Weekly Discussion 53: How to Increase Villain Population

[Darkneblade]

50 minutes ago, Oginth said:

 

How about if we give the Malefactor/Lackey game mechanic a more prominent role. Let players be their own Malefactor masters, allow Lackeys to overthrow their own Malefactor (since Recluse is probably not possible).

That will be better actually. Imagine having lackey as pet. You can send them to missions to harvest salvage or something. Possibilities are endless.

[Redlynne]

10 hours ago, GM Miss said:

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

There are two intertwined issues related to low villain population ... motivation and retention.

 

Motivation speaks to ... why are you playing as a Villain/Rogue instead of playing as a Hero/Vigilante?

Retention speaks to ... are you going to keep playing as a Villain/Rogue or are you going to hit up Null The Gull to switch to Hero/Vigilante at the drop of a hat?

6 hours ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

One of the biggest stumbling blocks to increasing redside population is going to be...  Null the Gull.  He's going to be a particular problem if you add more rewards, people will just swap, grab the reward, and come back.  (Morality/Alignment missions aren't in the same weight class because they have a cost in time and effort to accomplish the switch.)

If you want to increase redside population, you have to rig the game so that people go there and stay there for a significant amount of time.  It's not enough to attract them, you also have to keep them.

Quite right.  When alignment switching is TOO CONVENIENT and available "for free" (essentially) then there's very little retention going on to staying Redside.

 

---

 

So here's what I propose.

 

When you complete Morality Missions you start a 7 day countdown to getting a buff for that Alignment.  Once you complete those 7 days of waiting without changing your Alignment you gain access to an Alignment Power.  Homecoming could add additional modifiers to the Alignment Power reward for sticking with Alignments through the 7 day countdown ... but deliberately NOT make the additional rewards symmetrical (so Blueside doesn't get the same benefits as Redside because Blueside doesn't NEED the "carrot" to get people to play Blueside).

 

I'm thinking specifically that while a PC has either the Frenzy (Villain) or Duplicity (Rogue) powers the PC passively earns more INF from Redside Contact Mission Completions and bonus INF from Redside Bank Robberies (on top of the Mission Complete bonus).  PCs who have either the Frenzy (Villain) or Duplicity (Rogue) powers also earn extra Merits for completion of Redside (only) Strike Forces.

 

The point of all of this is that the incentive structure is greater rewards for PLAYING on Redside become available when playing CONSISTENTLY on Redside.  Rogues could still travel to Paragon City "as normal" and participate in Blueside activities, but they wouldn't be getting the same advantages playing on Blueside as they would playing on Redside as a Villain or Rogue who has CONSISTENTLY been a Villain or Rogue for more than a week.  Likewise, Vigilantes would still be "welcome" to visit the Rogue Isles, but they would not earn the same bonus rewards as CONSISTENT Villains or Rogues would.

 

Beyond that, you could do something like have 1 Weekly Task Force on Blueside while enabling 2 Weekly Strike Forces on Redside.

 

All of the above are going to fall into the "tinkering at the margins" of the incentive structure for playing the game category, but I'm thinking it would be enough to tip the balance JUST ENOUGH that more Players would decide it's worth their time (their most precious resource!) to play on Redside, without the proposition becoming so lopsided that it's more of a No Brainer that makes EVERYONE figure they ought to be in the Rogue Isles and everyone "votes with their feet" to move en masse into Redside.  The basic idea though is that you want to incentivize Players to want to not only PLAY Redside but also want to STAY Redside, rather than becoming "day traders" of Alignments who come and go on a whim.

 

---

 

Would it be "unbalanced" to do all that?  Duh ... YES ... of course.  That's kind of the point.

The only way to get more people playing Redside is to modify the incentive structure in a way that MOTIVATES and then RETAINS them to continue playing on Redside.

 

The best means to measure that Movation+Retention of Redside alignments is ... tracking if the PC has either the Frenzy (Villain) or Duplicity (Rogue) powers.

 

 

 

Mischief managed.  😎

[ForeverLaxx]

Feels weird to win something. I never win anything. Anyway, to the topic at hand...

 

Anything you do to increase action in the zone will have to be done carefully. I prefer starting my characters redside but always end up making all of them a rogue just so I can find group content when I need it. Adding rewards and other incentives to the Rogue Isles isn't going to have the desired effect so you probably don't want to use this route. The reason for this, I think, is that all you'll get are people who swap over to run the thing that has more rewards, then swap back over. That's not going to fix a population issue.

 

In a game that started with you playing the hero, playing the villain is going to be less popular by default. Something like only 20% of the playerbase was red-side on the live servers so this is pretty big uphill battle. Common complaints of redside content are mostly relegated to "I always feel like a dumb lackey moron", Super Speed is actively discouraged by zone design, getting access to Epic (Patron) pools is a chore compared to heroes who do nothing, and you fight enemy groups that are tougher through almost all levels as a villain/rogue than you would as a hero/vigilante. I'm personally not against challenging foes, but I know some people who quit being a villain after their first Snake or Arachnos mission. I'm not sure if that can even be addressed. Zone layout, too, might be a tall order -- I don't know what kinds of resources you have available and redesigning or added to zones to make them more speedster-friendly may not be possible.

 

I get the idea of following a Patron for ability access since you're not "gaining" new powers yourself so much as using the tools provided by one of the Big Bads, but having to do a mission chain that requires you defeat an EB/AV at the end is a bit mismatched to the hero equivalent of "do nothing for Epics". Again, I'm not sure if this could be modified other than to just award the badge for choosing a Patron but that won't fix the population problem either I don't think. It's just a complaint I hear sometimes.

 

That really only leaves the way red-side missions are worded. You're almost always a lackey. Judging from how things have been added in the past, the prospect of creating new contacts and mission lines that give you more of a personal "choose your own adventure" feel is probably the most realistic thing the HC team could do in order to get more people red-side and to stay there. Yeah, they'll still be a villain, but if missions allowed players to more effectively create the reason they're doing something beyond "me dumb crony killing rock people for shiny stones that crazy caster man wants" players might stick around. That provides a different kind of experience than the heroside where it's almost expected that you're just reacting to things happening and trying to put a stop to them because that's your job. Heroes are reactionary and villains are proactive, and right now, villains don't feel very proactive.

 

The biggest hurdle though is Null the Gull. I know why he exists, but he's a contributing factor to this problem and I'm not sure that's going to be changed.

[Doc_Scorpion]

1 hour ago, Naraka said:

Okay.  I see that prospect of increasing population as more of a semantics thing though. 

There is no conceivable reasonable way to handwave away the difference between visitor and resident as "a semantics thing".   It's a vital difference to consider because increasing the incentive for Null tourists to visit redside does little to significantly alter the existing status quo - while the question as phrased implies a desire to change the status quo.

Changing the status quo means finding a reason for people to stay redside and play redside for extended periods of time.  Not just farming paper missions for increased Mayhem rewards.  (Because that shades more towards Null tourist activities.)  You, ideally, want people playing the arcs and freely teaming with others for a variety of activities as they do blueside.

Edited June 1, 2020 by Doc_Scorpion

[Zombie Hustler]

I love Redside, and play it nearly as much as I do Gold. I will say that if there is one area that would improve Redside to me, it is that I think villain stories would benefit from mission branching far more than hero side stories would. The main reason is one that other posters have alluded to here, which has to do with agency and villains needing- by their very nature- to be the protagonist of the story, rather than the antagonist, reacting to events around them. Having more branching choices in missions would help to better simulate this for villains, IMO.

[Naraka]

1 minute ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

There is no conceivable reasonable way to handwave away the difference between visitor and resident as "a semantics thing".   

There is.

 

The entire population of the HC server is technically the population of City of Heroes and City of Villains.  You can conflate specifics like activity levels or preference to population but in the grand scheme of things, there is no solid "population" since likely many players on hero side have played villains and vice versa and gravitate to specific activities due to preference but nothing is currently stopping them from playing whatever content is available.

 

I see this type of thought process with stuff like fandoms as well.  People assume that just because you are a fan of a game or a fan of StarWars, that now you're all some united community brought together in one whole of a group.  It's a nice sentiment but it's just not real.  It's a mental construct that ignores other aspects and choices.  Similar here, there is no concrete "population" since there is no paywall or faction wall anymore.  Those barriers, for better or for worse, have been destroyed so now the game is basically just a big themepark and to increase activity in one side of the part is synonymous with increasing its population...I mean, do you consider the Animal Kingdom section of Disney World as having a separate population from Magic Kingdom?  Or is it more like traffic/activity?

 

I suppose if you'd rather refuse to consider other perspectives, there is inconceivability in said perspective.  Like I said, I understand the distinctions being made but it's on you to figure I'm just crazy to think it's a semantics thing.

 

12 minutes ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

Changing the status quo...

The underlying result of your desired change is synonymous with "how to decrease population on hero side" since I doubt you're seeking to bring in new people that aren't playing the game.

[Troo]

On 5/31/2020 at 11:54 AM, BurtHutt said:

I prefer redside but I am reluctant to have any toon a Villain due to the lack of players willing to go there. 

I think this is actually a primary factor.

 

On 5/31/2020 at 11:41 AM, Yoru-hime said:

First is lack of agency. No one tells Doctor Doom what to do, but almost every original mission redside has you serving as the muscle for someone else's endeavor.

Doctor Doom,  Lex Luthor, Magneto, Darkseid, Monstrous villains.. they were all born level 54 villains?

 

Where should a level 1 start that works for lots of different player types?

 

 

Edited June 1, 2020 by Troo

[DrInfernus]

I actually think that the biggest thing Red Side misses is the social element. Blue side has a place where everyone congregates between content, Atlas Park, where they meet people and mess about. It makes a big difference to me personally. 
 

Red side simply doesn’t have a hangout zone, so you just really go door to door to door to door to door... often by yourself. Then, when you’ve had enough of doors for a bit and want to chill out or relax in-game with others, well you log onto a hero and mess on in Atlas. 

[Oginth]

43 minutes ago, DrInfernus said:

I actually think that the biggest thing Red Side misses is the social element. Blue side has a place where everyone congregates between content, Atlas Park, where they meet people and mess about. It makes a big difference to me personally. 
 

Red side simply doesn’t have a hangout zone, so you just really go door to door to door to door to door... often by yourself. Then, when you’ve had enough of doors for a bit and want to chill out or relax in-game with others, well you log onto a hero and mess on in Atlas. 

This reminds me, the costume contests are held in Atlas Park. How does a low-level red-siders go there? (Sincerely curious, since I have a lv 3-4 there.)

[ForeverLaxx]

36 minutes ago, Oginth said:

This reminds me, the costume contests are held in Atlas Park. How does a low-level red-siders go there? (Sincerely curious, since I have a lv 3-4 there.)

By taking the Ferry to Port Oaks, taking the stairs up to Pocket D (there are no mobs to stop you), talk to Null to become a Rogue/Vigilante/Hero, exit to King's Row, try not to die to the Clockwork as you bound over to the Tram, then take that to Atlas Park. That's the "no SG base" version, anyway.

[Heraclea]

General thoughts.  The Rogue Isles are too seamy and dreary looking, given that their government is nothing if not ruthless and efficient.  Goldside is what the better side of the Isles ought to be.  Areas of Cap au Diable and St. Martial come close.  Should be more of that, less Sharkhead.

 

Paragon City ought to be seamier than it is, given its history of charming elected officials like Robert Alderman, Spanky Rabinowitz, or Councilman Birch ranting about imaginary conspiracies.  The higher echelons of the local police department seem to be possessed by aliens; does no one have an opinion about this?  Or what happens to reporters who know?  And then there's Blue Steel.  Heroes ought to have a more complicated relationship with the local government than they do.   In my head-canon the Vanguard are a much worse threat than the Rikti. 

 

My trouble with redside has always been that it's been much more difficult to pick a path through that content than it is blueside.  The limited amount of content is a problem, and much more of it seems to be gated through 'introductions', which have been mitigated if not eliminated for heroes.  If you're a low level hero and want to avoid Vahzilok or Clockwork missions, that's easily done.  The same if you're in the home stretch and prefer not to deal with Malta or Carnies.  Suppose you want to level your villain, but would rather not deal with Arachnos or Longbow.  How would you swing that? 

 

The linearity of the zones mirrors the lack of multiple paths; there is one redside zone per level range, from Mercy Island to Grandville. Blueside, Galaxy City is no longer an option, but the rest of the different zones, contact zones and hazard zones, offers more places to go.  Redside is also relatively poorly served by task forces; what is the redside equivalent of Posi 1 and 2?  Make a redside Posi 1 and 2.  Fill it with Hellions and Skulls, low level Marcones, and you'll probably see a small bump in lowbie villains.  (There's a longstanding dropped narrative thread in the oldest material which teased us about relationships between these low level gangs and the more powerful City factions.  You could work on that redside.) 

 

 

 

[DrInfernus]

2 hours ago, Oginth said:

This reminds me, the costume contests are held in Atlas Park. How does a low-level red-siders go there? (Sincerely curious, since I have a lv 3-4 there.)

It’s a very good point and it highlights the major problem imo: Red Side set up is not conducive to community, and before all else I think it’s community that brings us here. 
 

Aesthetically and conceptually I think they messed up the design of the Rogue Islands too. As others have said, you’d expect Mercy to be a festering hole as villains start of as low-lifes, but there is no sense of growth or social mobility with CoV. Your born in someone else’s gutter and the best you can do is graduate to Lord Recluse’s private gutter. Great villains accrue wealth and technology. The Praetorian zones are what CoV zones should’ve looked/felt like really.  
 

As for how to solve the problems now and attract more players to the zones... we’ll aside from bribery by upping the merit rewards for content and increasing the purple recipe drop rate for full villains (not Rogues or Vigilantes), I’m not sure what can be done. 
 

But the real question perhaps is do we WANT to increase playership on red side? It’s there for those who like it and if people prefer heroes, conceptually, then they always will. 

[Peacemoon]

That’s one of the reasons I think having villains able to start in paragon city would change the dynamic about how we feel about them a lot. To me the practical implications are secondary - the primary benefit would be to bring villain players into the community more. It probably wouldn’t work as well in practice, but I would argue the biggest issue with villains is more the isolation from the community, you don’t get to team up so easily, people don’t get to see your cool outfits and concepts as much.

 

I think with COVID people are appreciating how important that often overlooked sense of community is. If everyone played red side and blue side was barren, it would feel exactly the same in reverse, being that lonely hero with no one to play with.

[Peacemoon]

1 hour ago, DrInfernus said:

But the real question perhaps is do we WANT to increase playership on red side? It’s there for those who like it and if people prefer heroes, conceptually, then they always will. 

Well that is the problem. Even if you solve the issue with villain population I’m not sure the game would necessarily be better for it. 
 

Arguably the game is more fun with 90% of the players in one faction, playing in the same selection of zones, as it gives us more people to play and team with, and makes Paragon City more vibrant and populated.

Even though it’s a shame for villains and the rogue isle, it’s probably healthier for the game.

That’s why I end up thinking it would probably be better for the game (and simpler) if we removed the faction barrier to zones and just made all PvE zones accessible to all, and people could just play where they want. Keep restrictions on Villains and Heroes teaming up so it’s only possible in co-op zones. Villain players could just look like unattackable hostile players, if you bumped into one in Steel Canyon as a hero, for instance. I don’t know - it’s an idea that could do with fleshing out.

Edited June 1, 2020 by Peacemoon

[DrInfernus]

8 minutes ago, Peacemoon said:

Well that is the problem. Even if you solve the issue with villain population I’m not sure the game would necessarily be better for it. 
 

Arguably the game is more fun with 90% of the players in one faction, playing in the same selection of zones, as it gives us more people to play and team with, and makes Paragon City more vibrant and populated.

Even though it’s a shame for villains and the rogue isle, it’s probably healthier for the game.

That’s why I end up thinking it would probably be better for the game (and simpler) if we removed the faction barrier to zones and just made all PvE zones accessible to all, and people could just play where they want. Keep restrictions on Villains and Heroes teaming up so it’s only possible in co-op zones. Villain players could just look like unattackable hostile players, if you bumped into one in Steel Canyon as a hero, for instance. I don’t know - it’s an idea that could do with fleshing out.

Definitely would endorse a plan to make all zones accessible to all. Conceptually, what kind of a villain just says ‘oh, I’m not allowed to go there? Okay’? Surely villains go where they want and do what they want? 
 

From a practical point of view, when did you last stop to even check the allegiance of a teammate? It’s really only important to the player himself I think (and role players, but they make their own rules anyway).

[Peacemoon]

9 minutes ago, DrInfernus said:

Definitely would endorse a plan to make all zones accessible to all. Conceptually, what kind of a villain just says ‘oh, I’m not allowed to go there? Okay’? Surely villains go where they want and do what they want? 
 

From a practical point of view, when did you last stop to even check the allegiance of a teammate? It’s really only important to the player himself I think (and role players, but they make their own rules anyway).

Hah I remember doing a Posi 2 once where we were badmouthing villain tactics and one guy popped up and said “Is now a bad time to mention I’m actually a Rogue?” Made us laugh!

 

Well I suppose the issue with alignment is if everyone can go everywhere and team with everyone and do all content, there is no actual alignment system anymore. It’s quite a radical discussion about whether you’d still want it and if you did, what was it’s purpose.

At the moment alignment’s main purpose from a gameplay perspective is segregate the community. Maybe opening up all the zones and doing something clever with the alignment system is the way forward. Although I think being able to say “I’m a villain” and having it visible is important to the game. I wish alignment was viewable rather than origin when you ID someone.

Edited June 1, 2020 by Peacemoon

[Seigmoraig]

Just make it into 1 big happy family !
Lets heroes go to red side and vice versa without any restrictions. Let Heroes and Villians group together in Coop Zones without annoying hoops (ie: Can't invite villians in my Imperious TF unless all members of my team are in Cimerora is annoying and arbitrary).

Just make it into 1 big world, add a Paragon Monorail station in Villian zones and a Rogue Isles Ferry in Hero zones.
I mean if I can just go see Null to do the switch, what's even the point. Sure let people choose their faction and all but it should be much less restrictive than it currently is

[Apparition]

8 hours ago, DrInfernus said:

I actually think that the biggest thing Red Side misses is the social element. Blue side has a place where everyone congregates between content, Atlas Park, where they meet people and mess about. It makes a big difference to me personally. 
 

Red side simply doesn’t have a hangout zone, so you just really go door to door to door to door to door... often by yourself. Then, when you’ve had enough of doors for a bit and want to chill out or relax in-game with others, well you log onto a hero and mess on in Atlas. 

Heh.  That just shows how people are different.  To me, it’s a bonus that red side does not have a social hub zone.  If it did, I would probably avoid that zone like the plague, like I do Atlas Park.

 

IMO, Kallisti Wharf should be the social hub zone anyway as it was clearly designed to be one and is co-op.

[SwitchFade]

Here goes...

 

Bad maps: navigation is tedious

 

Bad villain groups: I'm sorry, snakes and spiders? They don't even look menacing

 

Bad landscaping: good Lord it's depressing, so much dingy, poorly lit, drab and dank everything

 

Few zones: so little to explore

 

Bad storylines: I'm forced to be someone's b@tchmonkey, forever

 

Poor AT cohesion: most villain ATs are designed to solo, making teaming less attractive

 

I've tried, time and again, to love redside. I've wanted to try more ATs there. Every time I do, it's tedious.

 

Best fix? Revamp the game so hero or villain starts as either on either side. Then, a villain can run amok in atlas, helping the skills, fighting the hellions for turf or fighting signature heroes. Let heroes start in red, let them fight the good fight from level one, constantly hiding and evading the baddies.

 

Additionally, revamp the aesthetics. Better landscape, better pathing, better zone geometry.

 

Less arachnos and snakes, more diversity. Less silyl plotlines where I'm someone's dumb-as-a-doorknob errand-moron.

 

To start.

 

[Redlynne]

4 hours ago, DrInfernus said:

But the real question perhaps is do we WANT to increase playership on red side?

 

I pulled this snapshot of the server population just a few minutes before posting this reply (which, granted, is early morning North America time, but it still illustrates the point).

 

Torchbearer ... 3.86 to 1 Heroes

Excelsior ... 6.22 to 1 Heroes

Indomitable ... 3.44 to 1 Heroes

Everlasting ... 3.76 to 1 Heroes

Reunion ... 4.06 to 1 Heroes

Total ... 4.47 to 1 Heroes

 

If you're wanting to solo ... forever ... that ratio imbalance is Not A Problem™ for you.

But as soon as you want to team up for a Strike Force, let alone a Redside Hamidon Raid, you're in real trouble.  This means that a significant portion of the group content is "out of reach" for Redside Players, simply because the population "density" just isn't there to (easily) support forming groups for that content.  When there's under 50 Villains playing, that means that you need 1/6th(!) or more(!) of the presently online population to join your group in order to run a Team-8 on Redside.  That's a pretty high bar.

 

So the answer to the @DrInfernus question is ... YES ... we do WANT to increase the quantity of Player who are committed to playing Redside as opposed to merely incentivizing what I'm going to call "Day Trading in Villainy" via use of Null the Gull for rapid alignment shifting On Demand.

 

Moving the ratio of Heroes to Villains so that it's closer to a range of 3 to 1 or even better yet, 2 to 1 in favor of Heroes would vastly improve the playing experience on Redside as far as group content is concerned (because soloists don't care about server populations).

 

What we have right now on Blueside is a Massively Multiplayer Online RolePlaying Game (MMORPG) on essentially all of the servers.

What we have right now on Redside is a Massively Singleplayer Online RolePlaying Game (MSORPG) on essentially all of the servers.  That makes group content for Redside MUCH harder to fill, unless you're dealing with co-op zone group content.

 

 

 

So if increasing the number of people playing Redside is the goal (which, spoiler alert, is the entire premise of this discussion) then what should be the means to achieve that goal is the entire point of this discussion thread.  What can Homecoming DO to encourage (not force, but encourage) more people to play Redside?

 

Well, I've given my answer for what they could do game mechanically to incentivize more "durable" commitment to playing on Redside.

 

 

 

As for the visual aesthetics of Redside ... the "drab and dreary grimy look" that people have been complaining about since Issue 6 ... I'm thinking that a significant portion of this impression could be changed by some subtle yet simple changes to the global lighting of zones.  Allowing the Rogue Isles zones to randomly have a DAYLIGHT daytime lighting that is comparable to the daylight lighting we see in Paragon City and Praetoria would go a long way in this regard.  Likewise, allowing the Rogue Isles zones to randomly have a NIGHTLY night time lighting that is comparable to the overnight lighting we see in Paragon City and Praetoria would also go a long way in this regard.

 

It seems to me, and to a lot of other people, that the Rogue Isles have this sort of Eternal Cloudy Skies Lighting feel to them which washes out all of the color of the Rogue Isles in a way that you don't get with Paragon City and Praetoria.  If the Rogue Isles cycled between Overcast and Clear Skies as part of the day/night cycle in the Rogue Isles, that would improve the appreciation of colors in the Rogue Isles zones so it wasn't all just Drab And Dreary all the time.

 

Note that this simple lighting change for Day/Night cycles is something that ought to be relatively easy to test on the test server.  Better yet, no additional assets would need to be created in order to enact the change ... simply use the already existing skybox assets from Paragon City and Praetoria to test out how much of a difference a change in lighting would make.

 

Now, ideally speaking ... having a way to randomly choose "what the weather is going to be like" for the next Day/Night cycle so as to determine how the zone is going to be lit for the next Day/Night Cycle is something that ought to be determined during Twilight between Day and Night.  That way you don't wind up with an "eternal sameness" of Day/Night lighting for the respective zones, but rather it can VARY from day to day (and night to night) in a way that presents a subtly changing color palette for the Rogue Isles that isn't the current eternal Drab And Dreary Grime And Grey that we have right now.

 

 

 

So that's two things that can be done by Homecoming with relatively little difficulty that wouldn't require creating whole cloth NEW assets for Redside Players to enjoy.

 

Incentivize Players to STAY with playing Redside, via passive rewards tied to the Frenzy (Villain) or Duplicity (Rogue) Alignment powers (which are thus lost immediately upon switching Alignments!) as a game mechanical element.

 

Vary the zone lighting of the Rogue Isles so the place isn't always (quite so) Drab, Dreary and Dirty looking under cloudy skies at all times.

 

 

 

I'm thinking that simply making those two categories of changes would make life (and thus playing) on Redside "more enjoyable enough" to shift the balance of the Hero to Villain population ratio sufficiently for our purposes with regards to this topic of discussion.

[Redlynne]

4 minutes ago, SwitchFade said:

Best fix? Revamp the game so hero or villain starts as either on either side. Then, a villain can run amok in atlas, helping the skills, fighting the hellions for turf or fighting signature heroes. Let heroes start in red, let them fight the good fight from level one, constantly hiding and evading the baddies.

 

Additionally, revamp the aesthetics. Better landscape, better pathing, better zone geometry.

 

Less arachnos and snakes, more diversity. Less silyl plotlines where I'm someone's dumb-as-a-doorknob errand-moron.

 

To start.

So your "best fix" is to throw ALL of Redside in the trash and start over from a clean sheet of paper.

 

And just how many man hours do you think that would take to implement?

1 ...?

10 ...??

100 ...???

1000 ...????

10,000 ...?????

100,000 ...??????

1,000,000 ...???????

... more ...????????

 

How is this in any way a PRACTICAL, let alone ACHIEVABLE(!), suggestion you've offered?

Inquiring minds want to know.

 

I mean, you're basically saying "make a different game!" here.

[Oginth]

Is there something where the lesser numbers is an advantage? Like 4 Heroes need to complete among themselves for something, whereas 1 Villain can cherry pick because he has more choices.

[drbuzzard]

Personally I don't know that it's desirable to spend a lot of effort on increasing redside population. Even when the game was live, and there was a whole lot more resources available to put into things, the devs couldn't really get people to go redside much past the launch of the CoV game. I remember during that issue Redside was busy, but after that? Not so much. As someone mentioned redside on live was ~20% of blueside, which isn't very far off the stats which were just presented for Homecoming. Not exactly sure how anyone imagines that a staff with much more limited resources will be able to do to change that. Some minor tweaking of rewards and alignment powers? I know I won't care in the least. Though on a positive note, it does beat the idea of cutting off access to ATs to try to force players to the other side. That would be a total train wreck. 

 

I've never had much incentive to play a villain, and while I did get all the villain ATs to 50 back on live (playing) on redside, I have no desire to do it again. We're in a legacy game here and I'd just as soon that if work is going to be done on the game, it not be an attempt to shoehorn people into playing things they don't want to. Allocating resources to what people want to do instead of what people don't want to do makes a lot more sense. 

[Redlynne]

1 minute ago, Oginth said:

Is there something where the lesser numbers is an advantage? Like 4 Heroes need to complete among themselves for something, whereas 1 Villain can cherry pick because he has more choices.

Good question and the answer is ... NO.

One of the advantages of the entire City of Heroes system is the whole "you don't have to compete for resource spawn nodes" feature of how the game is built.  It's not like you need to wander around picking herbs or mining nodes or any kind of resource gathering where you have to compete with other Players for spawns.  It's one of the reasons why botting in City of Heroes never took off like it did in almost every other game, because you actually have to PLAY THE GAME in order to gather resources, rather than just repeat a specific farming pattern in open world zones that can be handed off to a bot to run for you.

 

I honestly can't think of a single instance where a Villain can do something a Hero can't do because of a lack of competition for doing that thing on Redside compared to high competition on Blueside.

 

The reverse however is DEFINITELY true ... where a Hero can do a large number of things (like grouping for Task Forces) that a Villain will struggle much harder to do (like finding a group for a Strike Force) simply due to the population disparity.

 

Pretty much the only instance of the lack of competition thing being true is in regards to Zone Monsters (Lusca, Adamastor, Paladin, etc.) which are featured on Blueside but which basically don't happen on Redside ... so that's out.

[Giovanni Valia]

Here's a few ideas I agree with after reading through the thread a bit.

• Get rid of Null the Gull
• Create the "hangout area" equivalent of Atlas Park statue in Mercy
• Create new mission content featuring YOU as the mastermind
• The best content IMO is mayhem missions. Create more missions where you face off against heroes instead of other villains.
• Have villain epic power-pools be accessible for villain/ rogues only.