Chris24601

Personally, I’d move Matthew Habashy to just off Ms. Liberty to the left facing her so the mission icon over him is clearly visible as you’re headed up the stairs (default human behavior if you’re placed at the bottom of a flight of stairs that are clearly dominating your field of vision is to climb them because the view will be better). Alternately, I would move the Start location to inside City Hall (in the alcove by the merit vending machine facing out) with Matt at the top of the stairs heading down to the Origin contacts and Ms. Liberty in the center of the rotunda. If I was going really wild I’d redesign city hall to remove the doors (or rather have them sitting open so you could walk in and out without needing to click anywhere). I’d also put the START vendor and a basic Freedom Corps vendor near the Supergroup registrar and give that FC vendor a dialogue box (like START has) that has them explain Freedom Corps, enhancements and inspirations (in the context of FC being Hero Support) in more detail. That way when you first appear you have the trainer dead ahead, your first mission contacts just past them in the confined area of the building, to your left along the wall would be the merit vendor, basic vendor, START vendor and supergroup registration and to your right lies the open world.

Thank you. Genuinely. It was driving me nuts. So observer status currently includes the Holy See, Palestine, Taiwan and similar that are either very small or contested. That makes sense. It’d still be nice to have something about Longbow’s invasion of a country having some sort of backing by another nation(s) and not just some hero with a private army unilaterally deciding it’s a good idea to try and overthrow a country. I think part of the problem is it feels like it’s a “dog catches car… now what?” sort of situation. Just what is Longbow hoping to replace Arachnos with once they’ve completed their military campaign to completely excise Arachnos from control? Free elections among a population that is utterly dominated by super villains and criminal organizations? An oligarchy of Cage and Crey and AeonTech? Reforming RIP into a legitimate police force? Or are they going to do the US standard of occupying it indefinitely while propping up a friendly government they picked, suffer ongoing attacks from local resistance until it gets too expensive in money and lives and they abandon it and any allies they had to a power vacuum where the successor is as bad or worse than the one they overthrew? It may have made sense when it was written in 2005-6 when Ms. Liberty was an overly idealistic teenager (and the audience bought into America as the unabashed good guys bringing democracy to the world at the end of a gun) But if it’s 2024* then Longbow’s efforts aee a near two decades long operation led by someone now pushing 40 and the audience for the story has long since grown sick of American military interventionism and its disastrous consequences for the people they’re ostensibly trying to save. Regarding the being more a theme park than something that actually functions I think the LiveDevs arguably made things worse during the Praetorian Invasion event when they broke the illusion by having Lord Recluse pronounce “Protect the Shrimping Industry! Do you think we survive on an endless cycle of crime!?!” And now you’re left with that either being a non-canon joke by a dev poking fun at how stupid the Rogue Isles are as a concept -or- it’s a serious statement and… and that’s almost worse because now you have to justify why Arachnos tolerates ANY crime within its borders (outside of say a Hunger Games-ish arena for potential recruits to prove themselves) given it now actually has a real economy it needs to support to keep its military arms going. Redside is a mess that isn’t coherent and exists only because back in the day Jack decided to make the CoV setting into something based on Doom’s Latveria (which in the Marvel Universe has ZERO crime because Doom crushes anyone who attempts it) instead of being Gotham to Paragon’s Metropolis. I think it could mostly be fixable with some text changes and revamp of the RIP into a real (if Gotham-tier corrupt) police force (shifting certain contacts that are more “law and order” focused like Marshal Brass into the RIP… Brass is totally the Commissioner Gordon type trying to keep the corrupt cronyism of his bosses from blowing up the city) and then reframing Arachnos as just the top villain organization with their fingers in everything (i.e. puppetmasters who fixed the elections to keep Doc Aeon in power instead of just appointing him as Governor) and Grandville as essentially Arachnos’ Volcano Lair that only high level villains are allowed to visit. Now you reframe Longbow as still a private army, but one hired by some of the few legitimate authorities of the Isles who know the RIP are completely outmatched in the war on crime. They’re not there to take over, they’re there to keep things stable for the legitimate government. You’re still broken out by Arachnos and dumped on Mercy Island (restore the original arrangement where you start in the wastes and have to work your way up to the city) because they’re actually looking for recruits/the Destined One, but now they’re more hands off until you get strong enough to be recruited by an Arachnos Patron though various underlings like Kalinda and existing Arachnos contacts can still make use of your abilities in the meantime… just not as an authority of the island; the actual authorities (RIP and Longbow and even Wyvern and the Legacy Chain in some places) are universally out to get you. Basically, make the Rogue Isles into Gotham and Arachnos into the premiere villain group (akin to the Council or Nemesis, but bigger) and slowly rewrite the contacts from people treating you like lackeys to people offering you opportunities for profit** until you’re strong enough for Arachnos to reach out to you again (in the meantime you check in with the Arbiters to level up who evaluate you on your progress to be worthy of joining the organization). * even if it’s decided that it’s officially still 2013 in the verse it’s still been nearly a decade and Ms. Liberty has long since stopped being a teenager… which is to say it’s stopped looking like an ill-conceived teenager’s plan and looks a lot like doubling down on stupid out of pride with no clear exit strategy nor plan for what to do if they actually won. ** A decent Redside perk I could see adding would be single-use summon powers for some of the contacts you’ve finished the story arc of. You did them a solid, so now they’ll do one favor for you in return. Yes, it’s unfair compared to hero rewards (where you’re helping out of altruism), but Redside is all about seizing the opportunities you care about… so it makes sense the rewards would be more tangible.

At a certain point you are what you demonstrate yourself to be. For all China’s insistence that it is not, at the end of the the day Taiwan is an independent country because everyone else treats it like one. If unanimous consent of the world were required to make something officially a sovereign nation then Israel wouldn’t be a country. Most of its neighbors still do not recognize it as a sovereign country. The Rogue Isles are a nation because Arachnos has been in control for more than half-a-century and behaves as if it were the legitimate government of the Rogue Isles and no one in all that time has been able to change that. To try and drag this back to the topic at hand; one of the problems with Red Side is that the Rogue Isles, Longbow, etc. don’t actually hold together conceptually very well compared to Paragon City or Praetoria. You don’t even think it’s a real country; I think it meets every meaningful criteria (and I swear somewhere in one of the missions or other bits of canon there’s a line about Arachnos having a UN representative… I can’t find it presently, but that’s way too random for my mind to have whipped it up out of nowhere… maybe it did, but until I finish my Ahab-like quest for the White Whale/Arachnos Ambassador through all the lore I’m not giving it up yet). Basically, Paragon City makes sense as a post-invasion metropolis that is basically an American city except where specific events have altered it (in their Pre-CoV form Freedom Corp were just the vendors that PCs visited for early level enhancements and selling enhancements/inspirations which fits the original description as a private organization committed to assisting heroes). Registered Heroes were specifically set up as an adjunct to the police with laws that granted them a security level and police powers. The structure of the government and the role of various elements like Freedom Corps makes sense and the villains are criminal organizations acting within the city. Similarly, Praetoria makes sense as a fascist dystopia in which the PC is a registered member of the Powers Division (and may or may not also be a member of the Resistance). The leadership again makes sense and within the game even the Resistance PC is undercover within Powers Division. The Rogue Isles are just a mess. The relationship between Arachnos and RIP is weird. You have a clearance card and get training and enhancements through Arachnos, but also get attacked by Arachnos mobs just because the PCs need hostile mobs to fight. Longbow seems there mostly just to stir up trouble (and concoct awful schemes like using mind control on villains to make them your army) and give PCs another group that are actually ostensibly heroes to fight. Various corrupt corporations are present along with the Mob and… … I’m just going to say it. The main reason Redside doesn’t work is it’s a Theme Park not a place built to actually function. It’s easy to plug conventional economics and politics into Paragon City and pretend it’s something that actually works. Real care was taken in the Praetoria revamp to make it into a place that wasn’t just a bombed out mirror universe (i.e. more akin to The Justice Lords instead of Earth-3’s Crime Syndicate; the latter of which only isn’t a crater out of sheer narrative fiat that it be Prime Earth’s perfect mirror). The Rogue Isles lacks that. It’s a Darwinian anarchy one moment, a tyrannical military dictatorship at others, a crony capitalist dystopia and an crime-ridden urban hellscape all smushed together into something that is trying to be all things to all villains at once. It would literally make more sense as some sort of villain theme park or Hunger Games type competition for who gets to live long enough to join Arachnos’ ranks than as any sort of even-remotely functional society. Longbow is just a symptom of that lack of cohesion and decision to make CoV it’s own separate environment instead of an underlay of the criminal underworld to an otherwise functional city (ex. Gotham doesn’t have Mayor Bane or Joker except as a brief aberration). “Shoot, we made it a setting where the villains are actually in charge, but need to give players the chance to punch heroes in the face. I know, let’s have the heroes conduct a military invasion of the isles!” Its one thing for the government to be too weak and ineffectual to stop criminals. It’s another when TPTB actually want you to commit crime sprees to prove yourself worthy of membership. The foundation of Redside just doesn’t work and that makes it hard for other elements of it to work.

Indeed, it’s about the only time you see them. ”Let’s mind control people into being heroes because that’s TOTALLY ethical” is literally one of the story arcs. And even if they’re all registered under the same act that lets heroes operate in Paragon City, they’re still a military NGO operating unsanctioned in a foreign sovereign territory which by the Geneva Conventions makes them unlawful combatants and war criminals. “I’m a HERO and they’re the VILLAIN so that makes whatever I do okay” is for toddlers. It’d be one thing if Arachnos were itself an NGO seeking to overthrow the Etoile Islands legitimate government and Longbow was a UN peacekeeping force headed by Ms. Liberty and working with the legitimate government to stop Arachnos. It’d also be another thing if Longbow were say, associated with Interpol and comfined their operations to the pursuit of criminals wanted in other countries who’d fled to the Rogue Isles (and used methods appropriate to that purpose). But it’s not. The Rogue Isles are recognized and has a seat in the UN. Longbow is an American NGO conducting illegal military operations in a foreign country (and other dimensions in defiance of UN charter where that’s the perview of Vanguard) specifically seeking the overthrow of that government and should, realistically, be causing no end of headaches for the US government and its foreign relations. Longbow also unilaterally decides it should be able to shut down a sanctioned UN military operation just because they don’t like how it’s being run. Their core argument is “I (Ms. Liberty) am popular so I should get what I want.” Imagine Elon Musk thinking that he has the right to take over running the Ukrainian war because he didn’t like how it was being run. Yes, it is THAT stupid. Longbow is THAT stupid. It’s hard to sell “Rogue Longbow Agents” when their whole operation is a violation of international law. Which is why it either needs to be acknowledged as an off-the-rails villain group with good publicity that needs to have real heroes stop it -or- it needs to be fixed so it’s not a massively criminal organization that realistically would be labeled as terrorists by any nation not the USA. Here’s a simple, text only, fix… make Longbow a division of the US Military, remove UN recognition of the Rogue Isles government, and have Longbow’s actions in the Rogue Isles be a sanctioned UN operation to overthrow what the world has declared is an illegitimate regime. Now Longbow are uniformed combatants in a declared war and when they seek to get Vanguard shut down, it’s because they’re the US Military and it’s US Soil that Vanguard is operating on (and doing black ops stuff without coordinating with the actual government). Their level 35+ troops could still seriously stand some revamping (make their uniforms more obviously armor, use energy weapons, more jet packs, etc.), but that’s a separate issue.

The related issue to the weapons/disregard for collateral damage (and tip missions where Longbow says “screw the law, I’m murdering this person” and you as a hero have to stop them) is that they are NOT some government agency like Vanguard (UN sanctioned defense force) or Arachnos/Praetoria (government raised armed forced). No, Longbow is a private military company funded by an NGO (Freedom Corps). It’s the equivalent of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation deciding to assemble a private army and sending it into sovereign countries for military operations to seek their overthrow. Their very existence is basically a war crime that only makes sense if you consider the complete chaos following the Rikti War and that the daughter/granddaughter of Statemen are the ones backing it. The further the story gets from that point, the more one would expect questions to start being asked about Longbow and it’s authority/purpose.

For me, the powers that most need alternate animations are the Medicine Pool. Pulling out a chonky green tricorder really doesn’t fit very many concepts at all (and yet Aid Other proves absolutely vital if you don’t have another option to all the high end content where they drop an NPC you’re expected to keep alive on you… unless you LIKE afk-ing for 5 minutes for them to regen because their aggro has been set to “if it’s within 1000 yards… attack it. Attack it NOW!”). An option to pull out a wand (for magic types) or just a generic wave your hands around while colored light shoots out would do wonders.

Yeah, Longbow really got itself Flanderized since it’s introduction and I’d say the RWZ revamp was the start, and the advent of the tip missions (where they invariably show up as extremists looking to kill rather than capture various villains out of some officer’s need for revenge) sealing the deal. It’d be one thing if they were actually sanctioned by some sort legitimate government; but they’re not. Freedom Corps is a private firm and Longbow is Ms. Liberty’s private militia/army… who use miniguns and flamethrowers against civilians and, based tip missions, are little more than vigilantes given cover by their boss being Stateman’s granddaughter… butting into things that are literally police matters with an intent to murder someone. Per the Praetorian arcs they also cause headaches for Vanguard by trying to invade Praetorian Earth because apparently they never got the memo that it’s not actually “Earth where everyone is Evil so you’re free to murder them.” Frankly, there either needs to be… A) canon acknowledgment that Longbow is off the rails and actually villains with good publicity… preferably with a Ms. Liberty tries to shut them down, but they go rogue (or elsewise stop with Ms. Liberty as basically the face of the game/starter zone trainer and put Back Alley Brawler at the base of the Atlas Park statue). Make them con Yellow in Paragon (in addition to their usual Red in the Isles). B) Give them a total revamp using the powers and FX for the Praetoria Police (and Paragon Police) that are meant to represent non-lethal apprehension devices as a basis. No one would be making jokes about war crimes if they were lobbing electronets instead of grenades, tear gas in place of flame throwers, or using stun beams in place of miniguns. This would also eliminate some of the silliness of high end missions where compared to Vanguard (troops in Imperivium armor with rail guns, energy blades, and outright sorcerers), Arachnos (power armored troops, psychics and mystics) or the IDF (power armor, robots, psychics) you have Longbow still using guys in spandex with miniguns and flamethrowers.

Personally, I’d like to see the zone limitations removed entirely and some hero contacts added to the Rogue Isles and villain contacts to Paragon City. Set them up with Newspaper and villain tip missions in Paragon too because the idea that the villains all fly back to the Rogue Isles after every bank heist is pretty absurd. Take advantage of the low level Sewer Zone to set up some Villain lairs more like the Resistance has in Praetoria. Flip the conning for Longbow for heroes/vigilantes and put some sort PC accessible “forward base” options for them. While we’re at it, maybe consider giving a serious revamp to Longbow so the ostensible “good guys” aren’t regularly committing war crimes (beyond the already existing “invading a sovereign country to attempt its subversion and overthrow” bit). Right now they’re practically a joke in the sense of basically coming off more villainous than a lot of the ostensible villains and the Praetoria Police Department (literal fascists) look downright humane compared to Longbow. I mean, maybe Ms. Liberty and Longbow are supposed to be played like the protagonists of the Starship Troopers movie, but that whole thing just rebounds so badly into the Blueside that it’s hard to take any of the big bluesiders as anything but thugs with good publicity… to the point I’d almost like an option to play as an unregistered superhero just for the “not cooperating with corrupt authorities” angle. In lieu of villains being able to hide out in Paragon City, I’d settle for an alternative to Grandville (i.e. Arachnos central) with its heavy focus on outright villainy that makes playing a Rogue in the level 40+ range largely a matter of repeating the Rogue Tip missions and Newspapers until you get tired of them (Hardcase typically marks the last real Rogue-friendly contact in the Redside level-up game). Pretty much everything else after that seems to presume you’re in it “for the evuls” instead of having any sort of standards remaining. I dunno. This is probably just me being rambly. I said my main piece a while back, so this is more just random supplemental thoughts that have come to me since then. ETA: just realized that for the alternate 40+ zone, we already have the one side of Kallisti Wharf if it could ever get populated with mobs and some contacts.

Personally, if something were to be done with the fighting pool, I’d replace both boxing and kick with buffs to brawl (which has an alternate kick animation for weapon users). I know it already does this as a minor side buff, but I’m saying make the buff to brawl the actual focus of the power and thereby replace the extra click power with an auto power that makes brawl better. Also maybe include the kick animation along with the left and right punch in brawl’s default animation rotation… or make it a customization option; standard, left only, right only, kick only, punch/punch/kick mix).

All I know about difficulty is that I first learned this game back in issue 6 soloing a Blaster through all the Circle, BP, more Circle and then Carnie missions because I was magic origin and thought that’s what I should be trying to fight (and I memorized all the Oranbegan map hostage spawn points in the process). I learned how to solo the Envoy of Shadows with a pre-IO, pre-Defiance revamp (remember the pink bar as your health dropped?) Blaster. The second toon I rolled up and soloed to 50 was an issue 6 era Peacebringer. Everything has been easy mode since then. 😇

I’d say for higher level spawns in PI; how about reworking the Rikti Monkey island for a bit more variety? An entire section of the map I only visit long enough to get the badges and then ignore because all that’s there are Rikti monkeys. You could still have the monkeys be the majority of spawns, but maybe throw in some regular Rikti, some CoT and some DE up there for various purposes (the Rikti to manage their experiment, CoT to study the giant monster bones, the DE to cleanse the island of its corruption).

For me, the first caveat is that I want the Patron access concept (Sicorro goes Rogue and offers Patron access to rogues and heroes who do his arc, Manticore goes vigilante and offers Patron access to vigilantes and villains who want the power without the Arachnos patron). I’d lean towards something similar for that with hero patrons. Have four genuine patrons, then some sort of Redside “steal their powers” arc to grant them for villains. One thing I would consider though is instead of the Freedom Phalanx; use the original Single Origin Enhancement vendors (Serafina, Holsten Armitage, Agent Six, Mark IV, and Penny Preston) and maybe expand upon the missions they already have as the way to unlock Patron Pools based on the origins. Then have Red Widow as a Redside contact working on a project for Lord Recluse (as part of or follow up to The Web from MLTF) about stealing Origin powers as the way for Redsiders to unlock the pools. For the origin pools, I’d look at ones to supplement the origin-based Utility Pools… indeed, maybe that could even be the theme of the next issue’s pages… Finish out the Origin Utility Pools. Add hero/vigilante access to the Patron pools via Scirocco and Manticore. Add Heroic “Patron” pools and Redside access to them.

Actually, this is a good point and a possible avenue towards implementing a feature like this. Zone events like Rikti and Zombies change the skybox/lighting and can implement zone-wide power effects (the debt-protection power that shows up on your list of active effects). It seems as if, if you wanted variable weather it could be approached as a benign Zone Event. Ex. Rain Event the skybox shifts to greyish clouds and everyone in zone gets the “rainfall FX” power effect until the event ends. Cloudy Event just changes the skybox/lighting for the duration. No idea if that’s feasible, but it might be a place to start looking.

These days I find Aid Other to be invaluable for all the higher level missions that insisted on adding suicidally aggressive allies (some of whom had to be kept alive to avoid mission failure). Not having to sit around for several minutes waiting for them to regenerate so they don’t die running into the next spawn is an absolute sanity saver. My only request is alternate animations because pulling out a green tricorder really doesn’t fit some concepts. I’d like a wand animation and a generic “two-handed gesture towards target/popping on a defensive toggle” for aid other/self.

The difference being that adding a ‘null’ set requires no alteration of coding beyond adding any other new costume option (and doesn’t require any new graphics). Fixing the three weapon issue requires digging into the spaghetti code. This isn’t to say it shouldn’t be fixed, just that the resources to add null options, should they decide to do so, are unlikely to be the same resources used to dig into the spaghetti code. When it comes to null options for weapons, I’d also appreciate one for claws, whose animations sans actual claws are just punches to which various existing costume pieces and auras could be stacked. In the alternative, I’d like to suggest a set of “pure energy” claws (think Psylocke’s psi-knives). The existing plasma blades are nice, but the large shiny metal emitters can clash with some designs. Regarding dual pistols, given the number of “wrist shooters” in the genre, I’d like to suggest not just the left pistol get the “null” option, but both. Any of the larger glove options could then have concealed weapons in them (and given how they can arc, it could even be variable payload micro-missiles). I would also like the option to replace the Tac Arrow animations with either a weaponless grenade throw or to use dual pistols animations; specifically because of the three weapon glitch with dual pistols. currently I justify the animations of the arrows and pose as me launching some sort or weird missiles, but having the option to make it use pistol animations (shot emerges from gun, end effect of net/ice/etc. still spawns on target) or tossed grenades would provide a lot more options. Heck, I’d like to suggest that even if the spaghetti code of invisible third weapons gets fixed.

Memory is a funny thing. I suspect you might be remembering an earlier point in Homecoming’s history (hard to believe, but it’s been almost five years now). My source is the old Paragon Wiki (https://archive.paragonwiki.com/wiki/Costumes); “The maximum number of costume slots was increased to ten (over the five standard slots) with City of Heroes Freedom/Issue 21; the five extra slots are available for 800 Paragon Points each on the Paragon Market. Purchased costume slots are account-wide, not character-specific. VEAT slots would continue to automatically occupy one of the ten slots available.” Issue 21 went live on September 27, 2011. Shutdown was November 30, 2012… so ten slots were actually only available for the last 14 months of Live.

That said, so long as the customization is optional, I think it’s a reasonable method to allow the customization to work. Even if each minion uses a different costume slot (instead of say, 1 slot per tier), that still leaves four open slots for the PC; which is as many as you had on Live prior to the Halloween Event. The extra 5 slots we get free now were only available on Live during the last year of operation and had to be bought for 800 Paragon Points each. The point is a whole lot of us on Live made due with 1-4 costume slots for virtually the entire life of the game. This method of getting customization to work would be no more onerous than what was the default play experience from 2004 to late 2011. Personally, I flip between maybe three costumes at most (hero w. mask, hero without mask, civies, maybe a short black dress for clubbing as a fourth if it’s a female toon) so I wouldn’t mind surrendering six slots for my pets to be customized at all. If there is a work around for customizing pets without using your costume slots, great! But don’t make the Perfect the enemy of the Good. If there is no readily apparent workaround in say [insert reasonable time frame here; I’d say 6-12 months] then don’t keep delaying a workable solution because a better method MIGHT someday be found. Offering it as an OPTION via costume slots (meaning you can use all your costume slots like now with the generic pets or devote up to six slots for custom minions) is still better than what we have now and it’s a trade at least some players would be willing to make.

I have a suggestion that’s one part feature, one part community contest. The feature would be adding an option to the base builder UI that will automatically set up and position the key base features and decor into a small base along, say, half-a-dozen themes (arcane, high-tech, cave, apartment, etc.) at the push of a button (with a WARNING screen that hitting confirm will undo any previous base design work). The community contest? Design one or more small bases to meet these themes. The winners’ bases get used as the presets with the name of their choice attached to it (ex. Stormfire’s Arcane Sanctum), immortalizing their efforts as a permanent part of the game.

Check out Piecemeal’s personal story (Redside). The Devs have already begun turning it into what is likely to be an Incarnate zone where normal folks are falling to ash, powered people feel weakened, gravity is misbehaving, and the Neo-Shivans are building some sort of portal or transmitter.

I’d use it for a supervillain in an AE arc. Just calling themselves that implies a sense of megalomaniacal villainy that’s hard to top.

In thinking about it further, I also expect it has to do with the fact that most of the texture layers in question work differently between the male and female models. Specifically, the male models don’t have a separate “tops” and “tops with skin” category… all the skin textures are just under the “tight” category and the textures can overlay any of them. But it’s all the same texture maps whether male, female, or huge and so doing the fixes would actually require adding a different skin texture for every pattern to the male “tight” category with further pointers to keep the wrong pattern from being using with the wrong skin map. And when you’ve already got a base texture map, a specular map, a bump map, and potentially a transparency map and/or reflection map, all potentially interacting with two color filter maps… let’s just say plugging all that into different channels on the mesh, and the costume creator’s exclusions database (ex. how it will literally remove all other options for cape-physics from the options available if you’ve selected one) means there’s a LOT more going on behind the scenes and in a place where it’d be very easy to break something critical to how the game parses it’s graphics. There’s a reason the term “standard code rant” exists… when something you think would be easy action turns out to be far more complicated than it appears. I am certain this particular complaint isn’t the first time it’s come up in the game’s history and, if it were anything easy to fix, it would have been already. This doesn’t mean it’s impossible, just that it’s likely not nearly easy as you think.

At issue is mainly that the models only have so many channels for colors/texture layers. In order for the skin texture to show up elsewhere on the top, bottom, etc. it has to be laid over the entire piece and then the color pattern dropped onto that. The only way to remove it would be to make an entirely separate skin pattern for each overlay. It’s theoretically doable, but very labor intensive.

It is, admittedly, hyperbole. But it does reflect one of the biggest problems Redside; the lack of agency for the players. Once you hit “mission accept” most missions lock you on a rail with no choice in how it turns out. Many Redside missions don’t include their atrocities in the pre-accept dialogue; you only find out after you’re locked onto that rail. So unless your villain concept is “complete irredeemable monster” your concept gets broken as soon as you touch one of those rails… and there no genuinely safe in-game way to avoid them. You have to metagame by pausing before each contact choice or that first mission accept to find a Wiki or similar resource to read through the entire storh arc just to make sure you’re not going to be committing some war crime (releasing bio-weapons, stopping people from curing people infected by bio-weapons, kidnapping people for experimentation, helping a stalker murder his victim, etc.). Then you slog through the content you’ve already read the story to. If the mechanics are good it can be fun, but there’s not going to be any surprises. That’s a lot of work to play a Redsider if you’re turned off by playing utter scum. Compare that to just rolling up a Bluesider you say is really a selfish rogur who’s only in it to enrich themselves by taking down bad guys and stealing their stuff. That’s 90% of the Rogue-friendly Redside mission content right there without worrying about getting locked to a track leading you over the moral cliff.

I’ve literally not seen the Mage-Killer Tatiana arc just because the contact’s title “Mage-Killer” and the arc title “Last Witch of Striga.” Hearing later that it’s to get her freaking WEDDING RING*, knowing the story from the heroic version just puts that one so far beyond the pale for me. Completing that mission makes your character lower than dog feces in my opinion. That one guy wanted Rogues punished with being mistrusted? Well, I’ll agree to that IF any character that finishes that mission gets switched immediately to villain, locked out of choosing the Rogue option for tip missions and even Null saying “Dude, I can do a lot, but I can’t wash away THAT!” I can’t begin to tell you how much I hate that there’s no “drop story arc” option in this game. It’s not so much an issue Blueside where even an unfun mission is still a story of your character saving someone or stopping a criminal. But on Redside, YOU are the calamity that could befall innocents and needing to essentially find a wiki and read every mission ahead of time to make sure you aren’t exposing innocents to lethal plagues, or collecting victims to be experimented on, or doing anything for Westin Phipps. That level of diligence to avoid all the moral event horizons makes it more like work than something you’re doing for fun. * the ring with the flavor text of “This ring contains the power of Stephanie Peebles’ love for her late husband, Stephen.”

Other than just to give Rogues something unique, there is zero reason for an arc that includes both heroic, rogue and villain options at several points and is REALLY GOOD to be alignment locked to Rogue. Not to mention if you can’t have contacts as a Rogue as the other guy wanted, both that mission and the excellent Bobby Curtin arc wouldn’t be accessible to anyone despite being built FOR the Rogue alignment exclusively (non-Rogue Redsiders can’t even reach Houston to talk to him). Similarly the Rogue arc of Sgt. Schorr shows off the flexibility Red-Side missions could have in terms of approach and goals via in-mission triggers. The rewrite of the ending of the one Crosscut mission to allow you to NOT be a complete monster doesn’t even require any change of mechanics (you don’t turn the Skull over until the very end) and would make that entire arc more playable for a much wider range of players. Another metric I’d be interested in would be what percentage of players voluntarily fail the Marshal Brass mission to take out Amanda Vine’s broadcast despite the fact its not even difficult to complete and requires you to go faff about for an hour and a half waiting for the timer to run down before you can finish the arc (not a huge deal if you catch it in the level band, but kinda annoying if you’re getting it via Oroboros). More ability to choose your path; be it a broader array of Newspaper missions, more Tip missions, and/or more story arcs where you get a choice of approach; is probably the most resource-friendly approach for strengthening Redside.* I also contend that an option to betray the 5th Column and Mage-Killer contacts on Striga would be a good thing. The middle three arcs are sufficiently grey they’re good for either Villains or Rogues; but even big-time villains in comics have drawn the line at working with Neo-Nazis, while beating up an old widow to steal her wedding ring is just so petty that they may as well add a mission about kicking puppies… it’s so far over the moral event horizon you can’t see a character coming back from that to be anything other than pure villain (the most lame and boring kind from my perspective).