Merits: How to drum up redside activity

[dangeraaron10]

11 minutes ago, tidge said:

 

As I have written elsewhere: you play redside to the end to be able to hand Lord Recluse his own helmet, AFTER you have already chewed your way through the named "Heroes" of Paragon City AND his best seconds (and their lackeys).

 

Blueside? You get to see Darren Wade punk the same heroes while you utterly fail to make a difference.

 

*shrug*

 

That would probably be a cool scene to experience but there's still the whole of redside.

 

Look, I wouldn't lose any sleep over a greater incentive to play Red through merits or inf.  I just think it's a band aid solution that wouldn't draw people who don't like Red to play Red. 

 

I feel like a more flexible story in any part of the game would be a good thing.  I say this because even though I'm primarily Blue, I think Goldside is PEAK CoX.  In terms of choice and writing style.

 

Basically, make the interplay between Villain and Rogue (and Hero and Vigilante) more like Resistance and Loyalists.

Edited May 28, 2021 by dangeraaron10

[MTeague]

That is an unfortunate truth.

The missions in Mercy, Port Oakes, and Cap Au Diable, are very much "City of Lackeys", where you're a useful tool to someone else. 

It doesn't stay that way. But a lot of players do not make it past that pont. They get disgusted and walk away.

 

They never get to Sharkhead Isle, where you start coming more into your own, and into Nerva and St Martial where you're treated with more respect and even deference by some contacts.  Tip Missions are a good way to feel like your own villain once they start dropping at lvl 20. And some of the newer arcs like Mr G are just wonderful. 

 

That said, it is definitely true some mission arcs are more about helping someone ELSE's evil scheme. Vernon Von Grun acknowledges your power and treats you with respect, and has a few amusing arcs with some great temp powers. But ultimately, if you're "Well what is MY characters motivation? Why would I help this mad scientist?" It's largely on you to headcanon you'll make his work fail, but walk away with his secrets.  And then you get to Weston Phipps, the Kicker of Puppies Himself, and there's just NO reason to help Phipps unless your character is also a Twirler of Moustaches and Kicker of Puppies. Some characters, I simply don't talk to certain contacts.

Edited May 28, 2021 by MTeague

[Icono04]

7 hours ago, MTeague said:

Twirler of Moustaches

Now I want that as my badge title.

[Snarky]

Lot of suggestions on different ways to write something that was put in the can almost a decade ago.  Some good.  Some....meh  But all besides the point.  This is a "finished product"  You missed the design phase by a few days.

 

As fas as what Redside is?  A glorious traipse through the underside of being a super villain.  Sometimes getting played.  Sometimes getting beaten.  Sometimes being a lackey.  Sometimes making people...happy?  Sometimes gathering citizens for live vivisection by the Vahzilok.  Sometimes kicking Recluse's butt.

[Ukase]

I can't count the times I've been wrong. And I could easily be wrong about this. Do I like redside? No, not particularly. But, it could be fair to say I never gave it a fair shot. So, what did I do? I made a red side crawl team for our SG. We meet once a week, started at level 1, and have crawled our way through content. We're now mostly level 40, give or take. We started with 2 teams of about 6, and summer started, Covid had an impact, but we still have 5-10 folks that show up when they can. We just kill to objectives, except when the mission is timed or something. We don't speed through, although I don't like  the slow pace, a lot of folks do. And, part of the idea was to give red side a fair shot, and speeding through might have had me miss out on Tarikoss calling me stupid. Yeah, who'd want to miss that gem? 
I've learned that I don't enjoy playing a widow, although I love the defensive stats. I've learned I still don't like redside because it's just ugly scenery. It doesn't make me feel good about anything. I do enjoy being mocked for the way I say words somewhat phonetically over discord. This is why I recognize Discord as a great tool, but I really hate using it, but that's another thread. 

If you want more people to play redside, YOU have to take the lead and bring people there. It's not a secret that red-siders are starved for teaming opportunities. It may take a few moments for folks to wrap up what they were doing, if you can only do things in an impromptu fashion, but if you can make a schedule and stick to it, you can and will get people to show up routinely.  This, to me, is the simplest solution. Just form a team on a routine basis, and if you're not a complete jerk, folks will team up routinely because they either like you, or redside stuff, or both. 

If you do have an SG, a suggestion: (You don't need an sg, but it can be helpful if more than 7 show up.)
Offer a PL farm for folks in Mercy only. Take note of their global and character names. Send them out at a given level and tell them you'll be happy to give them additional levels after they've earned a few on their own and give them a time and place - like Sharkhead the next week. 
Or, once they're all over level 15, invite them to do a Tarikoss or an SSA, or some other arc,  once they've trained and slotted, of course. 

Offer them influence if they have acquired certain badges like honorary bro and avoided certain others like come full circle badge for switching and switching back. Or a bonus for the Frenzied badge. Sure, a lot of desperate jerks might be able to take advantage, but for every jerk, you should get more than a couple of folks looking for fun. 

You might say, "Why should I do this when the devs can just offer some extra stuff?" and I'll tell you, they have enough to do already. And it's not like red side is broken. It's a lack of interest by a large segment of the population, which isn't that large to begin with. (but compared to other servers, it's huge!) You and others need to make things interesting.  

[Snarky]

4 minutes ago, Ukase said:

I do enjoy being mocked for the way I say words somewhat phonetically over discord. This is why I recognize Discord as a great tool, but I really hate using it, but that's another thread. 
 

People should not mock how others speak.  That is Snarky, even by my standards.

[Ukase]

16 minutes ago, Snarky said:

People should not mock how others speak.  That is Snarky, even by my standards.

I may have to quote you on that. 

 

[Aeroprism]

46 minutes ago, Snarky said:

People should not mock how others speak.  That is Snarky, even by my standards.

And there would be the main reason why I didn't join the Homecoming Discord.  English is not my first language and though I speak it quite fluently, I still have a rocky accent and I don't particularly feel like being isolated because of that.

[Apparition]

5 minutes ago, Aeroprism said:

And there would be the main reason why I didn't join the Homecoming Discord.  English is not my first language and though I speak it quite fluently, I still have a rocky accent and I don't particularly feel like being isolated because of that.

 

 

You don't have to voice chat on Discord.  You can use it for text-based chat, which there is plenty of on the Homecoming Discord.  You'll find a lot of players on Discord that just won't use the forums for whatever reason.

[Heraclea]

19 hours ago, Aeroprism said:

I remember in the early EverQuest days, high level players used to cross to enemy newbie zones and killed quest givers for fun, not that there were many quests in that game to begin with, which is silly considering the name, but I digress.  Most likely to prevent this, the merchants were made super hard to kill to avoid high level players (or high level roaming mobs) from messing with the growth environment of newbies from other factions, which was perhaps an even worse decision because you could auto-attack a merchant if you pressed the wrong key.

Back when I was playing WoW, every so often we would spontaneously go on a tear and get a league together and kill the leaders in Stiormwind and Iromforge, or make similar incursions into Orgrimmar and Silvermoon.  Killing cats in the blood elf city was particularly satisfying.  There was no loot and no reward for killing the leaders.  We did it simply 'for the Horde' or whatever.  It would probably be great fun to invade Atlas Park, kill Ms. Liberty and Azuria for gits and shiggles, and so forth.  Recluse's Victory is a pale substitute.  On the other hand, it would be rather annoying to run a Manticore and be sent to talk to Ms Liberty and find her indisposed as a result of an incursion like this, so it surely can't happen. 

[Ironblade]

1 hour ago, Ukase said:

I can't count the times I've been wrong. And I could easily be wrong about this. Do I like redside? No, not particularly. But, it could be fair to say I never gave it a fair shot.

I gave it a shot.  I bought CoV when it was first released and started doing the same thing I did on blue - take every AT to 50 at least once.  So I took multiple characters to 50 on red before we got side switching.  And I was never really excited about it.  When we got side switching, my redside play time dropped dramatically.

 

 

35 minutes ago, Aeroprism said:

And there would be the main reason why I didn't join the Homecoming Discord.  English is not my first language and though I speak it quite fluently, I still have a rocky accent and I don't particularly feel like being isolated because of that.

I'm on the HC Discord for the text chat only.  I don't like getting on voice chat with total strangers.  I need to have at least some connection to people to want to talk to them.  So I'm on multiple Discords for supergroups and global channels.

 

 

24 minutes ago, Heraclea said:

Back when I was playing WoW, every so often we would spontaneously go on a tear and get a league together and kill the leaders in Stiormwind and Iromforge, or make similar incursions into Orgrimmar and Silvermoon.  Killing cats in the blood elf city was particularly satisfying.

Have you ever seen the video where Lord British explains how the players in Ultima Online destroyed their carefully crafted virtual ecology?  He characterized them as a swarm of ants killing everything in sight.

 

 

 

[JJDrakken]

Redside is better, has better stories/content. But it's also harder.

 

Most blue players hated that fact.  They didn't like the struggle.  When Redside content started to show it's head on Blueside(Mobs/Mechanics). OMG, the gnashing of teeth back then. I found it utterly hilarious. As when Red came out, I was 95% over there. 

 

I will remember to this to day, cuz I bout pissed myself laughing so hard, But Blueside SG on Virtue came to red to do stuff, omg the crying in broadcast about how hard it was on Mercy Island, with Longbow, Snakes, Infected, etc..   I couldn't stop laughing for a good 30 mins, as they kept wailing about in broadcast, till they finally left back to blue.  This is before Blueside ATs could go red, so they were trying play Red ATs, most them were Masterminds and couldn't figure that out, lol.

 

So yah, with current state of game, least on Excelsior. Folks are frigging lazy and wanna sit in an A,E. Farm all day. Listen, I understand wanting to get 50, but WTF you going do when you get there? Sure you can do all your lvl 50 contacts(Like I do for cash/Incarnate stuff). But once I'm done, I retire them. Move to next character that I work on.

 

So unless they make it so they can press a button to level up in a mish on Red Button, it's still going be low pop on that side. Even then that might be to much work for them.

Edited May 28, 2021 by JJDrakken

[Bionic_Flea]

If you (generic "you", meaning anyone) want more people to play redside, you should organize and advertise teaming opportunities, or a regular event, or a themed team starting at level 1, or badge runs, or whatever else you like.  It may not be as easy or fast to fill a villain SF as a hero TF but it still happens . . . every day, at least on Excelsior.

[Bionic_Flea]

47 minutes ago, Ironblade said:

Have you ever seen the video where Lord British explains how the players in Ultima Online destroyed their carefully crafted virtual ecology?  He characterized them as a swarm of ants killing everything in sight.

I had not.  Great story!  Thanks for sharing.

[Shadowsleuth]

On 5/27/2021 at 8:42 AM, Snarky said:

The best possible solution?  Have a Pocket D close that is exclusively Redside.  Not the "D", some random Supervillain map.  Have it loaded with Portals to every Red zone, an Ouro portal, every ATM, AH, tailor, every danged service you could offer.  Maybe even contact clones for SFs.  A Redside villain Bazaar.  Accessible from every Base portals.  THen the villains would at least have a AP equivalent.  

 

That sounds a lot like "The Crucible" (Fort Trident is hero equivalent), it just needs more connections to access it. (Perhaps enlarge it to make it a staging area for SFs, Trials, & Raids)

 

https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/The_Crucible

 

Turn both Fort Trident & The Crucible into major transportation hubs with connections to the Tunnel System, submarine (in Fort Trident only), Black Helicopter (in The Crucible only, slap a retractable roof hatch on the cave ceiling so people don't keep asking how the helicopter gets out of there) & Base portal access for both locations.

 

Add crafting tables, Ouroboros Crystal & all the services you listed in your post.

 

And open up both locations for Vigilantes & Rogues.
 

[ZemX]

 

14 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

If you (generic "you", meaning anyone) want more people to play redside, you should organize and advertise teaming opportunities

 

The problem, as stated, is that more people choose blueside than redside.  It's not a solution to simply say, "Well then, more people should choose to play redside! That would fix it!"

 

More people should choose to eat vegetables.  More people should choose to safeguard the environment.  More people should care for one another.  More people should push for world peace and equality.

 

They. Don't.  Individuals do.  Populations don't.  Populations need the carrot or the stick (or both).  And the stick is usually bad for business.

[JJDrakken]

Wanna make Redside more popular, put a couple Portal Corp like Contacts for 50 content. Tina Macintyre or Unai Kemen.  Large open maps filled with LOTS of mobs to take down. Folks use those lvl/make cash.  Redside has literal maps with like 2 mobs on it and a bunch of Pillars worth 0 xp on them.  I'm looking at you Vernon Von Grun or stupid 0 xp Mole Machines that are required to be taken down, but like a jillion HP missions...

 

Thus it's less frugal to make funds over on Red, I still prefer the content, but at end day when I need to make that cash, I use all Blue Contacts, which are a lot.

[ZemX]

53 minutes ago, Ironblade said:

Have you ever seen the video where Lord British explains how the players in Ultima Online destroyed their carefully crafted virtual ecology?  He characterized them as a swarm of ants killing everything in sight.

 

That game had the best bugs I've ever seen.   I once watched a Great Lord (max reputation) give a coin to a beggar and be instantly executed by a teleporting guard because reputation was an 8-bit number and it had just rolled over with that last act of charity.

 

Speaking of Great Lords (and Dread Lords) they all got a nifty shield for their accomplishment which would also punish them if their alignment ever fell from max (or rose from minimum) by exploding and killing them.  Except there was a magic spell called Incognito that would make anyone temporarily neutral.  Only it REALLY made them neutral so... boom!  It wasn't even a crime because it was a non-combat spell.  Exploding Great Lords Day.  *sniff* I miss it.

 

And then there was The Day the Earth Stood Still... a bug in stamina regeneration caused literally everyone to grind to a halt.  Even the teleporting insta-kill guards couldn't move.  So people starting committing crimes everywhere until their screens were full of absolutely immobile guards... and then the server crashed.

 

And of course who can forget the time Lord British himself was assassinated during an in-game appearance because someone forgot to turn on his invulnerability flag?

 

Ah... good times.

[Hew]

38 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

If you (generic "you", meaning anyone) want more people to play redside, you should organize and advertise teaming opportunities, or a regular event, or a themed team starting at level 1, or badge runs, or whatever else you like.  It may not be as easy or fast to fill a villain SF as a hero TF but it still happens . . . every day, at least on Excelsior.

 

 

Is there any sort of subconscious reason you picked a Field Of Corn Thats Been Farmed there? Hahahah

[Hew]

23 hours ago, MTeague said:

If I could press the History Eraser Button and redo some of the early CoV design....

Arachnos would be nothing special. 

• I've had had one of the Isles ruled by the Family, one ruled by the Tsoo, one ruled by the Sky Raiders, one ruled by the Carnies, one that's just an anarchists wasteland of Freakshow, and other unorganized gangs, and off to the side, on a minor island, there would be Arachnos. They wouldn;t be anything special at the start.

 

Actually, Sgt Schorr covers this to a degree, but it is (afaict) a rogue mish. It however, has lots of cool dialog, people, and consequence choices. 

[Bionic_Flea]

5 minutes ago, ZemX said:

 

 

The problem, as stated, is that more people choose blueside than redside.  It's not a solution to simply say, "Well then, more people should choose to play redside! That would fix it!"

 

More people should choose to eat vegetables.  More people should choose to safeguard the environment.  More people should care for one another.  More people should push for world peace and equality.

 

They. Don't.  Individuals do.  Populations don't.  Populations need the carrot or the stick (or both).  And the stick is usually bad for business.

Correct.  More people eat crappy food than vegetables.  There are many reasons: taste, ease of access, cost, but one reason is advertising. 

 

People can be convinced to do almost anything with the right pitch.  I'm not telling people to like vegetables.  I'm telling people who like vegetables to advertise.  You are, of course, free to disagree with me.  But I have personally proven my point personally many times.  I advertise on LFG that I am about to do "X" on redside and I always get requests for invitation and often people say they need to switch characters or see Null to switch sides.

 

Even if Blueside has 10 times more content than redside if you play long enough you will run out of new content.  Red and Gold can be that new content . . . or new enough if you haven't run it since it came out.

 

My "If you build it, they will come" meme is not restricted to redside.  Don't like speed runs?  Organize kill alls.  Think the game is too easy? Organize +4 with additional restrictions (small team, players debuffed, critters buffed, etc).  I constantly see people complaining that people don't play the way they want to play and want to make other players do what they want.  That won't work.  People will do what they want to do.  The trick is to find like minded people.  And the way to do that is to broadcast your likes and ask for people to join.

[Hew]

18 hours ago, Wavicle said:

The villain side also offers the Patron pools which is often, though not always, a better reward than the equivalent Epic pools.

HAHAHAhahaha.

 

"LFM for Black Scorpion Arc, (on last mish, speeding, take your pick of flavor)"
"I'll join! Let me null the gull it real fast, get the badge, and convert right back!"

Nobody is leaving blue side to get the patron pool _and staying_.

[Shadowsleuth]

On 5/27/2021 at 8:27 AM, TemporalVileTerror said:

I know I just linked it in the last thread from UAlt, and I initially decided against it in this thread because I had thought it would be a bit redundant, but ...

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/19655-weekly-discussion-53-how-to-increase-villain-population/

These arguments and ideas expressed in this thread are all very similar, if not identical, to the ones in that thread.  Which were largely the same retreads from earlier in Homecoming's many threads on the subject, which were retreads going all the way back to shortly after Issue 6 was released and there wasn't any initial swell of players joining Redside.  

 

The thread below has a few good ideas scattered through the thread: your excellent opposite side triggered zone invasion idea, which other forum posters expanded on; my idea for a revamped newspaper (inspired by how Westworld's Rico crime app works); & a few other forum posters ideas.

 

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/17554-make-red-side-great-again/

 

Opening up the hero hazard zones (either as a Coop zone or as zone where both heroes & villains coexist without really interacting) with new story arcs for both heroes & villains (& new TFs/SFs could also help).

[Hew]

4 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

...

 

I fully agree with everything you said flea, except one thing. Sometimes, you just want to be a fly on the wall. And if nobody is advertising, should you organize a team that you have no intention of leading, but just want to tag along on?

[Bionic_Flea]

6 minutes ago, Hew said:

 

If nobody is advertising, should you organize a team that you have no intention of leading, but just want to tag along on?

What leading?  Picking the next mission?  Most people that play this game have been doing it long enough that they don't need detailed instructions.  Even when there are different approaches, stating "speed" or "Kill all" while advertising tells most what they need to know.

 

Of course, if you don't want to lead or advertise, you don't have to.  Your choices then are to join someone else advertising or solo.

Edited May 28, 2021 by Bionic_Flea