Weekly Discussion 53: How to Increase Villain Population

[tidge]

1 hour ago, Gulbasaur said:

The broker system punishes people who want to run story arcs by forcing five generic missions before unlocking a contact - rework it to one or two, please! It's a shame, but many of the good story arcs are behind grind-gates like that.

While it is different to have to unlock contacts via the newspaper missions, the missions don't have to be grinds. At least one of the three choices is either a 'defeat <name>' or a 'steal <object> from <group>' which can be sped. In almost every zone, your first contact (whomever chosen) will eventually offer you the others, although the 'second round' of options may be limited (from any one contact).

 

I want to write this: Red Side progression through zones/XP/levels is surpsingly smooth. With the default setting for Inf/XP/difficulty, it is possible to always have content to play at your level... pretty much in the zone appropriate for your level. Any amount of teaming (SF for example) will likely earn you enough Inf to out-level a zone. I can see how this lead to feeling like a newspaper grind (because a player will have to unlock the new contact in a new zone) but as I wrote it really isn't that onerous.

 

In my recent play to level 50 red side there was only one batch of levels where I felt went a little too 'fast' (I finished all the Nerva arcs); this turned out to be a perfect time to do more Tips (the merit reward at the end for the Morality mission is pretty good) and SF team ups.

 

27 minutes ago, Redlynne said:

That's an exaggeration.  The Broker system is a solid pattern of 3 Newspaper missions enable 1 Mayhem mission after which you are introduced to a new Contact.  3+1 does not equal 5.

The higher level zones require 5 newspaper missions before the mayhem mission, IIRC. Lowbies only have to do 3 newspaper missions before the first (two?) mayhem missions are offered.

[ArchVileTerror]

Only one or two Contacts are "Findable" per level range, and most of those are the newer Contacts.

Pretty much all of the original release Contacts for Redside require the Newspaper-Broker-Mayhem system to unlock, or are unlocked from such a Contact.

[Crysis]

On 5/31/2020 at 10:16 PM, Doc_Scorpion said:

 

Certainly, increased rewards will generate increased activity...  but the topic of discussion is increasing population.  The two are not the same.

Not semantically perhaps.  But you will NEVER have POPULATION without increased ACTIVITY.  In a game world, or the real world, they go hand in hand.

 

So I think it’s perfectly acceptable theory crafting to push to address one in the hopes it leads to more of the other.

 

If I never take the time to make a guest comfortable in my home or place or business....they are far less likely to return a second time.  Make them comfortable and they will.  Comfort is highly subjective, of course.

[drew1000]

My vote goes to opening up the whole game to both sides, we are a fixed population of a resurrected old game, we are likely to never attract more players than we have now overall, our blueside players are our redside players and vice versa, apart from niche draws like SG's hosting redside nights or one player hosting SF's and trying to attract/advertise to blues no major switching will ever happen.

 

If everyone can go everywhere with no restrictions then our limited population can disperse or congregate wherever we like, make it so you can alignment switch from a selection tickbox in options menu so you dont even need to see null the gull. Yes this might all break the immersion factor but if thats what your after then you never need to switch and you can headcanon anything you want as to why your seeing heroes in Rogue Isles etc. RPers are pretty imaginative people after all.

 

I actually started playing in this universe because of CoV, i bought the game before i even had a PC that could play it, about 2 years after i was able to install it and enter into the world, i played villain until level 30 or so, always wondering where my SG mates were disappearing off to, then i realised that i had access to CoH too, made one hero and was blown away by how many people were playing on that side, suddenly stopped playing villains that much.

 

People dabble in CoV but it seems that they really want to be in CoH, its just the way it is, if you try and restrict people into doing what you want they will just walk away, you have to give them the freedom to do whatever they want and hope that they may come and play in your sandbox every once in a while, upping rewards will also have that effect, but only while those awards are available.

 

We have a much smaller team of volunteers compared to a paid staff from a major company running the game now, expecting full revamps or story rewrites or even new content written and created is unfeasible, however the idea of cherry picking the best player content and bringing into the game proper is a great one, starting to see the players as a resource that can be used to improve the game so that anyone can contribute and have their work voted on by the rest of the playerbase would be worthy of the essentially fan created project that we have here.

 

If the devs want to go that route that would be awesome, i just hope that they arent petty and want to rule the sandbox to the point that nobody else wants to play in it, after all there are lots of sandboxes out there.

 

Most of the defunct games that have been resurrected by a small group of people end up being changed to suit those peoples own playing needs/wishes and lose lots of players that were attracted to play the game that they missed when it was shutdown, i really hope that doesnt happen here, lets not become the next Return of Reckoning for example.

 

 

[Oginth]

38 minutes ago, cranebump said:

"Teleport to Contact" function

How do you do that?

[ArchVileTerror]

There are certain Contacts who do not require introductions.  Those Contacts can be found by hitting the "Find Contacts" Button in the Contacts window.  Assuming you haven't met them yet, you can do a one-time teleport directly to them using that menu.

[Redlynne]

26 minutes ago, drew1000 said:

My vote goes to opening up the whole game to both sides

The problem with that is a premature optimization of the game that existed before City of Villains was developed.  This was stated in no uncertain terms by multiple Devs as the Player Summits in 2011 and 2012.

 

If you were making the game from scratch that is a perfectly valid thing to do.

But the sad reality is that retrofitting the entire game for co-op access is apparently something the programming was designed to actively discourage allowing that to happen without an urban renewal level of reprogramming effort (that will no doubt cause all kinds of other things to break completely).  It's one of those Load Bearing Boss kinds of things.

[Gulbasaur]

1 hour ago, Redlynne said:

That's an exaggeration.  The Broker system is a solid pattern of 3 Newspaper missions enable 1 Mayhem mission after which you are introduced to a new Contact.  3+1 does not equal 5.

It starts at three but raises to five in the second or third zone... so you're right, it's not five, but six. (I'd forgotten about the mayhem missions and you'd forgotten about the increased number of broker missions needed.)

1 hour ago, cranebump said:

Can't you just use the "Teleport to Contact" function, if you want to proceed into missions without using the broker? Then those contacts can direct you to other contacts.

 

Not always - most of the "at launch" CoV contacts need a broker introduction. While you can do them as Flashbacks, I'd argue that you shouldn't have to play the storyline backwards. Several story arcs introduce the patrons before you do their missions, which is good plot development apart from the fact that many people miss them because of the grindy broker system hiding the story arcs behind a four to six mission unlock. 

Edited June 2, 2020 by Gulbasaur

[nightroarer]

1 hour ago, tidge said:

While it is different to have to unlock contacts via the newspaper missions, the missions don't have to be grinds.

It depends on the player. I do not enjoy the mayhem missions. When I finish a contact, I just want to move on to new contacts, not be forced to go through the whole newspaper/mayhem process. To me, this requirement is an impediment to playing redside, not a benefit. Note, it is the mayhem mission specifically that bugs me. The newspaper missions can be nice side missions.

 

I do police radio missions blueside occasionally as a change of pace or to finish out a level. I'd like to treat newspaper missions the same way.

[UltraAlt]

I'm trying to figure out "why increase the population of the villain side?"

I played before the sunset.

I played in the CoV beta, was there when they shut down the CoV beta test, and bought CoV when it came out.

I made characters ... not anywhere near as many villains as as heroes.

I can't even remember if I made it to 50 with one villain character. Maybe one. Maybe just into the high 40's.

 

I would only play villains when I felt like being a villain which wasn't all that often. The most fun I had was in the bank heist missions (opposite of the safeguard missions). (or - as usual - just making the character)

 

So I had a bunch of characters that I made as villains before the shutdown that were kind of fun to play, but I never really enjoyed playing them as much partially due to the population. So I can can understand why people playing villains would want more people to game with.

 

I made one villain since I have been back. Not fun at all to play the low levels. The map is horridly overpopulated for a low level character not in a team.

The area really isn't enjoyable to run around in. There was no one else there. It just wasn't fun.

I made some of the character that I had made as villains as heroes.

 

One of the things that really dishearten me about some people's need to get more people to play the villain content with the is the dropping down of walls between the two sides. Honestly, I don't even really like the concept of "Going Rogue" and, honestly, between that and - what I saw - as a downslide in the quality of gamers that farming in the AE, Power-leveling through AE, and the game opening the F2P option ... I stopped playing a good 6-9 months (at least) before the sunset. I was over it at that point. The game I had loved had had some great improvements over the time, but the quality of gameplay I was experiencing had dropped drastically (and I will say again - from my view point).

 

Comics were very ... I hate to use the term these days, but ... black-and-white.

Heroes were heroes. They were good guys. They stood for high moral values and did good things for the benefit of society and not themselves.

Villains were villains. They commited crimes for their own game. They would sacrifice their flunkies to save their own skins. They were bad people and you were supposed to want the heroes to defeat and imprison them.

Comics have strayed far away from those ideals to be uplifting and inspirational. They mire in muddy grays. Heroes are villains. Villains are heroes. A villain can be President. 

 

Playing City of Heroes - like reading comics - is an escape for me. An escape to a place where it is obvious what is good and what is bad (I say "bad" because not all villains are necessarily "eviL" <--- a discussion for another day). I don't like seeing mingling of heroes and villains. I don't like calling the sides "Blue" and "Red". They aren't "blue" and "red"; they are Hero and Villain. 

 

Like I said. I have played villains. If someone wants to play a villain, that's fine. But don't drag down what it is to be a hero so that villians, can be villains and still run the same missions as Heroes. If villains want to game with heroes, make a hero or follow the path to go rogue.

 

For myself, I'm not going vigilante with any of my heros, and I really don't want to be forced into that status because there aren't enough people playing villains.

To each, their own.

[longdayinrehab]

I have not read everything here, but wanted to chime in with why I don't particularly like playing in Rogue Isles. Also, I'll add what, specifically, could be done to get me to play more villains (and even play in Rogue Isles).

 

I played CoH beta, CoV beta, and played on/off the entirety of Live. I liked the Rogue Isles for the first maybe 10 levels. After that it just felt depressing to play in. It's chaotic, which would be fine if it was one or two zones, but almost every zone feels like the same sort of chaos with different names attached. I don't have villains in Homecoming (yet), because I created them as heroes and plan to level them before I switch them to Villains. That's how little I enjoy leveling in Rogue Isle. I want to feel like the puppetmaster, not the puppet. I don't make a villain to be a henchman (and I don't know that anyone really does, or if they do, they plan on that being the starter arc for their villain). As I'm sure others have said, there seem to be an ton of assumptions made about your villain before you ever even create your character. If you don't plan your entire concept around those assumptions it just feels broken to play the missions in the Rogue Isles.

 

As to how to increase population: Put some mission arcs in Paragon City for villains to start in the city (maybe culminating in their capture and exile to Rogue Isles or something). There are zones that are basically entirely villain-owned anyhow. Maybe one of these little-visited zones could be co-opted and redone to house the villains (Hollows feels particularly empty any time I head there to get my badges, among other zones). Turn them into villain starter zones with excursions into the other zones of Paragon for various door missions. There are all these door missions where villains have somehow taken over a random building and made it a secret base, how about getting to play the villain who takes over that building? What does that look like? Way back when I first heard about CoV coming out, that was what I thought it would be. The other side of the Paragon City coin, not fighting over the garbage heap that is the Rogue Isles. Let me team up with the villains I see all over Paragon as a free agent for hire or even a faction member.

 

What do we do with the Rogue Isles, then? Keep them, but modify them. Let heroes head over there covertly to attempt to make things better from within. Add a signature arc in Atlas similar to Matthew's where it culminates in your character being selected for a special one-way ticket to Rogue Isles to help an underground movement of heroes who want to take back the Isles (or at least topple the death grip of Arachnos). I know that feels more like just injecting heroes into the Isles, but I honestly think if you adjust them to Rogues when they agree to this arc it will allow for the double-agent feel of being in the Isles (Like Holden Carver from Sleeper).

[golstat2003]

On 5/31/2020 at 3:34 PM, Apparition said:

 

Yep.  I am amused that most people who repeatedly claim that the game is too easy repeatedly run Council radio missions.  But play red side, or God forbid gold side?  *Balk.*  *Go back to running Council radio missions.*

SAY IT LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK.

[DrInfernus]

1 hour ago, UltraAlt said:

I'm trying to figure out "why increase the population of the villain side?"

I played before the sunset.

I played in the CoV beta, was there when they shut down the CoV beta test, and bought CoV when it came out.

I made characters ... not anywhere near as many villains as as heroes.

I can't even remember if I made it to 50 with one villain character. Maybe one. Maybe just into the high 40's.

 

I would only play villains when I felt like being a villain which wasn't all that often. The most fun I had was in the bank heist missions (opposite of the safeguard missions). (or - as usual - just making the character)

 

So I had a bunch of characters that I made as villains before the shutdown that were kind of fun to play, but I never really enjoyed playing them as much partially due to the population. So I can can understand why people playing villains would want more people to game with.

 

I made one villain since I have been back. Not fun at all to play the low levels. The map is horridly overpopulated for a low level character not in a team.

The area really isn't enjoyable to run around in. There was no one else there. It just wasn't fun.

I made some of the character that I had made as villains as heroes.

 

One of the things that really dishearten me about some people's need to get more people to play the villain content with the is the dropping down of walls between the two sides. Honestly, I don't even really like the concept of "Going Rogue" and, honestly, between that and - what I saw - as a downslide in the quality of gamers that farming in the AE, Power-leveling through AE, and the game opening the F2P option ... I stopped playing a good 6-9 months (at least) before the sunset. I was over it at that point. The game I had loved had had some great improvements over the time, but the quality of gameplay I was experiencing had dropped drastically (and I will say again - from my view point).

 

Comics were very ... I hate to use the term these days, but ... black-and-white.

Heroes were heroes. They were good guys. They stood for high moral values and did good things for the benefit of society and not themselves.

Villains were villains. They commited crimes for their own game. They would sacrifice their flunkies to save their own skins. They were bad people and you were supposed to want the heroes to defeat and imprison them.

Comics have strayed far away from those ideals to be uplifting and inspirational. They mire in muddy grays. Heroes are villains. Villains are heroes. A villain can be President. 

 

Playing City of Heroes - like reading comics - is an escape for me. An escape to a place where it is obvious what is good and what is bad (I say "bad" because not all villains are necessarily "eviL" <--- a discussion for another day). I don't like seeing mingling of heroes and villains. I don't like calling the sides "Blue" and "Red". They aren't "blue" and "red"; they are Hero and Villain. 

 

Like I said. I have played villains. If someone wants to play a villain, that's fine. But don't drag down what it is to be a hero so that villians, can be villains and still run the same missions as Heroes. If villains want to game with heroes, make a hero or follow the path to go rogue.

 

For myself, I'm not going vigilante with any of my heros, and I really don't want to be forced into that status because there aren't enough people playing villains.

To each, their own.

Have to say I completely disagree that comic book culture is binary. Sure, some heroes are heroes, and some villains are villains, but there is a vast amount of grey between those two extremes. 
 

Batman, for example, does the right thing but for the wrong reason. He’s a psycho with a bloodlust and some very dark methods at times. He just directs it towards criminals. Hulk is seen as a villain by the authorities due to the damage and destruction he causes. Then you have the likes of Magneto who does bad things but in the name of a noble ideal. Wolverine is much more or a hero now, but he has a dark past when he showed he was capable of bad things. Would we call Jean Grey/Dark Pheonix a hero or a villain? Lex Luthor is a ruthless vicious character, but much of what he does is motivated by a desire to protect earth from alien threats.
 

Sure, you have your Superman/Captain America style full-blown clean cut heroes and they’re awesome, but thank god they aren’t all like that. Comic book culture is far more about flawed characters battling their own demons more so than perfect heroes battling absolute villains. 
 

Personally, I love that CoX reflects that and gives us the chance to create and explore characters who tread the line between good and evil. 

[Patti]

Ohno!   Not the comic book arguments!  Run for cover!  Get to the bunkers!  No one will be safe!

[DrInfernus]

21 minutes ago, Patti said:

Ohno!   Not the comic book arguments!  Run for cover!  Get to the bunkers!  No one will be safe!

Good lord, I certainly wouldn’t want to start one of those! 
 

Merely feel it important to challenge a conclusion based on any premise that comic book culture is binary. 
 

A huge part of CoX has always been the potential for true individuality. That should extend, as much as possible, to a character’s motivations as much as it does their look and powers. In my opinion at least. 

[GastlyGibus]

Seeing a lot of suggestions for villain motivations, and while generally I can see why the arcs are written the way they are, I can understand the feeling of "my villain would never do that."

My suggestion to alleviate this problem would be maybe organizing contacts into "branches" the way it's handled in Praetoria. You've got the loyalists, but what kind of loyalist are you? Are you the responsible one who actually cares about the safety and security of Praetoria? Or are you just a glory-hound in it for the fame and fortune?

I think this could translate well into redside. In Mercy Isle you already have something slightly similar. Do you want to start working for Arachnos with Kalinda? Or are you a mercenary who wants to help Burke? Have the villain-side contacts separated into categories based on different villainous types. The ones off the top of my head would be...

Mercenary - You're in it for the money, plain and simple. You don't much care who you have to beat up or why, as long as you get paid.
Power - You want power and glory. Gathering resources, minions, wealth, and other necessities to help you achieve your goals of world domination.
Chaos - You don't care about power or money or fame. All you want is chaos and destruction.

I think some contacts might fit well into some of those categories, but it might prove difficult, I understand, and would require writing totally new contacts from the ground up. But this way, I think people could really feel more "in-character" when playing redside, and allow them more freedom to play the kind of character they imagine in their head.
 

What Yoru-Hime said on page one is absolutely correct. For heroes this isn't much of an issue, because heroes are reactive. They exist mainly to stop evil and protect innocents. For villains it's completely different, and I think having different branching contact paths would really go far in making redside feel more unique and player-friendly.

[BZRKR]

44 minutes ago, GastlyGibus said:

Mercenary - You're in it for the money, plain and simple. You don't much care who you have to beat up or why, as long as you get paid.
Power - You want power and glory. Gathering resources, minions, wealth, and other necessities to help you achieve your goals of world domination.
Chaos - You don't care about power or money or fame. All you want is chaos and destruction.

YES!

Make these into Praetoria-style factions where if you are "Chaos" then "Mercenary" contacts won't give you missions (and vice versa), and sprinkle chances to "Change your Outlook" every level bracket or so. Make sure that the leveling paths are at least as complicated as what we see in Praetoria, so that you'd have to make at least two characters that go through different contacts to "see" it all.

 

Oh, and add at least 3 Strike Forces, one each for "Power", "Mercenary", and "Chaos", for about lvl 30-ish so your characters are powerful, but still chasing Tier 9's and do not have access to Incarnates.

 

(and maybe change the name of the "Power" subfaction to "Dominance" so as not to be confused with the "Loyalist - Power" alignment.)

[MTeague]

3 hours ago, DrInfernus said:

Sure, you have your Superman/Captain America style full-blown clean cut heroes and they’re awesome, but thank god they aren’t all like that. Comic book culture is far more about flawed characters battling their own demons more so than perfect heroes battling absolute villains. 
 

Personally, I love that CoX reflects that and gives us the chance to create and explore characters who tread the line between good and evil. 

I'm not gonna say thank god not all heroes are like that. 

 

I am gonna say thank god each player can create a hero of whatever type they want.

• You want to be a noble hero like Cap or Supes who never falters, and always stays true to their ideals no matter how dark and gritty the world they find themselves in. You do you. It may mean you never get a Patron Pool, but hey, only about half my VILLAINS even use a Patron Pool. I'm often happier with the Ancillary Pools.  And Concept >  All Else, anyway.
• You want to make a Doctor Doom or other no-bones-about-Bad-Dude character, who always stays Villain and never chooses Rogue?  You do you.  Some of my villains are out for total world domination. Some because they just want it. Some because they feel they alone can guide humanity to it's proper destiny.  One of my villains looking to outdo Thanos, and are on quest to cull the worlds human population.  She'd like to drop human total population to just around 1 million hunter-gatherers, everyone else dead.  And she considers that merciful, to give humanity a second chance to live in proper balance with nature. (proper balance as she sees it, of course)
• You want to make a scoundrel who has no problem being a con-man, no problem with robbing banks, but will draw the line and refuse to do anything that would harm kids or hospitals, and even has contacts and friends and family and entire neighborhoods that they hold dear and don't want to see harmed?  You can do that.
• You want to make a character who is Sick and Tired of the legal red tape and due process and thinks its high time good guys took off the gloves and started going at Mafia Bosses and Drug Cartels in the only language they understand?  You can do that too.

Edited June 2, 2020 by MTeague

[MTeague]

14 minutes ago, BZRKR said:

YES!

Make these into Praetoria-style factions where if you are "Chaos" then "Mercenary" contacts won't give you missions (and vice versa), and sprinkle chances to "Change your Outlook" every level bracket or so. Make sure that the leveling paths are at least as complicated as what we see in Praetoria, so that you'd have to make at least two characters that go through different contacts to "see" it all.

 

Oh, and add at least 3 Strike Forces, one each for "Power", "Mercenary", and "Chaos", for about lvl 30-ish so your characters are powerful, but still chasing Tier 9's and do not have access to Incarnates.

 

(and maybe change the name of the "Power" subfaction to "Dominance" so as not to be confused with the "Loyalist - Power" alignment.)

Honestly I'd like to have a few Rogue story arcs where yea, you're a mercenary, but you have the OPTION to go with it heedless of who is harmed, and you have the OPTION to say "No, that's a line even I won't cross" and have options to work to foil your employer's schemes (and if you should happen to loot his bank account while you do it, well, that would be a happy coincidence....)

[Troo]

21 hours ago, Redlynne said:

Note that if the total Heroes (2040) to Villains (391) across all servers were balanced "better" at even a 4 to 1 ratio we'd be seeing (2040+391)/4=608 Villains instead of 391 Villains across all servers, and only 1823 Heroes instead of 2040 ... using these latest numbers.  That would amount to a +55.5% increase in Villain population(!) but only a -10.6% decrease in Hero population, if the overall alignment balance across all 5 servers was a 4 to 1 ratio instead of the 5.22 to 1 ratio that I'm seeing here.

Is there any way to guestimate the number of dualboxes or AE farms in those numbers?

 

I'm feeling there is a non issue if the actual number of players (not accounts) are closer to 3-1.

 

Blueside has far more content and zones. Number of players might be better represented averaged across content.

[Redlynne]

13 minutes ago, Troo said:

Is there any way to guestimate the number of dualboxes or AE farms in those numbers?

Server Status Link

 

You saw what I was pulling my info from.  If you want to use the same source to make that determination ... have at it.

My expectation is that the number of dualboxes and/or AE farms ought to be present but not necessarily a deciding factor, as far as this goes.

[Eva Destruction]

13 hours ago, Gulbasaur said:

The broker system punishes people who want to run story arcs by forcing five generic missions before unlocking a contact - rework it to one or two, please! It's a shame, but many of the good story arcs are behind grind-gates like that.

 

I'd rather redside had a blueside-style introduction chain running all the way through.  Sometimes you want to do some paper missions without having to run to the broker all the time.

 

5 hours ago, BZRKR said:

YES!

Make these into Praetoria-style factions where if you are "Chaos" then "Mercenary" contacts won't give you missions (and vice versa), and sprinkle chances to "Change your Outlook" every level bracket or so. Make sure that the leveling paths are at least as complicated as what we see in Praetoria, so that you'd have to make at least two characters that go through different contacts to "see" it all.

 

Oh, and add at least 3 Strike Forces, one each for "Power", "Mercenary", and "Chaos", for about lvl 30-ish so your characters are powerful, but still chasing Tier 9's and do not have access to Incarnates.

 

(and maybe change the name of the "Power" subfaction to "Dominance" so as not to be confused with the "Loyalist - Power" alignment.)

In Praetoria, opposing factions will still give you content, and redside doesn't have enough content to wall a bunch of it off that way.  Besides, if you're trying to take over the world, you'll need money, that's why Brain went on Jeopardy.   So it doesn't really make sense in that way either.  I'd rather see the contacts clearly state what kind of content they offer before you accept them; like how hero contacts tell you they deal with the Circle of Thorns or Crey, the villain contacts would tell you they offer mercenary work, or the opportunity to cause chaos, or kick puppies, or be morally dubious but not actually evil, or you'll be working for Arachnos.  That way, players can say "screw Arachnos, I'm not helping you," and choose another contact.

[Yoru-hime]

I agree. I'm not sure I see the need for a motivation structure to be some sort of lockout. I don't even know that we'd need to apply it to characters themselves as much as the story arcs so the player can have an idea how to guide their villain's career.

 

An example:

Suppose my character aspires to rule the world. She usually focuses on Dominance operations to increase her power base, but now and then she feels the need to pad the slush fund, so she throws in a few Mercenary contracts here and there. Or perhaps she's decided that the heroes are getting a little too close to her center of power and goes on some Chaos rampages to create a distraction and draw her foes into a fight on her terms. Create a variety and inform the players in broad terms what their options are, then let them decide where they want the narrative to go next. My next villain could be all about the cold hard cash and choose a very different path.

 

Not that every plan goes off without a hitch, of course. Surprises and betrayals are part of the lifestyle, but the ability to, by and large, choose your own path is critical. That illusion of control is key. A Villain with no feeling of control over their own actions is almost by definition a Henchman. Hence the gripes about City of Lackeys.

 

This feels like something that could be feasible if implemented in phases, rather than requiring some massive large-scale rework. Just add a few arcs here and there to flesh out the various motivations. The old arcs can stay as they are, much like the classic Issue 0 blueside content is still there if that's what you want. Maybe some of them get tagged Mercenary or Chaos as appropriate, but there wouldn't be a reason to banish them to Ouroboros or anything. Everything could be additive and done piecemeal as resources are available.

4 hours ago, MTeague said:

Honestly I'd like to have a few Rogue story arcs where yea, you're a mercenary, but you have the OPTION to go with it heedless of who is harmed, and you have the OPTION to say "No, that's a line even I won't cross" and have options to work to foil your employer's schemes (and if you should happen to loot his bank account while you do it, well, that would be a happy coincidence....)

I like this idea. Much like motivation, players naturally also want to define for ourselves just how dastardly our villains, rogues and vigilantes are. Some won't think twice about unleashing mass destruction the moment something gets in their way. Others have their own internal honor code that makes perfect sense to them, even if the rest of the world never understands.

[MTeague]

9 minutes ago, Yoru-hime said:

This feels like something that could be feasible if implemented in phases, rather than requiring some massive large-scale rework. Just add a few arcs here and there to flesh out the various motivations.

to be fair, the undertaking is still probably a large undertaking to write a number of branching arcs that have allow you to flesh out where your characters lines are (if in fact, your character has any). 

 

Technically, I agree I don't think it's a massive lift.  the game already has the ability to present you with choices and alter the mission based on the outcome.  And, they have have missions that give a more subtle choices with no giant midscreen popup.... such as the Imperial City Power mission where you can choose to capture Ricochet even though it means leaving Zane, Arie, and Warrant to die, or the option to leave the mission, letting Ricochet, and then get the next mission to save your powers division buddies. I'd love more of that.

 

It's just in terms of writing up good arcs, narrating it all, deciding where the character can choose to branch left vs right and why.... that's time consuming.  So I could defintely understand how producing those arcs would have to come in drips and drops rather than a sudden shazam, here's 40 new arcs! 

 

Or they might decide time is better spent giving AE the tools to make such branching arcs and farming out the storyline generation to us. 

Edited June 3, 2020 by MTeague

[Eva Destruction]

44 minutes ago, Yoru-hime said:

This feels like something that could be feasible if implemented in phases, rather than requiring some massive large-scale rework. Just add a few arcs here and there to flesh out the various motivations. The old arcs can stay as they are, much like the classic Issue 0 blueside content is still there if that's what you want. Maybe some of them get tagged Mercenary or Chaos as appropriate, but there wouldn't be a reason to banish them to Ouroboros or anything. Everything could be additive and done piecemeal as resources are available.

 

Yes, my thought was to "tag" the existing arcs, or at least change the flavor text you get when you're offered a contact to indicate what kind of content you'll be doing.  For the no-introduction contacts, give them a little blurb, then give the player the choice to accept that contact or not; that way you won't have a contact you don't want cluttering up your list and you won't accidentally get stuck in an arc.  A tag system would be too restrictive to apply to existing content; how would you tag Television, for instance?  Why are you working for Dmitri Krylov, exactly?  I think rewriting the intro blurbs would offer more flexibility while still allowing villains to choose the contacts that best fit their character's motives.  And I think you really do have to work with existing content; in ten issues, before Going Rogue and everything became All Praetoria All the Time, the paid professionals working on the live game added only a fraction of the content villains got at CoV launch and issue 7.  If you're going to rely on a handful of volunteers to make redside more appealing just by adding new content, you're going to be waiting a long time.  Rewriting some text takes a lot less time.