to re-focus their efforts. They're a support network for the heroes, but their also a militia. They get the players involved by appointing us leader of a battalion. We would be able to send our squad on missions, to raid Arachnos warehouses, to stop low-level villain plots, what have you. Your hero decides if they're on a constant noble path, or if they're also occasionally knocking over a HeroCorps warehouse or interfering with a Wyvern mission. There would be a list of choices. (this is all things selected from a menu and then done on a timer. Idle stuff happening in the background while we're doing other things) When you see the missions list, it tells you the % chance that they'll succeed. If they're successful they bring back enhancements or invention salvage or whatever. More success levels up your squad and unlocks missions with better rewards. Every X number of successful raids we send our battalion on, it unlocks a mission where we lead a pair of Longbow NPCs to take down a slightly bigger threat. Maybe we stack those up too and after X number of bigger missions we face an archvillian. I'm spitballing. 

 

Then Longbow is what you make of it. You want them to be Paragons of Virtue? Awesome. You like that they're a little dirty? Be our guest. 

 

Did I just propose an entire new system for the game? Yes. Is that reasonable? Absolutely not.

 

 

 

[The Chairman]

36 minutes ago, keyguardactive said:

If I had the pencil on this, the story would be that NATO and Freedom Corps decide to go in a different direction and appoint Lt. Tendaji the new Director.

 

While your idea is interesting, I would suggest a different person to head Longbow given the events of The Horror of War (*spoilers).

[El D]

57 minutes ago, The Chairman said:

 

While your idea is interesting, I would suggest a different person to head Longbow given the events of The Horror of War (*spoilers).

 

Considering that, Captain Dietrich taking on a director mantle for an arc overseeing Longbow's personnel revision in-light of everything with Vanguard and the Praetorian War would make a lot of sense. Integrating Praetorian refugees, diplomacy with Rikti Traditionalists, and keeping a sharp eye out for Nemesis automatons on top of the normal hurdles of managing a vast paramilitary organization that already has Arachnos to contend with would be a fantastic place to pick up with this kind of arc. They have to account for the comic book-level fracturing (clones, time travel nonsense, robot replacement, super spies, etc) as well as general disillusionment and moral compromise. It'd even work with Dietrich's own arc through the Vanguard content, and how she'd have to confront her own desires for strict morality and righteous justice vs wondering when she herself would be crossing a line. 'Sometimes I think about what Sefu would choose.'

 

Alternately (spoilers)

Spoiler

Just bring Sefu back. Off the cuff I'm not in-favor of that narrative choice since it kind of undercuts his death but also, it's not like resurrection handwaves aren't available out the wazoo in this setting as is. Why not give it to the good dude who deserves it? That way there could be a Hero morality arc with Sefu and a Vigilante arc with Dietrich, bring some of those Praetorian mission tech choices into Primal Earth.

 

1 hour ago, keyguardactive said:

I think of Longbow as reflecting their leadership. They are run by a superpowered teenage girl, so they are by their nature idealistic, short sighted, and reactionary.

 

Ms. Liberty can't be a teenage girl via the game's original lifespan alone. Longbow first showed up in 2005 and she'd been an established hero well before then working with Statesman and founding the Vindicators. The game ran until 2012 - even if Libby was 18 on launch (and we accept that she did all of that 'before the game' stuff while literally in high school) she'd be at least 26 by the end. Ms. Liberty was probably a nebulous 'mid/late-20s' for most of the game's lifespan and is at least in her late 30s if not early 40s by now.

 

Of course not all of her dialogue or writing reflects that, but well, see the prior comments about the Red Widow arc. Libby could be written so much better if things focused on her being a competent superhero trained by Statesman and actually effective at organizing people rather than seeming to stick with 'she's a blonde' and valley girl nonsense packaged with 'I'm idealistic so I don't need logistics or pragmatism or any of the actual aspects of my job.'

Edited 1 hour ago by El D