What would you like to see in a Goldside rework?

[Lens Perchance]

I've seen this idea discussed here before, but not in a dedicated thread.  

My list includes higher level content, perhaps even Praetorian Epic AT's, potential low level cross-over between blue and redsides (PvP?), some kind of ambush mitigation, perhaps in the form of a T4V transaction, or perhaps even an accolade power, and perhaps even a Task Force of some kind.  

All this would present of course not only a programming challenge, but a possibly lengthy lore revision.  

Anyway, I wanted to start the conversation on this topic because I would like to see more incentive to play Gold side and I've seen similar sentiments expressed here.  

Tell me what you think: Gold side rework, pipe dream or plausible?

[Luminara]

More frames per second.

[MTeague]

I don't want to tear up the existing Goldside Lore. 

But there are things that could be done to use the content more.

 

We know from the Goldside 1-20 arcs that Primal Earth was already aware of Praetoria, and Longbow and Arachnos both sent people over. So I see no reason why a low lvl hero couldn't be recruited by Dark Watcher and sent to Praetoria for those same 1-20 arcs.  Rather than have Undercover options for Calvin Scott or Provost Marchand, why not have Undercover options for Dark Watcher (Blue) or Arbiter Sands (Red)?  Same missions, same vanilla objectives, just a sprinkling that shows you Dark Watcher and Arachnos pulling some strings along the way. 

 

a PEAT ...  not sure about.  I know I've heard people talk about a "Greenside" where you join the Devouring Earth, but .... nah, I can't really see that happening AND still have your character retain agency and choice as independant player. You'd pretty much be consumed if the DE get thier hooks in you. 

 

I would love 40-50 content geared to let a Praetorian stay goldside for the distance. It's still *possible* now, but it ain't easy, you really have to work for it. 

[dangeraaron10]

Let me keep my fancy Gold Star or Blue Arrow icons even in Primal Earth.  Treat me like a Vigilante or Rogue if you want.

 

It really spices up my character select screen!

 

8 minutes ago, MTeague said:

We know from the Goldside 1-20 arcs that Primal Earth was already aware of Praetoria, and Longbow and Arachnos both sent people over. So I see no reason why a low lvl hero couldn't be recruited by Dark Watcher and sent to Praetoria for those same 1-20 arcs.  Rather than have Undercover options for Calvin Scott or Provost Marchand, why not have Undercover options for Dark Watcher (Blue) or Arbiter Sands (Red)?  Same missions, same vanilla objectives, just a sprinkling that shows you Dark Watcher and Arachnos pulling some strings along the way. 

 

God I love this idea.

[Darmian]

I'm invested in Gold Side a fair bit. (That avatar there is my main, a level 50 Gold who didn't leave). 

 

I think if anything were to be done that (a) maintained the existing 1 -20 zones of Nova/Imperial/Neutropolis then it would probably need to be an entirely new set of zones parallel in level to First Ward/Night Ward but still effectively pre War.  (I can see that getting shot down fast by some though).  Those two new zones would get you to roughly level 40.  A final zone of 40-50 that sat on top of these and the FW/NW arc to follow, and then on into the Incarnate Trials.

 

Crossover in the low levels?  No, that doesn't swing right in my mind. Praetoria 1-20 is very definitely set in the past, there's no fudging that at all. It's pre War so it's at the latest, absolute latest, early to mid 2010. If it wasn't for the fact that all the dedicated badgers would complain I'd have Nova/Imperial/Neutropolis removed from the TUNNEL system so no Blues/Reds could ever get there, and I'd make it impossible to get back once the Rift mission is taken.  Unless there was an actual time travel dedicated arc to do it, not ouro.

 

As per @MTeague's suggestion?  That sounds good, but again we're talking time travel here.  Not impossible but not as easy as just wandering over.   You COULD do it with a Quantum Leap (minus the body hopping) style set of missions.  Go back and do such and such because if we don't then we lose the war, and we didn't lose the war so someone must have done it, but they didn't do it yet so we better do it now, and by now I mean then.  Off you go! It's effectively low level Portal Corps missions.  And I tackled the reverse myself in an AE (see below).

 

Gold equivalents of Mayhem missions set during the war?  Instanced attacks on Primal locations? Possibility of accolades too.

 

As for adapting stuff for zones?  There's rough material already in the code that might be usable.  Time + Effort etc though.  Scroll down through this to see what I mean.

 

Praetorian Map Scales - General Discussion - Homecoming (homecomingservers.com)

 

And some of us keep the flame going.  I've got a Loyalist AE trilogy (level 19-24) and so far 2 Resistance AE arcs (level 19-24) set pre War for Golds who don't want to leave just yet but perhaps aren't ready to wander around the ruins of First Ward.  Details in my sig.  (And yes, they're designed to fit in to the existing canon as much as possible.)

[Darmian]

Oh, I also had the idea that there should be at least two (sort of!) Underground maps for Praetoria.  First Ward and Night Ward.  Who knows what weird horrors are down there? Any of the existing Underground maps could be adapted for these plus parts of the Underground incarnate trial map.

 

Ick!

 

 

[MTeague]

I guess I care a little bit less about what "Current" timeline is for Primal Earth, because my main character started at issue 0 in live. Long before anyone knew about Praetorian Hamidon. Several others started in the Hollows era.  Their own personal timeline starts a fair bit in the past.

 

So who's to say my newer characters didn't start back then too?

It all comes down to what you choose to suspend disbelief on, where you choose to mentally peg your character's story to "Okay they began HERE". 

 

Sure Twinshot may show up and inflict herself upon me (verbage quite intentional) as a forced contact at lvl 5, but nothing says I have to acknowledge her existence or allow her to in any way be part of my character's journey except via Ouroborous.... if then.

[MTeague]

7 minutes ago, Darmian said:

I think if anything were to be done that (a) maintained the existing 1 -20 zones of Nova/Imperial/Neutropolis then it would probably need to be an entirely new set of zones parallel in level to First Ward/Night Ward but still effectively pre War.  (I can see that getting shot down fast by some though).  Those two new zones would get you to roughly level 40.  A final zone of 40-50 that sat on top of these and the FW/NW arc to follow, and then on into the Incarnate Trials.

 

I'd be perfectly fine with this idea. I'd like to see what other cities were like in Praetoria.  Old Orlando?  Tokyo?  etc.  An alternate 20-40 stretch that was maybe more Science/Tech focused and a bit less Magic themed than First/Night ward would be lovely.

[Darmian]

Well, mostly the "current" timeline for Primal is shifting sands.  It depends on what you're doing, where you are, mostly - along with personal canon I suppose - but I get off the Galaxy chopper after doing the tutorial and chatting to Sister Psyche only to find she's been dead for a while and there's some Yin upstart in her spot?  WHUT?  So, yeah.  But Goldside is a lot tighter than that from Intro to the end of the Neutropolis arcs.

[Darmian]

4 minutes ago, MTeague said:

 

I'd be perfectly fine with this idea. I'd like to see what other cities were like in Praetoria.  Old Orlando?  Tokyo?  etc.  An alternate 20-40 stretch that was maybe more Science/Tech focused and a bit less Magic themed than First/Night ward would be lovely.

Those planes on the Neutropolis airstrip have to fly SOMEWHERE!!!

[DougGraves]

other players

[Darmian]

2 minutes ago, DougGraves said:

other players

We have them on Reunion.  Yeah, Reunion's a bit odd like that.  There's the dedicated "The Praetorians" SG (Only qualifier is you have to be Gold origin - you can still be a member after crossing though), and more recently The Hounds of Love SG have a spin off themed around The Wizard of Oz with all Gold side members. 

[Xenosone]

Tf's. Praetorian strike force?

[Darmian]

1 minute ago, Xenosone said:

Tf's. Praetorian strike force?

In an ideal world, yes.  But you instantly run the danger of out levelling the existing content of Nova/Imperial/Neutropolis, and the story there is actually the main point of it, more so than Paragon or Rogue Isles.

[Solarverse]

I'm not interested in "Gold Side" enough to care one way or another to be quite honest. I mean, have you seen the amount of people complaining that nobody plays "Red Side?" And I put all these in quotes because honestly, when they started letting Villain classes play as Heroes and vice/versa, there really stopped being a "Side" at all. Just my opinion, I don't mean to throw shade, just telling it the way I see things with today's game.

Edited June 17, 2021 by Solarverse
Edited for typo

[MTeague]

3 hours ago, Darmian said:

In an ideal world, yes.  But you instantly run the danger of out levelling the existing content of Nova/Imperial/Neutropolis, and the story there is actually the main point of it, more so than Paragon or Rogue Isles.

 

Yea. If someone is brand new to goldside, their first-ever (and probably second) goldside character is practically guaranteed to screw up and overlevel too much before they understand where the breakpoints are. Unfortuantely that does kind of require use of the "No Xp" option at points along the way.

[Techwright]

5 hours ago, Xenosone said:

Tf's. Praetorian strike force?

 

5 hours ago, Darmian said:

In an ideal world, yes.  But you instantly run the danger of out levelling the existing content of Nova/Imperial/Neutropolis, and the story there is actually the main point of it, more so than Paragon or Rogue Isles.

 

It's been a long time since I ran the full gold side story, and the memory has dimmed, so what I suggest might not be doable.  

 

Would it be possible to run a post-20 TF/SF in gold side that was launched as a time-travel story?  Go back in time to accomplish/try to accomplish some goal?  For example, retrieve some important McGuffin lost to the DE's advances, or attempt to alter the timeline at a crucial point, failing within the played-out story (of course, so the gold side story is maintained) but retrieving said McGuffin as a story-wise consolation prize?   It might almost play like gold side's version of Omega Team, launching into the worst of the initial fighting before the Praetorian truce with Hamidon that the gold side plays within.

[Carnifax]

I'd extend the top level range of all the zones because there's a lot of content in there and you level so fast (even with dxp on) that you can miss stuff. Plus the content is hard enough to  allow a little level drift. I'd also allow Blue/Redside players to more easily start the Goldside arcs if possible as an alternative to the usual "Steel after Kings Row" progression. Add one or two of those contacts into the "Find Contact" system. 

 

Oh, and the opposite for First / Night Ward. Stop spamming me to death with every bloody NW contact once I get over 30. Give me one or two in Find Contact, not the entire list.

 

First Ward could easily extend to 35 without any other changes, NW could go to 45 / 50 (50 might be pushing it). We've been really enjoying the Yellow Brick Road dedicated team on Reunion. Except for First Wards stupid talkie-chains. But there's some really fun missions in there, even when Doc does decide that releasing the nutjob Resistance members and thus picking a fight with 100s of smart Ghouls sounds like a fun time. 

[Gulbasaur]

9 hours ago, Lens Perchance said:

My list includes higher level content, perhaps even Praetorian Epic AT's, potential low level cross-over between blue and redsides (PvP?), some kind of ambush mitigation, perhaps in the form of a T4V transaction, or perhaps even an accolade power, and perhaps even a Task Force of some kind.  

There's only about a 5-level period where there's no Praetorian content. After Night Ward, you've got the old AV arcs, and then most of the incarnate trials are Praetorian. It's actually quite hard to not do Praetorian content when you get to the top end. 

 

That said, I would love another Task Force and I'd love to see a continuation of the Wards storyline. I liked the wartorn feel there - it's a nice contrast to the "parks and rectangles" of Paragon City and the "shanty town around an evil lair" of the Rogue Isles. Someone above mentioned having an Underground to the Wards - Night Ward is literally a crossover of the Netherworld and the land of the living - I'd love to see what happened on the other side.

 

I'd be really against ambush mitigation - I think any push to make the game easier isn't a good thing. The ambushes are a hallmark of the early goldside missions and making them homogenised would be a bad thing as this game already has a problem with a lack of difficulty, particularly now that IOs are about 10% of the cost that they were on Live. Why not just remove all minions from missions? Why not just set every mission to autocomplete? 

[Heraclea]

Make rhe place teamable.  Have middle alignments like vigilante and rogue that open up your friends' missions to you even if their main path is not the same as yours.

 

Make the place teamable.  The missions over there are full of overpowered mobs like Seers and Ghouls that do not sca;e up for teams well.  Going into a Seers mission other than solo invites larger spawns that will turn the mission into a totally miserable slog, especially for 1-20 characters.  

 

Goldside is gorgeous, story rich, solo only, and not all that much fun.  

[Icono04]

3 hours ago, Carnifax said:

and the opposite for First / Night Ward. Stop spamming me to death with every bloody NW contact once I get over 30.

Yes!

[Hew]

This is the same problem as the (see other thread on bringing more people to redside) topic that generated lots of mixed yay and omgwtfbbqyouidiot posts. 

 

I think in some ways, gold side is better in the 1-20 range for sure. I definitely feel like a free agent, especially how I can "switch aligns" (but not really, its goldside whatnot).

 

It would be hella cool if you could get "recruited" to go to first ward as a _third_ option, directly part of the story. It would be even cooler as previously mentioned, you could get shunted into rogue/vig as well instead of red or blue, since rogue/vig are mostly closer to how goldside rolls.

 

 

[Darmian]

2 minutes ago, Hew said:

I think in some ways, gold side is better in the 1-20 range for sure. I definitely feel like a free agent, especially how I can "switch aligns" (but not really, its goldside whatnot).

 

It would be hella cool if you could get "recruited" to go to first ward as a _third_ option, directly part of the story. It would be even cooler as previously mentioned, you could get shunted into rogue/vig as well instead of red or blue, since rogue/vig are mostly closer to how goldside rolls.

 

 

 

I'd nuance that a bit more with the shunting to Rogue/Vig.  There really should be a version of progression like the VEAT progression (complaints about that itself elsewhere please!) where once you cross over to either Red or Blue then you have an equivalent of Alain Desslock who is essentially your contact/probation officer on integrating you into the new life.  We run into a conflict of character knowledge vs player knowledge here though.  Right now you just head off and find contacts.  How? The assumption for Primals is that they are keeping their ear to the ground and have some sort of basic networking going on.  AS a Gold you know nothing.  Ok, you've heard of stuff and if the proposed crossover missions were implemented then you might have been to Primal, but you still aren't from there and have no back up.  So that's where I was going with that.  I mean you get the doppelganger mission on Blue when you cross (can't remember what the Red is right now) but that is one and done, however cool it might be.

[Hew]

12 minutes ago, Heraclea said:

Goldside is gorgeous, story rich, solo only, and not all that much fun.  

I have run it on teams. Its interesting, if you have some go undercover, and some straight contact, you can see a LOT of content in short order.

 

However, you REALLY get screwed on outleveling contacts. Especially on a team, way worse than solo... 😕

[Darmian]

12 minutes ago, Heraclea said:

Have middle alignments like vigilante and rogue that open up your friends' missions to you even if their main path is not the same as yours.

Yes, I like this!

 

13 minutes ago, Heraclea said:

Goldside is gorgeous, story rich, solo only, and not all that much fun

Well, that's just like, your opinion, man.  As the Dude would say.