What would you like to see in a Goldside rework?

[RikOz]

On 6/17/2021 at 1:51 AM, Carnifax said:

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.

Oh god, this.

 

As to revamping Goldside, my issue with Praetoria is probably due to my altoholism (102 as of last night).

 

Boiled down, my problem is the complexity of the story, with all the double-agent stuff between factions and sub-factions. I've only rolled one Praetorian on HC, and I gave up in the middle and rerolled the character as Blueside. Likewise, when resurrecting my old Goldside-turned-Blueside character from live, I just rolled her Blueside to begin with and added a bit to her backstory, saying that she has a vague memory of once living in a different world, but she can't otherwise remember anything about it.

 

The problem is that, as an altoholic, I rarely play the same character two days in a row. This meant that I rolled my Praetorian and got a few levels on him the same day. Then I didn't get back to him again for two or three weeks, because I was rotating through my other alts. When I logged him in for the second time, I realized that I had no idea where he stood. He started out Resistance, but had done at least one "undercover" mission before I logged him out the first time. I realized that, if I had already forgotten "the story so far", it was going to get even worse as I progressed when days or weeks might pass before I returned to the character. So that's when I decided to just delete and reroll Blueside.

 

Essentially, I think the only way I could play a Praetorian all the way through the storyline would be to completely ignore all of my other alts for however long it took to get my Praetorian to the end. I suspect that "fixing" this would require a bunch of programming to build in some sort of flowchart that would track the character's progress.

[Darmian]

2 minutes ago, RikOz said:

I suspect that "fixing" this would require a bunch of programming to build in some sort of flowchart that would track the character's progress.

"Fixing", yep.  🙂

[MTeague]

5 hours ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

Secondly, and utterly unforgivable, is the way that Calvin Scott is treated by the writers. The players spend 20 levels getting to believe they are working for some great plan, then exploring Primal earth for 30 and then suddenly, totally out of the blue, during an incarnate arc, Calvin Scott is revealed to be insane, deluded, believing he was married to Mother Mayhem. It's like three bloody lines that ruins the entire story. First time I saw that I was "WTF" and metaphorically waiting for the other boot to drop but that really was it. It was completely shoddy, deliberately uninspiring writing and totally dissed mental health issues in an age when we know so much more about them. I honestly wonder who signed off on it because I struggle to understand it today.

 

See, I never looked at this as "dissing mental health".  The parallel I drew was to Babylon 5, where 

Spoiler

Garabaldi gets his head rewired by the PsiCorps and sent back to the station to be a sleeper agent / unwilling accomplice. 

 

That's not really insanity as such. That's a man who's a victim of serious Mind-Crimes done to him by high level telepaths.

[golstat2003]

On 6/17/2021 at 8:54 AM, tidge said:

I don't like that Praetoria was destroyed per the 'official Lore'. I prefer my CoX to be open-ended without necessarily trying to bring 'epic storytelling' into the MMORPG. My own feelings on this are tied up with how the desire for Incarnate-level content essentially demanded a blood sacrifice, and the end of Praetoria gave us a good look at the direction the Live Devs would have taken the game (as if Galaxy City and Dark Astoria were not sacrifices enough).

 

So... with my 'magic wand', I would

1. Subtly alter the resolution of the Praetoria story such that Hamidon doesn't win, but reaches a new accord with either Emperor Cole (preferable but unlikely, without some mission rework) or a suitable replacement character that essentially maintains the status quo of all the existing zones. Heck, I 'd accept primal Lord Recluse stepping in and putting a lackey in charge as long as the general populous of Praetoria doesn't know!
2. Arcs that rely on the 'total destruction' would have to be altered to be "what if? / Ouroboros" types ortweaked to simply be one-off examples of "Angry Hamidon" or as a result of general "escaping chaos in Praetoria"
3. Invent Praetorian Epic Archetypes. One PEAT would be a multi-path DE hybrid (demonstrating new levels of 'experimentation/trust', another PEAT would be a multi-path IDF... much like how VEATs work.

After this... well, I look forward to reading other player's ideas.

 

I would not have minded number 1 IF and ONLY IF it had nothing to do with Emperor Cole. He needed to go.

[golstat2003]

7 hours ago, MTeague said:

 

See, I never looked at this as "dissing mental health".  The parallel I drew was to Babylon 5, where 

  Hide contents

Garabaldi gets his head rewired by the PsiCorps and sent back to the station to be a sleeper agent / unwilling accomplice. 

 

That's not really insanity as such. That's a man who's a victim of serious Mind-Crimes done to him by high level telepaths.

 

Hmmm, putting it in this context is interesting.

[Scarlet Shocker]

10 hours ago, MTeague said:

 

See, I never looked at this as "dissing mental health".  The parallel I drew was to Babylon 5, where 

  Reveal hidden contents

Garabaldi gets his head rewired by the PsiCorps and sent back to the station to be a sleeper agent / unwilling accomplice. 

 

That's not really insanity as such. That's a man who's a victim of serious Mind-Crimes done to him by high level telepaths.

As golstat2003 remarked, that is a very interesting point but the writing is so shoddy that isn't what came across (at least to me) nor did there seem to be any kind of build up to it. With the scene you mention, we saw the lead in, we understood what was happening and the tensions were there because we, as viewers could see where that could potentially lead.

 

I would excuse that if it were well written but it was just so crappily sub-par that I can't forgive it.

[Darmian]

RE Scott's mental health. My personal head canon - yes, I know it's not said - is that whatever the reasons for his delusion, whether actually genuine issues or ones imposed upon him, some of the other higher level Resistance leaders already know about it but never mention it. Why?  Because they need him to be that way, driven by rage and fury at what has been done to him. Vetrano is quite capable of this. After all she was trained by Sinclair and is, don't forget, effectively Ghost Widow. She will do what needs to be done to win and if that means keeping Scott in the dark then so be it.  

 

(The end reveal was still badly written though!)

[tidge]

It is hard for me to take the Praetorian Calvin Scott storyline seriously when the Primal version of the Calvin Scott arc (and adjacent characters) is also so messed up (from my PoV).

 

In case my opinion isn't clear enough: I really didn't like the 'forced evolution' of the main NPCs over the course of the Live game. It's been a more classic trope that 'heroes never change' in comic books... or alternatively: after an author has played with them, they get put back in the box as they were found for the next author. Updating the costumes was fine (original Positron was ugly), but (for example) I would have been totally ok with Positron being stuck in his armor as a result of the Rikti Invasion. Only for the most extreme examples (such as the introduction of vigilante and rogue alignments) would it have made sense to me to pull one 'big NPC' from both sides and drop someone else in their place (Manticore, Scirocco).

 

My attitude is distinct from updating/revamping the 'hazard zones'... unless characters were driven to them by specific contacts, the only appeal (to me) was for a riskier caliber form of street sweeping for level appropriate characters. Revisiting the Hazard zones (including the RWZ remake, which I am somewhat cold on) addressed more problems than they caused... although I cannot imagine ever liking the plans for Perez Park... the lowest level Hazard Zone needs to stay as is IMO.

[CursedSorcerer]

Here's what I'm thinking. What if some Praetorians (other than the Praetorian Guard of course) actually support Emperor Cole?

In other words, what if it were possible to fight by his side against those who oppose him?

[Zhym]

On 6/18/2021 at 5:44 PM, Scarlet Shocker said:

What would go some way to fixing it would be to give a far more sympathetic post-Cole wrap to him, and a proper continuation of Calvin Scotts story, which could be tragic with pathos to knock Wretch's arc into the weeds (Where the hell dd Scott even go after that?) and also give players who begin their careers there some reason to remain bonded to their home of Praetorial whatever their loyalties to Cole or Scott.

 

Calvin Scott's story does get resolved, after a fashion, in Provost Marchand's arc.  It's easy to play out of story order since Marchand becomes available at level 35, but his arc takes place after all the Incarnate trials.  I'm not sure it resolves Calvin's issues satisfactorily, but it does at least answer where the hell he went after the reveal in the MoM trial.   

Edited June 20, 2021 by Zhym

[Scarlet Shocker]

5 hours ago, CursedSorcerer said:

Here's what I'm thinking. What if some Praetorians (other than the Praetorian Guard of course) actually support Emperor Cole?

In other words, what if it were possible to fight by his side against those who oppose him?

 

See above. Praetorian Imperial Secret Service was exactly that (although I grant that it was conceived originally as an envelope pushing joke that even got Avatea to laugh (and approve) but it soon became quite serious due to the realization that this was a huge hole in the canon.

 

If the players take the view that Praetorians are not fundamentally evil, that they go about their lives in the day to day, trusting in their government to do "the right thing" and work in their society's best interests, then that is a basically good goal.

 

There must obviously be a cadre of people who are close to the edges of power, if not directly connected to it, who believe in Cole's mission, ideals, and core beliefs. They may not believe or accept his methodologies (especially in later arcs when we see what an insane twat he becomes) but still believe in the primacy of their society and the right of their people to live the life they live.

 

Would those people have been sanctioned by Cole? He's a dictator. If history teaches us anything about dictators is that they are paranoid, unable to work well with others on an equal footing and the whole bloody world is plotting against them. Of course he would have created something like that, and probably a separate and distinct inquisition too (probably mutually exclusive too, both organizations unknown to one another - feel free to pick that ball and run with it - but don't tell me you didn't expect it!)

 

But once the structures of power fail (and we see them failing over some time - although the actual scale is hazy by default) then these sub-orgs have to define their own remit and raison d'etre . It is not hard to argue, given the data we have, that Cole's original over-arching view would be reasonable given the circumstances. So a small team, charged with maintaining order, seeing that vision through, could have legs in the ongoing arcs.

 

This is turning into a novel and I'm not yet ready to write this arc. But what if the basic premise of the arc was "We've got Praetoria now: It's safe for the moment, and you Primals have done nothing but screw it up. So either you bugger off or you'll go to war by any means necessary"

 

It leads to very intersting potentials. Insurgency, straight forward conflict and also diplomacy and economic realities.

 

We will never know what the original Devs planned but this was always a squandered opportunity.

[MTeague]

On 6/19/2021 at 1:36 PM, Darmian said:

RE Scott's mental health. My personal head canon - yes, I know it's not said - is that whatever the reasons for his delusion, whether actually genuine issues or ones imposed upon him, some of the other higher level Resistance leaders already know about it but never mention it. Why?  Because they need him to be that way, driven by rage and fury at what has been done to him. Vetrano is quite capable of this. After all she was trained by Sinclair and is, don't forget, effectively Ghost Widow. She will do what needs to be done to win and if that means keeping Scott in the dark then so be it.  

 

(The end reveal was still badly written though!)

 

Largely agreed. 

I have to assume Vanessa DeVore would have been capable of helping him.... if she could get him to trust her enough to really let her inside his head..... which he was probably too paranoid to EVER agree to. So I think DeVore and Vetrano made the pragmatic decision to use him as he is.  Scott and Cole aren't the only ones to write people off as "acceptable losses" or "regrettable but necessary", and there's some symmetry in the idea that his own lieutenants might have seen him that way. 

[MTeague]

17 hours ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

See above. Praetorian Imperial Secret Service was exactly that (although I grant that it was conceived originally as an envelope pushing joke that even got Avatea to laugh (and approve) but it soon became quite serious due to the realization that this was a huge hole in the canon.

 

If the players take the view that Praetorians are not fundamentally evil, that they go about their lives in the day to day, trusting in their government to do "the right thing" and work in their society's best interests, then that is a basically good goal.

 

There must obviously be a cadre of people who are close to the edges of power, if not directly connected to it, who believe in Cole's mission, ideals, and core beliefs. They may not believe or accept his methodologies (especially in later arcs when we see what an insane twat he becomes) but still believe in the primacy of their society and the right of their people to live the life they live.

 

I suspect there's also a sizeable chunk of people in the power structure who think Cole is in fact a brutal and overbearing Tyrant, fully deserving that name.... but who, from the history of Praetorian Earth, understand that He Stopped Hamidon, when no one else could.  Ie, maybe the guys a jerk and tyrant.... but without him, we'd all be DEAD, consumed by Tellurian Plague, etc. Maybe he's not the ruler we'd like to have, but if it's Cole or be consumed by the Devouring Earth, then "OK Mister Cole, What can we do for you on this fine morning?".

 

Because that was always one thing that bothered me with the Resistance. Sure. Say you bring down Cole. Either kill him and all his praetors, or send them packing.

Then what?  Next time Hamidon makes a strong push forward.... you're screwed.

 

I mean, yes, Freedom of THOUGHT should at least be allowed even if Freedom of Expression isn't.... but in context of the Lore, I can see a number of people choosing Cole, not because they like him, not because they WANT to be ruled by him, but because of what lives beyond the Sonic Fences. The Carnival of Light and Eltontown are out there, sure, but they have thier own sonic fences too, and the center of First Ward is testament to the fact that those sonic fences will only hold Hamidon at bay for just so long.  Now, we as players who have read the lore and already done the Underground Trial know that Cole never really "Beat" Hamidon as such. But the NPC's who live in this world?  They don't know that.  From their point of view, literally nothing mankind has really stopped Hamidon cold except for Cole himself. 

[Luminara]

29 minutes ago, MTeague said:

He Stopped Hamidon, when no one else could.

...

Say you bring down Cole. Either kill him and all his praetors, or send them packing.

Then what?  Next time Hamidon makes a strong push forward.... you're screwed.

 

If they're powerful enough to defeat the person who defeated the global threat, they're probably powerful enough to defeat the global threat, too.

[Darmian]

1 hour ago, Luminara said:

 

If they're powerful enough to defeat the person who defeated the global threat, they're probably powerful enough to defeat the global threat, too.

They weren't.  They needed Primal help.

[Scarlet Shocker]

55 minutes ago, Darmian said:

They weren't.  They needed Primal help.

 

Which is kind of my point - Cole could have negotiated, and Primals would probably have been open to that, since if PraeHami got past Cole, Earth would be a prime (pun intended) target.

 

And even if Freedom Phalanx wasn't open, if Cole negotiated with Recluse, who might even be more open to an accord. With Cole on his side, Recluse could take Paragon City for his own.

 

 

[MTeague]

26 minutes ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

And even if Freedom Phalanx wasn't open, if Cole negotiated with Recluse, who might even be more open to an accord. With Cole on his side, Recluse could take Paragon City for his own.

Well, I do think Cole and Recluse would have been doing the "My Dear Good Friend" (spoken in Londo Mollari voice, if you've ever seen B5), fully intending to dispose of the other one once they were no longer necessary / too likely to become a rival for supremacy, and both of them probably knew that from first contact.  Or at least, would have suspected the other of that. 

 

3 hours ago, Luminara said:

If they're powerful enough to defeat the person who defeated the global threat, they're probably powerful enough to defeat the global threat, too.

 

Arguable. Maybe you can find something that temporarily de-powers Cole, just like Darrin Wade de-powered States in order to kill him. That doesn't necessarily mean that exact same trick would have worked against the Hamidon itself. Or maybe a sufficiently strong Psi attack against Cole might revert him to a toddler playing with his crayons. But which bounces against Hamidon.  If you don't know for sure that your Anti-Cole weapon WILL work against PraeHami, then congrats, you still just damned the planetary population of praetorian earth.

 

Soo.... my order of operations would be Kill Hami first, THEN get Moose and Squirrel Cole and Keyes.

[Icono04]

On 6/17/2021 at 6:00 PM, Lazarillo said:

It's too easy to out-level the story, and the story's basically the main reason to start there.  There's presently no reason to make it more "team friendly" or add TFs, or the like, because if you were to team, you'd miss the entire reason to play there in the first place! 

This is a key point IMO. Here is a  idea to possibly resolve it:

On all story arcs regardless of red, blue or gold, you cannot outlevel an arc once you have started it. I.e. when the arc's contact has that little book icon next to their name. If we can be similarly locked into one of the Praetorian story lines (Power, Responsibility, Warden, Crusader), then we would be able to complete that story line even if we also level up via teaming or TF's.

[JJDrakken]

How it is now is fine. I wish they go around and maybe HC will in going back to Praetoria like they were planning and expanding 40-50 Content.

 

 

What folks don't seem to realize a lot times, is First Ward & Night Ward is technically Goldside Content.  But F, First Ward, lol. I know they made that place as a challenge for team play. Especially all the Psychic stuff.  I wouldn't mind seeing more content though back in the city or higher lvl stuff that was in talks about going back to Praetoria and taking it back from that world's Hamidon and fighting and capturing it to help against the Coming Storm.

[FeliciaDivine]

I think the issue is very simple...blueside has tons of content (good or bad doesnt matter) since it has 5 main storylines based on each of the origins, kheldian storylines, special contact and Signature storylines (Twinshot, Pandora's Box, etc.)...while redside has 1 storyarc and one or two signature arcs (Dr. Graves) and goldside has 4 very linear storylines...it's a matter of content...

There is no reason HC cannot add more storylines like we have blueside except maybe making the game too large (causing lag and possible crashes). If the HC team needs writers there are actual content AE writers some of us are actual authors who can help! There is no reason to change up the current stories but there are reasons to add new ones.

Redside and Goldside would be populated because people would want to explore new content so like blueside make an arc based on each origin and definately add more Strike Forces.

Goldside simply needs more options at low level and needs level 20-50 to be added even bringing in First and Night Wards...you do not need to even make a new zone...use what is already there!

Edited June 22, 2021 by FeliciaDivine

[Hew]

More goldside activity? Locked into PEATs for 20 levels goldside, with Hami-hybrids as the PEAT. (see discussion elsewhere).

[FeliciaDivine]

Maybe NCSoft might consider a deal with Homecoming for CoH 2 if they show what they can do...

 

Just imagine for a moment having great authors who love to promote writing join in and add content...

 

CLEO COYLE (Billionaire Blend) - the donut shop in Faultline taken over by Fusionette and Tremblor and turned into the cities premier Coffee Shop...you can stop in get a badge and have one of the two patrons give you an important mission or the barista behind the counter give you an important save the cities coffee supply mission!!! CoH has its own players CuppaJo and Coffee Girl who could be added as Signature heroes with missions!!!

 

Fantastic Authors Patricia Briggs (Alpha & Omega/Mercedes Thompson series), Kim Harrison (Rachel Morgan series), Chloe Neill (Chicagoland Vampire series), Carrie Vaughn (Kitty Norville series), Matthew Reilly (Scarecrow series), James Rollins (Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull/Sigma Force) and of course Mercedes Lackey (over 100 novels and a CoH Player/Valdemar series) are all worth contacting...they could even add thier own characters from thier novels...

 

Example: Paragoncity Radio or even add TheCapeRadio with Kitty Norville as dj trying to discuss and bring together those with supernatural problems...Unemployed Warwolf looking for work...and love?

 

The only limit we have is our imagination 🙂

[Clave Dark 5]

On 6/17/2021 at 6:36 AM, Heraclea said:

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.  

THANK YOU

 

I played over there some for the novelty factor when it was introduced on live, and the above issue paired with my occasional running into the mobs now have just re-enforced my lack of interest in spending any real time there these these days.  I can run into some of those mobs on my fairly-well-built 50s and still die like an armor-less Defender multiple times during a single mission, should one of them look away from the tank and meet my gaze.  I'm not a fan of super easy steamrolling here, but also not a fan of stupid hard content.

[Darmian]

8 hours ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

THANK YOU

 

I played over there some for the novelty factor when it was introduced on live, and the above issue paired with my occasional running into the mobs now have just re-enforced my lack of interest in spending any real time there these these days.  I can run into some of those mobs on my fairly-well-built 50s and still die like an armor-less Defender multiple times during a single mission, should one of them look away from the tank and meet my gaze.  I'm not a fan of super easy steamrolling here, but also not a fan of stupid hard content.

Oh we all all want that to be there (some of us do manage small teams there too) but teamable means putting in the foundation for that, and that needs, well see above for various suggestions.

[Clave Dark 5]

I really think it's just the hard mobs themselves, which yeah would be even worse en mass, such as a team would generate.