Thoughts on the evolution of the Rogue Isles

[Darmian]

As for Galaxy City?  I'd love it back...but I'd rather not have it back if all we got was the Echo "turned on".  It would now need at least to be revamped to Atlas/Praetoria levels (though perhaps still having some damaged areas.

[Darmian]

1 minute ago, MTeague said:

 

100% all for this. 

I'm just thinking it might require certain parts of maps be "safe for undercover folks" and certain parts NOT be.

Like Kings Row? Lurking around the factories and warehouses and meeting villain contacts discreetly?  Awesome.

 

But if you literally walk into the police station or decide to dance in front of Blue Steel or Miss Liberty, they should use you as the Titliest-1 in a round of Hellion Golf. And maybe other in-zone heroes should be allowed to gank you until you flee the zone (or take a hospital ride to a "safe" hidden villain base in the zone).  Something to keep it from being Toooo out of bounds and putting SOME limits on what you can do while undercover.

Sooo...safe houses?  And safe paths?  Something along the Light Paths you find in First Ward/Night Ward?  Get to them and the heroes and PPD ain't going in there, because narratively MAJOR gang turf.

[TemporalVileTerror]

I imagine it might be ten kilograms of hell in a two kilogram container to do this, but . . . 

 

You know those places in Atlas Park and Mercy Island where the zone itself is semi-instanced for players to experience different versions of the zone?

 

Do that.

Specifically for the parts of the Zone which are protected by Police Drones and Signature NPCs.

That way the villains operating in Kings Row can go and try their luck against Blue Steel (and get soundly defeated) without disrupting the Heroes in the area who are trying to use Blue Steel for training up their latest level.

[Take One]

On 3/21/2021 at 6:07 PM, Tyrannical said:

One of the ideas I had a while back was to repurpose Striga Isle into a villain zone, and moving all contacts from the map to Boomtown, and the doors to their missions would be replaced with a helicopter (or if suitable, moved to locations in Boomtown).

 

You wouldn't have to remove the existing Striga or change any of the contacts. You can have a separate instance of Striga for villains, with new contacts but otherwise identical (or updated to another level range if you prefer but that would be a lot more work, and I for one would love another place to go from level 20-30 than Sharkhead). So you don't have to remove any NPCs anywhere else, or anything of the sort. Just come up with stories for villains to enjoy on Striga. For inspiration, I suggest my own modest AE arc "Fear And Loathing On Striga", which I only recently learned was the official name of one of the actual Striga arcs. The egg on my face!

[Take One]

On 3/22/2021 at 7:59 PM, TemporalVileTerror said:

I do like the idea of Villains gaining access to Striga, though.  If we're making an Echo of Striga for heroes anyway, why not do this the other way around and make an "Alternate Reality" version of Striga for Villains to play in, wihle maintaining the existing Striga exactly as-is?

 

I see that I am late with my suggestion. So I'll just agree with this.

[Take One]

9 hours ago, Darmian said:

But if you got BB and WB for the Rogue Isles and the price was Echo DA...well?

 

There is no reason to remove an Echo map. Just add another Echo map. "Hostile DA" or whatever, where people can PVP. Make up some IC reason for it. "The mists and Mot's influence have fogged the minds of all that enter the area, and they are now hostile to each other." Make it like Warburg, where it's a free-for-all.

 

Similarly, Echo: Warburg and Echo: Bloody Bay could be PVE maps "before the hostilities began" where there is no pvp. It's moments after Blitz's defection / the meteorite strikes, and nobody has yet figured out that there's gold in them thar hills. Thus, villains are there trying to figure out what is going on and how to take advantage of the new situations. Only later do the heroes show up to fight them for the resources.

Edited March 24, 2021 by Take One

[Darmian]

Ok, at the risk of getting shouted at by PVPers, narratively PVP has been shoehorned into the game and literally has no reason to exist content-wise other than people like and want PVP.  And that's absolutely cool. So just double the maps and let Bloody Bay, Warburg, Siren's Call, and even RV if need be have PVE iterations as well.  And why not PVP versions of Echo DA and the Rikti Crash Site?

 

"But the content is getting the Shards and getting the nukes."  Yep.  And what has that actually got to do with PVP? Literally Nothing.  ONLY RV has any smidgen of a reason for PVP narratively.

 

Ideally I'd like to see the south islands developed into something, as @TemporalVileTerrormentioned above, but I'm back to leveraging assets that already exist. Doubling a map isn't hard, the game itself does it for numbers caps.  Now do it manually and change the flags for PVE/PVP. 

 

Of course all this, if it were ever to happen, is sitting in a queue behind KW getting fixed.

[Steampunkette]

11 hours ago, MTeague said:

 

Currently, only Co-Op zones, and PvP zones, allow both Heroes (not Vig) and Villains (not Rogues) to exist in the same zone. 

Which is why I was envisioning a "Red Striga" and a "Blue Striga" that visually look the same but are technically separate instances. 

 

That said? I think it would be wonderful if some careful controls were put in place to allow for an entirely new classification of zone, where you can be in the same zone, can't team up, have totally different contacts and totally different story arcs, but yet is not an automatic pvp free-for-all.  (I'd be willing to talk turkey on some kind of flagging conditions scheme though)

Flagging? Would be a NIGHTMARE.

 

So right now most zones basically have a super simple time of flagging a group as Hostile, Neutral, or Passive to players, and a handful of groups have a separate flag of hostile toward other NPC groups (Which is why the Ghost of Scrapyard and his pals will wreck Arachnos they run into).

 

To flag out zones so that different characters are only hostile to Heroes or only hostile to Villains would require some different flagging options made available.

 

That said: So far as I'm aware, any zone that allows both Heroes and Villains in it will automatically allow hero/villain teaming in a Co-Op Style. And there's no way to stop that from happening.

 

My suggestion is to not care about that, and write Heroic and Villainous content without regard to whether or not some Superman character will team up with a Lex Luthor. If he wants to do the Villainous content that's on him.

 

Functionally such a zone would be Co-Op. But we don't have to support that narratively, is the general thrust, here.

[Darmian]

44 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

Flagging? Would be a NIGHTMARE.

 

So right now most zones basically have a super simple time of flagging a group as Hostile, Neutral, or Passive to players, and a handful of groups have a separate flag of hostile toward other NPC groups (Which is why the Ghost of Scrapyard and his pals will wreck Arachnos they run into).

 

To flag out zones so that different characters are only hostile to Heroes or only hostile to Villains would require some different flagging options made available.

 

That said: So far as I'm aware, any zone that allows both Heroes and Villains in it will automatically allow hero/villain teaming in a Co-Op Style. And there's no way to stop that from happening.

 

My suggestion is to not care about that, and write Heroic and Villainous content without regard to whether or not some Superman character will team up with a Lex Luthor. If he wants to do the Villainous content that's on him.

 

Functionally such a zone would be Co-Op. But we don't have to support that narratively, is the general thrust, here.

Then that's easy, those contacts for the required alignments just will not give opposite alignments missions. 

This is already done in certain zones, Praetoria for instance, and the Pocket D Valentine missions, where you get told you're not the right type.

[Steampunkette]

7 minutes ago, Darmian said:

Then that's easy, those contacts for the required alignments just will not give opposite alignments missions. 

This is already done in certain zones, Praetoria for instance, and the Pocket D Valentine missions, where you get told you're not the right type.

Absolutely! Contacts can be flagged to only give quests to certain people.

 

Superman could still tag along on Lex Luthor's team... But he wouldn't get the Story Arc Bonus, souvenier, badges...

[Darmian]

Of course, before we get ahead of ourselves, a slew of contacts like that should firstly be given to Vigilantes/Rogues, because frankly they need it.