My issue with redside

[Lockdown Artist]

I wish I fought the good guys more often. All I ever seem to do is take on other villain groups in a bid for power. But that's always been the least compelling part about being a villain to me.

 

All of my favorite villains are defined by their struggle against the hero: magneto vs the x men, shredder vs. the turtles, Vader vs. the rebels. That conflict is what allows them to truly be villains, to stomp all over the good guys as their foil.

 

And yet, I hardly ever get to be evil red side. Grandville paper missions pit me against arachnos, carnies, and CoT. Most of the strike forces have me fighting other villains. It just doesn't help me feel like an evil villain; more like corporate in fighting. I figured robbing a bank via a paper mission would have to put me up against some do gooder security. Nope, arachnos was running security. When do I get to murder a bunch of police on my way to burn down an orphanage? 

 

Are there any story arcs where I get to do bad things to good people, rather than just steal some item from other bad folks? On a side note, I wish there were more good groups to take down. Seems like longbow is 90% of them. What am I missing?

[drdread]

In comics, TV, and movies, the villain's plots usually drives the story. The heroes assemble to stop the villainous plot.

 

It would be cool if you, as a player, could start your own devious plot. You could have different plots: Terrorize Paragon City; ransom a person or place; overthrow the government; create a doomsday device or artifact. These could be treated as a task force mechanic, meaning you can't do anything else but concentrate on your plot. Each plot has different stages, as you assemble the plan, crew, and resources you need to carry out the plot. At each stage, one or more heroes could show up to try and stop you. The last stage of implementation could have a big battle where you and your crew fights off several heroes trying to stop you.

 

 

Edited December 18, 2019 by drdread
grammar

[Lines]

You're absolutely correct. Wyvern and Legacy Chain vanish after a certain point.

 

My advice is always the same: to change your expectations of redside away from being a villain. You're still a protagonist - not far off a hero, even - like you would be on blueside, only you're in a setting where righteousness is actively discouraged. Heroism is a relative term.

 

I think redside did miss the mark on trying to write you as a villain, but if you put aside that expectation, the storytelling on redside is absolutely fantastic.

 

There are a few villainous story arcs that eventually made their way in. The ones that come to mind are:

Operative Kuzmin (1-7)

Dean MacArthur (20-29) - Though i really don't like the writing in this. It's very forced.

Westin Phipps (40-44)

 

There are others, for sure. But these seemed a little more proactive on the character's part - antagonistic rather than protagonistic.

[siolfir]

4 minutes ago, Lines said:

You're absolutely correct. Wyvern and Legacy Chain vanish after a certain point.

 

My advice is always the same: to change your expectations of redside away from being a villain. You're still a protagonist - not far off a hero, even - like you would be on blueside, only you're in a setting where righteousness is actively discouraged. Heroism is a relative term.

 

I think redside did miss the mark on trying to write you as a villain, but if you put aside that expectation, the storytelling on redside is absolutely fantastic.

 

There are a few villainous story arcs that eventually made their way in. The ones that come to mind are:

Operative Kuzmin (1-7)

Dean MacArthur (20-29) - Though i really don't like the writing in this. It's very forced.

Westin Phipps (40-44)

 

There are others, for sure. But these seemed a little more proactive on the character's part - antagonistic rather than protagonistic.

Peter Themari's second arc has you turn a prospective hero into a villain. You later run into her again in Vernon von Grun's arc.

[tidge]

In Mayhem missions, you can unleash a spree of terror and destruction against civilians, police, and named heroes.

 

I suggest you do SSA1 "Who Will Die?", and that you don't leave the final mission of Arc 1 right away. Once the FP abuse you, you won't think twice about putting them down in lvl 40+ content.

 

My recollection is that at higher levels you really do get to be quite dastardly.

[Jolly Ogre]

make sure you do the https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Westin_Phipps arc.

 

5 Missions

• 5.1 Destroy school books
• 5.2 Eradicate nearby Arachnoids
• 5.3 Poison and destroy food for the needy
• 5.4 Eliminate the returned home-town hero
• 5.5 Kidnap Amanda Vines' Family

Edited December 18, 2019 by Jolly Ogre

[Snarky]

Yeah....  immersive.   So. You start iut a villian. A destined one. Broke and freash from the Zig.  You need cash and to carve out a space in the crimjnal underworld

 

even high end supervillians lkke Doc Aeon are pushing drugs (huge quantities) to finance workd domination activities

 

you can probably run 1-59 solo diing story arcs that revilve around fighting those guys in red and white who aee stomping villlains. Thats right. longbow.  If you look at the arcs carefully you will see a path to mostly just fight them all the way to 50. Without double exp and maybe having to turn off exp just to finish the story arcs of fighting Longbow the Freedom Phalanx and Heroes

 

yes. You will fight other villains.  Tou do understand it is not one big happy family Redside capische?

[boggo2300]

My other issue with red side is how often your agency over your character is stolen, how you are told how you react, how you feel, whether thats right for your character or not, bad luck.

 

I actively despise the writing red-side, it completely misses anything that made me FEEL like a villain, and often even in charge of my own character, I have never understood how many people love it, to me it's easily the worst part of the game.  and the reason I no longer go red side ever

[Snarky]

Yes. So much anger  so much hate. Vive in to it.  Street sweep

 

and you can street sweep longbow for a lot if not all redside

Edited December 18, 2019 by Snarky

[gameboy1234]

7 hours ago, Lockdown Artist said:

I wish I fought the good guys more often. All I ever seem to do is take on other villain groups in a bid for power. But that's always been the least compelling part about being a villain to me.

I think this nails it.  When it came out, I was disappointed that CoV didn't take place in Paragon City where villains could get up to some real mischief.  Stuffing them into a "walled garden" of their own I think in the end was a design mistake.  Maybe an easy one to make since foresight is never perfect, but still it would have been cooler to be able to interact with heroes more often.

 

[Snarky]

Uh. Pvp zones?

[boggo2300]

31 minutes ago, Snarky said:

Uh. Pvp zones?

which are usually emptier than red side zones...

[Haijinx]

Redside villains are more mercenary criminals vying for power than axe crazy lunatics.

 

More Blackgate than Arkham.  

 

They are still villains but not of the wanton murder orphanage burning stripe.

 

Yes it would have been cool if they lived in zones that were the "bad" parts of Paragon city instead of a corrupt banana republic, but oh well. 

[Snarky]

Do you guys play the same game as me?  I just did every story arc and mission 1-20 and am working on next 5 levels.  Really heinous stuff.  Killing entire bases full of oeople to cover up crimes.  Stealing cures ro epidemics. Kidnapping.   Beatdowns. 

[MTeague]

• Tip missions can be more villianous... they do try to live up to the moral choice aspect more there.
• There's always AE if you want to craft some arcs of your own.  Yes, you will know what to expect from your own arc, but really you know what to expect from most arcs if you remmber them from Live, or played them on alts already. 
• Mayhems are good for stompy destruction and wanton murder of civilians.

It is true that often your agency is quite limited and you can only pick from pre-designed choices which might be nothing like YOUR CHARACTER would actually react in that situation. 

 

I mean, the Doc Graves arc, I would have murdered the lot of them long before anyone.... noteworthy.... showed up.  And if maybe that means a certain individual would ahve stomped MY character flat, well, maybe. But I wouldn't have known it at the time. I would have just gotten sick of Doc Graves blathering on about a "faceless benefactor" when I was sure he was lying thorugh his teeth, and Omnicore snarling at me like a rabid chihuahua and just said "oh HELL with this" and done my level best to destroy them, if the game could let me do anything. 

 

And sure, Weston Phipps lets you be really monstrous, but that's just being super evil to help out someone ELSE. It's not really the same thing as your character building up the resoures to establish your own Moonbase Laser to ransom Paragon City for ONE MILLION DOLLARS!  I'm not being a villian to be an Arachnos lackey, I'm being a villian to be a villian for ME, you know?

 

But of course, you don't have that kind of freedom. It's a game. Your choices are programmed by what developers thought of between 7 and 15 years ago (give or take).  This isn't a moddable sandbox game. It's never going to be, not outside of AE anyway.

Edited December 19, 2019 by MTeague

[Haijinx]

33 minutes ago, Snarky said:

Do you guys play the same game as me?  I just did every story arc and mission 1-20 and am working on next 5 levels.  Really heinous stuff.  Killing entire bases full of oeople to cover up crimes.  Stealing cures ro epidemics. Kidnapping.   Beatdowns. 

The redside arcs are well done.  

 

I'm through to level 30 on my completionist run

 

[Bastille Boy]

Since I prefer to play rogues, rather than villains, I'm okay with having villains as the primary targets in redside storylines.

 

I consider Longbow a villain group. Heroes don't use flamethrowers.

[DougGraves]

What the redside contacts need is to act like your minions.  At low level you are kind of ordered around and threatened, and for low levels it makes some sense.

 

But really it should be people coming to you wanting to be your lackeys, praising you and saying how only you can do something.

 

"I need you to hunt down Boss Nass.  Arachnos will kill us if you fail."  is far less enjoyable than "What a brilliant plan you have.  I have found Boss Nass as you commanded, now you just have to go take him out."

 

One has you feeling like you are a pawn, the other like you are someone powerful and important.

[boggo2300]

1 hour ago, ejworthing said:

Since I prefer to play rogues, rather than villains, I'm okay with having villains as the primary targets in redside storylines.

 

I consider Longbow a villain group. Heroes don't use flamethrowers.

wow, so my fire/fire blaster Captain Comet is no hero to you?  (he specialises in aoe after all)

[boggo2300]

1 hour ago, DougGraves said:

What the redside contacts need is to act like your minions.  At low level you are kind of ordered around and threatened, and for low levels it makes some sense.

 

But really it should be people coming to you wanting to be your lackeys, praising you and saying how only you can do something.

 

"I need you to hunt down Boss Nass.  Arachnos will kill us if you fail."  is far less enjoyable than "What a brilliant plan you have.  I have found Boss Nass as you commanded, now you just have to go take him out."

 

One has you feeling like you are a pawn, the other like you are someone powerful and important.

THIS simple change alone would make the writing on red side tolerable rather than as awful as it is.

[Bastille Boy]

44 minutes ago, boggo2300 said:

wow, so my fire/fire blaster Captain Comet is no hero to you?  (he specialises in aoe after all)

A lot of the people we call "heroes" in this game are not particularly heroic. Good ends do not justify sadistic means.

 

 

[boggo2300]

4 minutes ago, ejworthing said:

A lot of the people we call "heroes" in this game are not particularly heroic. Good ends do not justify sadistic means.

 

 

Captain Comet is as close to a Golden Age boyscout hero as you can get however

[Snarky]

There is a toad willy wheeler in cap that sort of acts like a fawning henchmen. Really he is a clueless pawn. Look. Writing is about drama.  Storytelling is boring if you are Omni-God who can do anything with a ...snap.  And if you had the henchmen telling you what was lined up you would...wait a minute.  Go kill them henchmen. I am busy getting my painting done. Omni-God at sunset on a bridge.  
 

when you are needing and wanting and short on resources and power a storyteller has a thousand hooks

 

redside writers put enough depth in the NPCs that it is believable and cohesive.  Sure the ‘ocean’ is really about 4 feet deep.  But fly over the Rogue Isles and it sure looks convincing. Same with the storylines. They are not the Marianas trench. But they sure look just about right when looking at them from all normal angles

 

it is a creative art. Not reality

[Haijinx]

55 minutes ago, ejworthing said:

A lot of the people we call "heroes" in this game are not particularly heroic. Good ends do not justify sadistic means.

 

 

You mean arresting people by slicing them with a giant sword isn't heroic?

 

 

Edited December 19, 2019 by Haijinx

[Snarky]

I am troubled by the lack of DFB redside. I was just informed about starting them in pocket D. Nice option. Of course peeps have to travel at low level then

 

generally i switch to Rogue and run Blueside. I console myself with the fact that most heroes are narcissistic egomaniacs Vigilantes who are dancing on the ragged edge of becoming villains
 

maybe this is why i am satisfied with Redside. I see corruption everywhere. They do not know they are corrupt