Go0gleplex

I've been running quite a bit of red side actually. More than Blue or Gold even... Only arcs I don't bother doing are Circle...mainly 'cause the halls of Oranbega make me feel hemmed in and sometimes trigger my mild claustrophobia. From my viewpoint and play style I really don't see much difference between blue side missions and red side missions other than the flavor text....so yes, I'm gonna say they are pretty much the same horse painted different colors and put in a different barn stall as you go. There could be more variety is what I'm saying...and variety is a good thing. Unlike many folks here, I'm not an obsessive mission fanatic but a casual player. I don't care about the numbers...tweaking every erg of percentage possible from my build...or any of that game pro nonsense. So yeah, I'm gonna have a much more simple view of things since I am not playing beyond Joe sends me to Mike who sends me Gus (which doesn't happen that much red side...almost never have consecutive contacts and have to do a lot of paper missions after Mercy. That's been true with all my red side toons over the last 18 months.

Despite the troll being his typical troll self.... I do agree that there really isn't much villainy behind many of the red side missions. A lot of back stabbing skulduggery between factions, theft, 'kidnappings', and so forth...but the difference between blue side and red side missions of those natures is mainly word play. There isn't a real feeling of villainy behind them. The bank robbery instances with the little arson and store thefts are more 'villainous' in a small town hood sort of way. I know it's not easy to write good villainy and have things still remain player friendly for the younger folks but... Maybe have designated 'open' contacts that belong to individual villain groups with spoiler missions against their counterparts...with a lot more destruction involved. Add strikes against more than just banks in the Informant instance; Blow up industrial sites, rampage thru the Zig to free as many inmates as possible, Steal all you can from a Vanguard/Longbow/Freedom Corps base, Arson strike against an entire zone while evading heroes and such, Go after an upcoming hero (non-canon) or small group of heroes before they become a real problem in the future, Sneak in and sabotage a bunch of equipment at a base or steal Rikti tech being reverse engineered, etc., Assist Arachnos in 'disciplining' a group in the islands that have overstepped the thin red line... So much possibility left in Red side beyond 'same missions different names' from Blue side without going to the PVP zones.

Not really. One thing is that there is a high number of enemies with Psychic attacks which a lot of ATs have weak defenses against as opposed to Blue and Red sides. Some missions have enemies swarm you or teleport in additional attackers which, if you're not ready for, can mess your day up quickly. You also seem to be at a disadvantage to range as well against clocks and resistance so knowing which need to get dropped first and fast helps your survival rate. Other than that...I find Gold side a lot more relaxing to run through and feel more like I'm in an actual city than I do Blue or Red sides.

To the moon Alice! - enhanced knockback sends target flying far far away Oopsie (Drop Weapon) - Hits target in tender location due to sheer dumb luck stunning and disorienting them due to the pain Hold my Beer! - Does something impossibly stupid...and still comes out successful. That's not a >weapon type< THIS is a >weapon type<! - Intimidation causing fear in nearby targets Now it's GLOWY! - weapon glows making it look really impressive, morale boost to owner and team protecting from fear type debuffs Bigger is Better - doubles weapon size making it really hard and slower to use...but damage is increased. Weapon Upgrade - Looks like a Rube Goldberg device afterwards but somehow is more accurate anyway ACME - Target hit by a falling anvil in addition to being successfully hit ACME PLUS - Target and adjacent mobs hit by falling anvils in AoE on top of being successfully hit

Clowns! Gotta have Clowns! Elemental Spirits (non-daemonic), Bugs, and humanoid golems. 😄 If they did an Air master - Powers: Vacuum, Wind blades/lance, Implosion, and Air Hammer/Ball are musts IMO.

Not affected me at all other than being happy seeing more toons on Torch when I log on rather than a near ghost town. :)

Don't discount foreign languages for names as well. I had a KM/EA Brute named Mass Meister since Mass Master was unavailable. Fire Bolt taken...go German with Feuerblitz. Sounds just as cool. Or you can get a misdirect such as Leech using Japanese becomes Hiru (close to Hero) Just don't use Welsh...I'm Welsh descent and not even I can pronounce much of the language. LOL

I've never had any issues with timed missions, Veles included. Most of them I don't even hit the halfway mark before completing...and that's going solo. I'd simply like to see a LOT more variety in villains throughout the zones rather than focus groups by level band. It's not like the bad guys are lacking numbers. 😉

Exactly. Coordinate. Communicate. Take a couple seconds before blasting into a tough fight to get everyone lined out about who's expected to do what. Things go a helluva lot smoother in my experience. (and not just in CoH/V) :)

Yes, tankers have an inherent aggro but it is limited to pretty much those in melee range. My original toon, Obsidiman, was an Inv/SS tank before the nerfs and I specialized being at the center of 20-30 mob dust ups. Taunt had to be spammed to keep the mobs at the fringes of that dog pile focused on me...just punching would let about half or more aggro on the squishies which is a failure as a Tank. With the now standard (nerfs) defense levels, it's pretty much suicide sinking in to more than ten mobs unless your healer is on the ball, but Taunt is still necessary to reign in the fringe mobs where the inherent aggro is weak to keep them off the squishies which is the whole point of being a Tank...in fact it was pretty much THE signature power of the Tank outside of the high defense. The reason Taunt has a range to it is also for the purpose of drawing the loose mob aggro back onto the Tank before they can reach the squishies...if the walking cuisinarts (scrappers) haven't shredded them by then.

I dunno. Given I play solo, taunt is pretty much very low on my priority list for powers. I think I have only one brute with it and I almost never use it. Now...if in a team, yeah, Taunt is an essential.

I'm sitting on a pillow...no names. 😉 Seriously though, some folks have a LOT (scores to hundreds) of alts and if running groups, get them to 50 fast so those are legit protected and wouldn't free up anyhow. I've got about 20 toons myself that I rotate playing and I'm sure I'm not alone in that. Several times I've had to come up with different names than I first thought up though, just part of the inventive thought process.

Yeah. The grandstanding...preemptively attacking (and drawing aggro down on everyone needlessly)...rushing ahead to hit the bosses while everyone is getting stomped by ticked off minions...and so forth back in the old days is why I am pretty much strictly solo these days. It wasn't limited to just the PUG TFs but any PUG mission group it seemed...and I already have a short fuse for stupid. Ignorant I can deal with. Stupid however; Just nope! Feed 'em to the xenos and good riddance to bad rubbish I say. I had a couple good teammates towards the last couple years playing but RL got in the way and we lost touch sadly. If you can find a good set of teammates it does make things funner, wilder, and easier in the long run but one idiot with bean curds for brains is all it takes to curdle the milk as it were.

The found the "I" in Team though. It was hidden in the A.... (refer to meme) :P

I've stopped and killed the dropped bombs and as soon as I've killed one, the Rikti start teleporting in on my location within a minute or so. Done this on St. Martial, Port Oakes, & Skyway City so far.

I've been running a Storm/Time blaster for a while now solo. Time has temporal healing-continuous heal over time which is really really handy once you get it. It also has a couple close powers that can make mobs at melee range seriously regret their life choices.

Anything and everything I can to avoid Kings Row and the endless Skull missions unless I'm feeling a bit M other than to get the exploration badges. Once I'm done with Atlas, I'll usually go to the Hollows, then Steel. That is if I'm not just running gold side til 20-30. I tend to avoid or limit my stay at Port Oakes as well due to the absolute boredom (few mission contacts other than the Radio) when running Red side...and Grave's missions are simply unappealing to me. Talos and IP are both rather monotonous as well. Being solo, no Task Force runs for me.

I solo exclusively...with many different arch types so I can say this with confidence; ALL arch types are survivable if you play smart rather than like a murder hobo laying waste to everything as soon as it's sighted. Some power combos make it a bit more challenging but out of about 30 toons over the last year plus I've only made maybe a dozen hospital visits between all of them. 😉

If by early content you mean; go to contact, get mission, go to mission entrance and blow thru per mission objectives, return to contact; rinse repeat with adding powers and enhancements as you level up...then yes. Granted it goes much faster if you're part of a team with larger groups of mobs to deal with than it does solo. But there is story-like content in with the clues, contact mission briefs/debriefs, and other things. One of the fun things for me personally is exploring the different zones though to be honest, red side and gold side are the only ones that seem like proper cities...more gold side than red even. That said, no reason to feel bad if you can't get enthused. Everyone has switches that flip for different reasons.

The traffic issues in P-town (heck, Oregon over all) are way too easy for me to get on a rant about. Suffice to say a LOT of issues related to sight and stop distances, approach grades, access management, and drainage/grading are ignored along with an overly optimistic view of driver psychology to get traffic to slow down. Think those skinny streets are bad for regular cars, EMS vehicles have it even worse and now they're all about adding bike lanes all over on already overly crowded substandard width streets. Combine all those ignored factors and it's no wonder why they have so many fatalities among bikes, peds, and vehicles.

Nice to see the Troll is alive and well...and still as shallow as a mud puddle.

I've been solo running Major Holocaust; a Fire/Rad Brute in the gold/red side on Triumph and he's been an absolute engine of destruction thru his career so far.

That's because you have everyone in city hall BUT the engineers designing the stupid things for bikes and pedestrians instead of the cars they're meant for. (road designer for nearly 40 yrs...ODOT = Oregon Department Obstructing Traffic. PBOT = Portland Bureau of Twits) The centerline strip should be a double yellow. The wide shoulder beyond the fog line stripe is likely due to the intersection being built to accommodate a future right turn lane or second lane for future development needs. The area looks like it's a business park or light industrial zone. Still, it's a major lawsuit waiting to happen for reasons that are non-relevant to the OP. :) That Swindon Traffic Circle looks to have been designed for two way traffic for some absurd reason. The number of collision points is terrifying. lol

Multi Pass is another name that should be avoided (insert free to ride jokes here). The hero guarding the bank should be named Access Denied.

I've been having some fun with an Ice/Time Blaster and Beam/EA Sentinel lately. Finding both highly effective.