Is Alignment Important?

[drgantz]

I've noticed that I'm getting tip missions.  My toon is a hero.  Does it make a difference if my hero is Hero Alignment zero or ten?

Also, what is vigilante?

[Judasace]

In short, it doesn't matter if you have points into the alignment, other than at 10 points you can get a special mission to affirm that alignment, which will give you a special power (Or you can work towards another alignment)

 

Easiest thing to do is read this:

 

https://archive.paragonwiki.com/wiki/Alignment

 

Should explain everything.

Edited May 5, 2021 by Judasace

[Omega Force]

When your hero alignment gets to 10, you get one of two tip missions that gives you extra merits on completion.  The first time you finish the alignment mission you get a little power a week afterwards.  If you go Vigilante, your character can enter the Rogue Isles and join but not lead missions there.  Each of the four alignments gets a different power.

[Snarky]

Yes, it makes a difference.  Be a villain.  Destroy the power plants of the city.  The reactor, the dam.  Be a dam villain.

[Andreah]

1 hour ago, Judasace said:

Easiest thing to do is read this:

 

I'd recommend https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Alignment instead, as it's a fork off the old dead paragonwiki archive, and is kept more up-to-date for Homecoming.

[UltraAlt]

3 hours ago, drgantz said:

I've noticed that I'm getting tip missions.  My toon is a hero.  Does it make a difference if my hero is Hero Alignment zero or ten?

Also, what is vigilante?

 

So there are 4 alignments

 

Hero - You are a good guy and can only run missions in Paragon City and co-op zones.

Vigilante - You are a shady character, but mostly for the side of justice. You can travel to the Rogue Isles, but only get missions from hero contacts.

Rogue - You were once a villain, but sometimes you do things that are considered good. You can travel to Paragon City, but only get missions from villian contacts.

Villain - You are a bad guy and can only run missions on the Rogue Isles and co-op zones

 

The advantage of the Vigilante and Rogue is being able to run with teams for both hero and villain content, but you must be on the in a co-op zone or Paragon City to join hero teams or Rogue Isle to join a villain team.

 

You don't have to go through the tips option. You can change alignments whenever you want by talking to Null the Gull on top of the van in the first villain side room in the Pocket D.

 

The game was originally developed with Heroes. Villains were added.

Villain population was much smaller than the hero population (still is).

The DEVs talked like it was a way to explore different aspects of the genre (say the Punisher for example - when you come down to it anyone hunted by the police would be a vigilante so really Spider-man was vigilante [I don't read much of the ret-conned x # comics] and, well, yeah, Rogue). I think that the Vigilante and Rogue were actually added as a way for Villains to be able to team with heros. A little the other way around but mostly for the benefit of the Villain players that had a smaller player-base to game with.

 

 

[Marshal_General]

It also gave people more badges to get.

 

It is mostly for the powers and which one you want. The villain power fully recharges domination for example.

[MTeague]

If you include the Praetoria 1-20, there's also another 4 factions... beyond Hero/Vig/Rogue/Villain. but since those.... in very large portion.... go away when your Praetorian hits primal earth, most people do not care about them.  I'd kind of like more callbacks / references / indicators of a praetorian background if it exists, but..... probably not gonna happen in the near future.

 

Alignment is significant only if you are someone who very much cares about "What would my character do?" and do a least mental-roleplay-vs-environment, or if you go beyond that and roleplay with other people.  If that's not your thing, then in terms of strict practicality it is OFTEN best to be Vigilante or Rogue to open widest possible ability of zones and content that you can do. 

 

Excception:  For a Dominator, there's a LOT to be said on the Functional/Practical side for going Full Bad Guy, and getting the Frenzy alignment power for being a Villain.  Having a button that can instantly fill your Domination bar on-demand (albeit with a large cooldown), has saved my hash a few times while levelling a Dominator.

[Shred Monkey]

Also, completing the Morality mission gives you 40 reward merits. 

 

It's not a terrible way to earn merits solo.  With a few exceptions, missions spawn in whatever zone you're in when you accept the mission, so you can run these in Atlas Park to reduce travel time.

 

 

 

 

[MTeague]

oh yea.  also, I have to give honorable mention to the Rogue-to-Hero and Vigilante-to-Villain tip missions.  Where redside goes to blue, or blueside goes to red, to do their tips, in the other guys' back yard. Those are very well written missions, and a good bit more interesting than your blue-stays-blue / red-stays-red tips.  

[siolfir]

9 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

The game was originally developed with Heroes. Villains were added.

Villain population was much smaller than the hero population (still is).

City of Villains was sold as a standalone expansion that you did not need City of Heroes to play, so you could just as easily say it was originally developed with Villains. If you only had City of Heroes you couldn't even make a villain until a later patch (issue 8?) merged the games regardless of which box you originally bought. 

 

To the OP, Vigilante and Rogue were added during the Going Rogue expansion, which also introduced the four Praetorian factions, the tip missions, and the rest of the alignment system. Prior to that it was just hero if you started in Paragon City and villain if you started in the Rogue Isles, and you could only play ATs that matched the alignment of the box that they originally appeared in: Blasters, Controllers, Defenders, Peacebringers, Scrappers, Tankers, and Warshades were only available to heroes, while Arachnos Soldiers, Brutes, Corruptors, Dominators, Masterminds, Stalkers, and Widows were only available to villains.

 

The villain population was higher then because people wanting to play those ATs had to play villain or co-op content, but it never was able to catch up to City of Heroes having a 6 issue head start in population, and a large chunk of people wanting to play the "good guy" caused the population to dip once they were able to take those characters to Paragon City (and even later start as heroes with CoH: Freedom), which also caused people who just wanted to team to follow... exacerbating the problem further.

[Apparition]

Yeah.  Prior to Freedom, the hero to villain ratio was about seven to one.  Now on Homecoming, it’s about 8.5 to one.

[KauaiJim]

Well yeah, it can make your steering pull to one side and cause vibration at certain speeds - not to mention the uneven tire wear!  🚗

 

While it's not 'important' to playing the game as others have explained it changes the zones and missions you have access to.  I popped in to mention I have to switch alignment sometimes to acquire a redside patron power (I mostly play blueside).  It's a tiny pita but it allows you to get things like mu mastery on a hero build.  😉  (nice that we have this option) 

[UltraAlt]

7 hours ago, siolfir said:

City of Villains was sold as a standalone expansion that you did not need City of Heroes to play, so you could just as easily say it was originally developed with Villains. If you only had City of Heroes you couldn't even make a villain until a later patch (issue 8?) merged the games regardless of which box you originally bought. 

 

Yes. It was sold stand alone, so, if you just bought it, you could only play villains. People that bought City of Heroes had to buy it if they wanted access to Supergroup bases and additional character slots. (later bases were gifted to hero players - and the Good vs. Evil edition version came out [which was after Issue 8] that was access to both sides in one box). Though City of Villains could be played alone, it was an addition to City of Heroes and not a sequel or a stand-alone for a majority of the player base buying it.

So no. You can't say it was originally developed with Villains because when the game originally came out you could only play heroes.

 

7 hours ago, siolfir said:

The villain population was higher then because people wanting to play those ATs had to play villain or co-op content, but it never was able to catch up to City of Heroes having a 6 issue head start in population, and a large chunk of people wanting to play the "good guy" caused the population to dip once they were able to take those characters to Paragon City (and even later start as heroes with CoH: Freedom), which also caused people who just wanted to team to follow... exacerbating the problem further.

 

I argue that is speculation.

It is more accurate that more players want to play heroes instead of villains.

There was no head start with Homecoming.

On Homecoming, the villain population online at any given time tends to be 1/3 (or less) of heroes population on every Homecoming server.

I'm sorry. Villains simply aren't that popular. Villains historically have been complaining in the forums about how they don't have other villains to team with.

 

The alignment system was to help the failing villain side have someone to game with. 

When it come down to it, that was the reason for F2P back then. Subscribers were declining, and they wanted to bring in more players for the subscribers to game with. They were also started fiddling around with an increased number of microtransactions at that point to pull a kind of bait-and-switch - play for free, but if you really want to play then you gotta pay. Problem was that they were applying that to subscribers as well as the F2P players.

 

Edited May 6, 2021 by UltraAlt

[Judasace]

3 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

People that bought City of Heroes had to buy it if they wanted access to Supergroup bases and additional character slots.

 

Also there were Villain-exclusive costume pieces. I remember there was some command though that was unintentionally available to the players that let blue side have access to those costume pieces, though.

Edited May 6, 2021 by Judasace

[Bruno Blitz]

Hello, where can i see the alignment of another player?

 

[MTeague]

7 hours ago, Bruno Blitz said:

Hello, where can i see the alignment of another player?

 

 

Off the top of my head, I'm not sure you can.

Possibly in the info page where you inspect another player, it might have the Hero / Villain / Rogue / Vigilante icon. 

If they have an alignment power, you could see their list of powers when you inspect them and tell that way.  "Oh you have Call to Valor, you're a Hero.", etc.

[TemporalVileTerror]

A player can opt-in to showing their Alignment in their own Personal Info window, by selecting the Alignment tab and hitting the toggle.

 

This is shut off by default, and the setting seems to keep resetting when you zone or log out/in.

[ZemX]

44 minutes ago, MTeague said:

If they have an alignment power, you could see their list of powers when you inspect them and tell that way.  "Oh you have Call to Valor, you're a Hero.", etc.

Alignment powers are considered "temporary powers" so it doesn't show when you inspect.  Just primary, secondary, pools, epics/patrons, set bonuses, and accolade powers.

 

Another way is to look at Badges though.   Market badges will be listed under a category name of either Wentworths or Black Market but this is according to the alignment of the person looking (i.e. you), not the alignment of the person you're looking at.   However, some of the badges themselves have a gold W coin type appearance if they are on a hero/vigilante or a golden U.S. dollar sign ($) if they are rogues/villains.   Examples are Scrounger and Inspiring.

 

Other badges change name when you change sides to either blue or red (but not between the two same-side alignments like hero/vig or rogue/villain).  Badges like Positron's Ally become Positron's Betrayer.  Etc.  Those are easy to spot in someone's Accomplishments list because of the distinctive all gray badge icon with roman numeral for the number of the original heroside TF.  But of course, only if you're looking at someone who has done those TFs.

 

I don't know if there are any badges that tell you definitively if someone is a vigilante vs a hero or rogue vs. villain so unless you see someone with redside badges in a blueside only zone, you don't know if they are a rogue or villain, for example.

[Techwright]

On 5/5/2021 at 7:48 AM, Snarky said:

Yes, it makes a difference.  Be a villain.  Destroy the power plants of the city.  The reactor, ...

 

I know a member of the city council who'd be ecstatic to meet you, just...out of the Council's hearing.