Weekly Discussion 53: How to Increase Villain Population

[Eva Destruction]

Except with Striga, like with every other story zone, the story arcs are intrinsically tied to the zone.  The story of Striga only makes sense because it's not part of Paragon City, it's kind of a no-man's land where various villain groups run around unchecked, the Council set up their base, and now they're building a giant robot inside a volcano.    You can't just move it to Talos and Boomtown, any more than you could just move the Croatoa storyline to Atlas Park.  And banishing it to Ouroboros does take something away from Blueside.

[Alchemystic]

36 minutes ago, Eva Destruction said:

Except with Striga, like with every other story zone, the story arcs are intrinsically tied to the zone.  The story of Striga only makes sense because it's not part of Paragon City, it's kind of a no-man's land where various villain groups run around unchecked, the Council set up their base, and now they're building a giant robot inside a volcano.    You can't just move it to Talos and Boomtown, any more than you could just move the Croatoa storyline to Atlas Park.  And banishing it to Ouroboros does take something away from Blueside.

Like I said, the missions would still take place in Striga, their doorway points would simply change.

there are whole hero mission arcs that take place in places like the Rogue Isles or Praetoria (and now even Galaxy City) , but that doesn't mean your mission contacts are situated over there, does it?

And making Striga an Echo takes away a big fat nothing. The badges are the same, the mobs are the same, the day job locations are the same, the only thing that's different? there's no contacts there.... they just get moved.

 

Edited June 5, 2020 by Tyrannical

[Eva Destruction]

14 minutes ago, Tyrannical said:

Like I said, the missions would still take place in Striga, their doorway points would simply change.

there are whole hero mission arcs that take place in places like the Rogue Isles or Praetoria (and now even Galaxy City) , but that doesn't mean your mission contacts are situated over there, does it?

And making Striga an Echo takes away a big fat nothing. The badges are the same, the mobs are the same, the day job locations are the same, the only thing that's different? there's no contacts there.... they just get moved.

 

It takes away immersion.  You have a zone with no contacts and contacts with no zone.  The Striga contacts are situated in Striga because they live there.  One thing that CoV very much improved on is that where the contacts are and where they send you is actually integrated to the game world.  They're not standing on a random street corner and sending you to a random door in a random zone, they're standing in the casino and sending you to the St Martial slums to track down the guy who owes them money, because they're the kind of person who would hang out in the casino and the slums is where your target is hiding.  They only resort to boats and submarines and helicopters when the mission takes place in a zone your character can't access.  Story zones have the contacts and missions completely integrated into the zone, and taking them out and resorting to boats and submarines would be taking something away.

 

 

[Alchemystic]

56 minutes ago, Eva Destruction said:

They only resort to boats and submarines and helicopters when the mission takes place in a zone your character can't access.  Story zones have the contacts and missions completely integrated into the zone, and taking them out and resorting to boats and submarines would be taking something away.

 

 

And now heroes can't access Striga Isle the normal way because the situation has escalated... much like Galaxy City, Dark Astoria, Rikti War Zone and Siren's Call.

 

And like I said before, the new Striga would have contacts, they would be villain ones that have new arcs on offer that would finally include more Council/5th Column alliances for villains to explore, and the inclusion of the UPA in more than just one storyline.

Besides, you're acting like Paragon Studios didn't change an absolute HEAP of missions as part of advancing the narrative; the death of Statesman/Sister Psyche, the destruction of Galaxy City, even the old Rikti Crash Site had a lot of its old content shuffled around elsewhere or removed entirely. That's how games move forward, if you wanna get hung up over something as trivial as a mission entrance being moved, then I don't think you're gonna get much out of these kinda discussions.

 

Edited June 5, 2020 by Tyrannical

[Zombie Hustler]

Someone mentioned "Mastermind" types of missions a few pages back (not for the archetype). What if you could somehow use the "gladiator" mechanics along with Mayhem Mission mechanics to simulate missions where the villain directs his band of thugs to take on different types of crimes in a mission instance? He could select which groups to assign to which tasks (ie, a group of Hellions for an Arson task, Skulls for a bank raid) and then he could go around the map to back his troops up where needed to help ensure their success.

 

These sort of missions could combined with regular villainous missions and be woven into story arcs.

Edited June 5, 2020 by Zombie Hustler

[Lorak_Vanadius]

I read that many complain that the villains' stories see players simply as thugs or maniacs or, more generally, as muscles of villains who have their plan in mind and who use players to achieve their goal. This in my opinion could be good at the first levels, where one has to "make a name". I would like that as you progress between the levels there were greater interactions or choices, something similar to what happens with moral choices in Praetoria. You are doing a mission and you are given the opportunity to choose at some point whether to complete it according to the plans and simply remain a henchman, or whether to implement your personal plan, which could lead you to have a certain notoriety or which could (not I know how) to take you to a prominent position among the Arachnos or to be a criminal mind that plans to conquer the world (for example). I know it would be very complicated but dreaming costs nothing.

[longdayinrehab]

13 hours ago, Eva Destruction said:

It takes away immersion.  You have a zone with no contacts and contacts with no zone.  The Striga contacts are situated in Striga because they live there.  One thing that CoV very much improved on is that where the contacts are and where they send you is actually integrated to the game world.  They're not standing on a random street corner and sending you to a random door in a random zone, they're standing in the casino and sending you to the St Martial slums to track down the guy who owes them money, because they're the kind of person who would hang out in the casino and the slums is where your target is hiding.  They only resort to boats and submarines and helicopters when the mission takes place in a zone your character can't access.  Story zones have the contacts and missions completely integrated into the zone, and taking them out and resorting to boats and submarines would be taking something away.

 

 

I actually found it somewhat less immersive that this zone was considered so dangerous, but the contacts were just hanging out right there in it like they had plot armor so thick nothing could get through it. An airdrop into the hostile territory situation (by changing the entry to helicopters or boats) would make far more sense to me.

[Patti]

Immersions is like fun:  No one's two are perfectly alike.

[longdayinrehab]

15 hours ago, Tyrannical said:

I know this was something of a controversial suggestion a while back, but...

I had this idea to turn Striga Isle into a villain zone (and put the contacts/missions that were present there over in Talos, or over in Boomtown to increase the narrative drive over there too).

This achieves two objectives that the original development team were looking into:

- Revamping hazard zones with new purpose

- The expansion of villain content/narrative

 

It also reduces workload compared to creating an entire new zone:

- Striga Isle would simply be renamed to 'Echo: Striga Isle' accessible only from ouroboros, no other changes required.
- The new version of Striga Isle would be a direct copy of the old one, which is as simple as creating another instance of the same map (RWZ1, RWZ2, so on)
- There would be no need for implementing new mob spawns, but mobs could be tweaked to contain more War Walkers and UPA troops.
- Contacts would have to be moved, but considering that already happened with Galaxy and Dark Astoria, it isn't new, nor is it impossible.

Considering that Striga Isle isn't actually part of Paragon City, and the story behind it being an operational base for The Council (and later the coalition with the UPA), it has potential to be reworked into a new villain zone. I imagine that a few arcs could be created in order for villains to explore the story behind the Council, 5th Column and UPA, and perhaps how the council is introducing praetorian technology and manpower to their ranks.

If an Echo version of Striga Isle were to be created, there wouldn't really be anything lost hero-side either. Missions that take place in Striga still make sense, since it portrays heroes being deployed to the area to handle villain activity, but it would mean that any mission with doors in Striga would have to be moved to a boat, helicopter or submarine in Talos or Independence port (the previous access points). As for any 'Defeat All' missions that occur in Striga, they would likely be moved to another zone like Boomtown.
 

It's a wacky idea that would mean people would have to adapt to a change, but change is good, especially when it concerns both hazard zones AND improving villain content.

I like this idea. I think it and ideas like it (maybe with zones that are a little less popular/used) could be a first step to further integration of the sides. I have no idea about the amount of work that goes into a zone switch like this, but it would be a great start for implementing some of the most commonly mentioned ideas. I really think integration is the key to helping villain population without doing the drastic step of revamping the Rogue Isles themselves (which seems to be a very hard sell for those who love RI as it currently exists). I know that I would be one of the first to make more villains if I could more freely move about while still maintaining my being a villain. It also seems like this was the direction Live was headed before Sunset.

[Eva Destruction]

3 hours ago, longdayinrehab said:

I actually found it somewhat less immersive that this zone was considered so dangerous, but the contacts were just hanging out right there in it like they had plot armor so thick nothing could get through it. An airdrop into the hostile territory situation (by changing the entry to helicopters or boats) would make far more sense to me.

There are civilians hanging out in all kinds of dangerous areas.  Like,, there are a bunch of armed fascists hanging out on a street corner on their soapbox doing their "we are going to take over the world" speech and people just stroll on by, like "pffft, whatever," like you'd do with someone standing on a street corner trying to tell you about Jesus.  That's just life in Paragon City and the Isles; if you waited until it was safe to go outside, you'd never go out.

[Patti]

Which might explain where all the children are at.

[BamBam]

its a really easy fix. the only AEs should be in pocket d and rikiti war zone. its a matter of convience everyone goes to atlas #1 AE

is crazy close #2 sewers are mega close. make it so villains cn que DFB.

[Patti]

Villains CAN do deathfro.below.  it's just pulling g teeth th get it started.

[BamBam]

also I talked abut this last year on discord one of the biggest things that drove heros vs villians was SGs and VGS you need to bring relevance back to SGs and VGS. recluse victory is a baron wasteland no one is ever in the pvp zones bc everyone is on heros. 

[BamBam]

work prestige back into the games somehow and make being social relevant again. also I see everyone is salty that there is no double ifluence. what yall should do is add 1 slot every 3 to 25 levels something like that, levels after paragon 100 amd give folks something to work towards. giving 1 slot every few levels shouldn't create a power creep problem. and would make mmore builds more viable the more time invested in them 

[ImpousVileTerror]

*pinches bridge of nose, takes a deep breath*

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/12155-going-forward-can-we-have-more-things-that-mean-something/?tab=comments#comment-121433

 

Given how unpopular changes of those nature were to the community at large, attempting to use them as the carrot on the end of the stick to drive up Redside population . . . I can personally only predict a disastrous backfiring.

[Eva Destruction]

All prestige did was reward farmers and SGs who spammed invites in Atlas.  People who just want to be in a small SG with a few friends will not join a bigger SG if you bring prestige back, they'll just get mad.  And the base builders' rage would be visible from space.  Besides, SGs predate global channels; those serve the social aspect just as well, if not better, for many people, since you can access them from any character, any alignment, any server.

 

No one is ever in the PvP zones because most players aren't interested in PvP.  If people were interested in zone PvP they'd visit the seagull and switch to villain. 

[Gulbasaur]

On 6/4/2020 at 1:49 AM, Sillow said:

Also I feel like there's a bias towards the hero classes in terms of balance.

I'd say the opposite is true. The redside ATs were designed around their inherent powers, whereas blueside ATs got them added on after the fact. Dominators can out-control controllers, brutes could tank as well as tankers but output much more damage, stalkers are better scrappers than scrappers, defenders vs corruptors is less clear and masterminds and blasters are both their own thing. Kheldians' uniqueness suffered heavily with the introduction of IO set bonuses whereas the VEATs are often considered very good all-rounders as soon as they hit their "real" powersets.

 

I think villain ATs were designed to solo whereas hero ATs were designed to team. In the days before Going Rogue, combat in each game felt very different.

[Luminara]

1 - Restrict Hero and Villain alignments to 35+.  Everyone begins as a Vigilante or Rogue.

 

2 - Remove Hero and Villain flags on all contacts.  Everyone has equal access to all content.

 

3 - Move some contacts to level-appropriate maps on "the other side".  Everyone has a reason to visit both sides.

 

The engine makes extensive use of flags and pointers to data tables, so these changes should be possible without much, if any, code rewriting.  It would be thematically appropriate to have contacts for both sides on both sides, it would encourage players to explore both types of content since they could more freely access all of it, and it would improve teaming options.

 

Obviously, more villainous content would be necessary, but that could be accomplished by altering contact and mission text on some hero content.  For example, rather than "Stop the bank robbery!", the text could simply say "Investigate the bank alarm."  The motivation can be left to the player's imagination (perhaps he/she is protecting a bank which launders his/her money, or robbing the bank him/herself, or encounters a hated rival and stops the robbery out of spite).  The same approach can be applied to existing red side content, changing or removing references to motivation so players no longer have a sense of being hired help.

 

Once a player reaches APPs/PPPs, he/she can choose to go full Hero or Villain, or continue forward as a Vigilante or Rogue (and leave the paper/radio missions as they are so the option to switch remains).

 

That would be my preferred solution.  Tear down the walls which existed solely for the purpose of selling two copies of the game to each player.  It's one game.  Make it work as such.

[Patti]

“Tear down walls” but “players can’t be heroes or villains until 35+”

what.?

[Oginth]

2 hours ago, Luminara said:

1 - Restrict Hero and Villain alignments to 35+.  Everyone begins as a Vigilante or Rogue.

 

2 - Remove Hero and Villain flags on all contacts.  Everyone has equal access to all content.

 

3 - Move some contacts to level-appropriate maps on "the other side".  Everyone has a reason to visit both sides.

 

The engine makes extensive use of flags and pointers to data tables, so these changes should be possible without much, if any, code rewriting.  It would be thematically appropriate to have contacts for both sides on both sides, it would encourage players to explore both types of content since they could more freely access all of it, and it would improve teaming options.

 

Obviously, more villainous content would be necessary, but that could be accomplished by altering contact and mission text on some hero content.  For example, rather than "Stop the bank robbery!", the text could simply say "Investigate the bank alarm."  The motivation can be left to the player's imagination (perhaps he/she is protecting a bank which launders his/her money, or robbing the bank him/herself, or encounters a hated rival and stops the robbery out of spite).  The same approach can be applied to existing red side content, changing or removing references to motivation so players no longer have a sense of being hired help.

 

Once a player reaches APPs/PPPs, he/she can choose to go full Hero or Villain, or continue forward as a Vigilante or Rogue (and leave the paper/radio missions as they are so the option to switch remains).

 

That would be my preferred solution.  Tear down the walls which existed solely for the purpose of selling two copies of the game to each player.  It's one game.  Make it work as such.

How would that work for gold-siders?

[Sillow]

7 hours ago, Gulbasaur said:

I'd say the opposite is true. The redside ATs were designed around their inherent powers, whereas blueside ATs got them added on after the fact. Dominators can out-control controllers, brutes could tank as well as tankers but output much more damage, stalkers are better scrappers than scrappers, defenders vs corruptors is less clear and masterminds and blasters are both their own thing. Kheldians' uniqueness suffered heavily with the introduction of IO set bonuses whereas the VEATs are often considered very good all-rounders as soon as they hit their "real" powersets.

 

I think villain ATs were designed to solo whereas hero ATs were designed to team. In the days before Going Rogue, combat in each game felt very different.

I'd agree if this were live but the homecoming rebalancing of snipes, tankers, the addition of crazily efficient secondaries to blasters, and the nerfs to brutes among other things gives me the impression that there's a bias towards hero classes. I don't think it's malicious or anything but scrapper dps is crazy on top of getting instant snipes, blaster dps got crazier with instant snipes and then half the sets now have aoe holds on top of absorbs/regeneration/etc. Tankers are so efficient at damage now that a TW tanker is about 95% of what a Brute does on top of the extra gains to group utility by moving them to controller scales and giving them higher aoe caps. 

 

I get it though. Before the tanker patch I would never have considered making one because brutes were more optimal at tanking in my opinion due to the added damage. Now it's a tossup in my opinion but tankers can dedicate less IOs towards defense and more towards inherent damage/recharge/proc monstering that it's become rather silly. By giving tankers damage, brutes lost a bit of their identity. It's probably healthier in the long run, but the issue I have is that when they gave tankers damage, they took it away from brutes. Lowering their damage cap from 775% to 700% feels bad in group content. Brutes were already just a smidge below scrappers before factoring in crits. 

 

Villain ATs always felt more fun to me in that I could control what my character was doing and being able to go off and do solo content alongside group content instead of relying on rng crits to output damage or bringing zero utility but damage. I may sound sour, but I'm glad Tankers/Blasters/etc are getting decent overhauls. It just feels that they're at the expense of villain ATs. They made Tankers able to solo more efficiently like a brute, while boosting their group utility. Brutes had their damage cap lowered but fury gain made more consistent so it's overall a nerf except for having more than one brute in a team. Dominator love was just making some sets have shorter cast times (which does feel good). Mastermind pets don't block doorways anymore but still feel slow to follow outside of beast summoning. Stalkers feel good but have an inferior version of /bio (this is just my opinion) so they don't reach the highs of scrapper ridiculousness like with tw/bio. Corruptors are pretty interchangeable still so I don't have an opinion on that. Soldiers are great, but suffer from being able to self buff to their own damage cap easily (bump it to 500% >:) )

 

Anyway hope this explains why I claimed what I claimed. 

[WillParkinson]

On 5/31/2020 at 11:17 AM, GM Miss said:

Weekly discussion 53 - Week 5/31/20-6/06/20:

 

🎉🎉Here are our winners for the 300 merits🎉   
@Peacemoon - Forums
@ForeverLaxx - Forums
@Darkneblade - Discord
@Mattes - Discord
@nyttyn - Discord   

🎉🎉Here is our winner for the title🎉🎉  
@Tugzug

 

Please PM me for prize details and I will get back with you early this week!

 

⚔️YOU VOTED: Lets talk about how to increase villain population!⚔️

 

Let's Chat 😄

Increase it? Why? We're trying to crush evil!

[tidge]

19 hours ago, BamBam said:

 recluse victory is a baron wasteland no one is ever in the pvp zones bc everyone is on heros. 

Shh... I use Recluse's Victory to collect the Iron Man/Woman (necessary for a Villain Accolade) and Time Traveler badges!

[DougGraves]

Redside has more interesting stories, but they are evil and depressing.  I would play over the top villainy of comic books - robbing banks and such.  But capturing homeless to conduct medical experiments is just grim, not fun.

 

Redside has different enemy groups than hero and variety is nice.  But when I join a redside team they seem to end up fighting the same enemies I fight on heroside. 

 

Redside does not have enough people.  The best and easiest way to increase redside is to declare an official redside server so everyone who wants to play redside is on the same server and has a sustainable population.