redside Why is it so hard for me to play Red Side?

[Dusty Longshot]

Is it because by nature I have always tried to be a good person? Helping people in any way possible?
Is it because of the environment? It's so dark and somber.

Is it because of the leveling curve? Although I'm not sure if it's any different from Blue Side.

 

I've been trying to figure out why I'm not able to play Red Side for more than a few missions. Seriously, most villains I make won't go beyond level 4 before getting deleted.

 

So, I'm asking you, the community,...

What makes you play Red Side?

What keeps you engaged to play "just one more mission" before realizing it's 5 o'clock in the morning and you have to go to work in 2 hours?

Tell me what Red Side offers you to keep playing, and perhaps it will help me play Red Side longer and find the fun in being a villain.

 

[Apparition]

1. The stories red side are much better written.  I mean, they're not prize winning, but compared to blue side?  Night and day difference in quality.

2. You aren't routinely sent to zones A, B, C, then back to B, then back to A during a red side story arc or SF.

3. The mobs are more difficult, so it's more of a challenge than blue side.

4. There's no Atlas Park.

5. The red side zones like St. Martial and Grandville are unique, and not yet another drab cityscape like Skyway City or blasted cityscape like Boomtown.

6. Because red side has a substantially lower population and because it is more challenging, people who play red side routinely tend to be better players than those who stick to blue side on average.

7. Red side gives you a nice release valve.  Who hasn't had a stressful day at work and want to come home and do some villainy now and then?

8. Not so much of a selling point now, but the ATs that originated red side are subjectively better designed to me than most of the ATs that originated blue side.

 

[Snarky]

You aint got what it takes.

[oedipus_tex]

In all of my years playing this game, I don't think I've read the full description of a single mission, but I share your aversion to red side. If I had to explain it, I'd say:

• The door-mission style dungeon format doesn't feel particularly villainous
• The zones themselves are unappealing and have aged worse (IMO) than the cleaner blues and greens of Blue side

 

Moreover, being a "villain" who stays only in safe "villain zones" just overall doesn't feel great to me. On blue side it's justified by the need to protect the city, it's a huge stretch red side and I could just never get into it.

[Clave Dark 5]

1 minute ago, oedipus_tex said:

• The zones themselves are unappealing and have aged worse (IMO) than the cleaner blues and greens of Blue side

 

I always felt the opposite, blue side felt too impossibly perfect, like... like it was some generic CGI.  Different strokes!

 

Maybe you just don't like it, OP, that's all.  No shame to that.

[iBot]

I play purple.  However, I do play more "red" side only because I like mayhems more than safeguards.  Beyond that, I really can't say.  The entire game is flawed.  I just log in to chat with friends and maybe enjoy a quick TF or two.

[Apparition]

2 minutes ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

I always felt the opposite, blue side felt too impossibly perfect, like... like it was some generic CGI.  Different strokes!

 

Maybe you just don't like it, OP, that's all.  No shame to that.

 

Yep.  I've always found most of blue side unappealing, especially Atlas Park. :P  I also don't get the "drab and unappealing" bit for red side zones.  Have you looked at Skyway City, Boomtown, Crey's Folly, Brickstown, The Hollows, etc. lately?  To each his or her own. :)

[The_Warpact]

1 hour ago, Apparition said:

1. The stories red side are much better written.  I mean, they're not prize winning, but compared to blue side?  Night and day difference in quality.

2. You aren't routinely sent to zones A, B, C, then back to B, then back to A during a red side story arc or SF.

3. The mobs are more difficult, so it's more of a challenge than blue side.

4. There's no Atlas Park.

5. The red side zones like St. Martial and Grandville are unique, and not yet another drab cityscape like Skyway City or blasted cityscape like Boomtown.

6. Because red side has a substantially lower population and because it is more challenging, people who play red side routinely tend to be better players than those who stick to blue side on average.

7. Red side gives you a nice release valve.  Who hasn't had a stressful day at work and want to come home and do some villainy now and then?

8. Not so much of a selling point now, but the ATs that originated red side are subjectively better designed to me than most of the ATs that originated blue side.

 

This plus, I'm not really a nice person in rl and it irritates me pretending to be something I'm not. 

I could go into in much more detail but ultimately it would detract from your question. 

[Drakwatch]

For me, Mercy Island, even with the redesign, is incredibly slow and painful to play through. I don't feel Villainous at all, I feel like a lackey punching snakes and groveling to my contacts. DFB helps, but it takes a while to find folks on Redside most days. Once I get to Port Oaks, it opens up newspaper missions and much more interesting content and from there I'm good. Also, I feel like making a villain concept character, at least from a RP perspective, is really hard for me. Hero character concepts come a lot easier to me when making an alt.

[Yoru-hime]

5 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

Moreover, being a "villain" who stays only in safe "villain zones" just overall doesn't feel great to me. On blue side it's justified by the need to protect the city, it's a huge stretch red side and I could just never get into it.

This always bugged me. The whole setting of CoV does, really. Why am I trying to make a living in a picked-over ruin that's already under a tyrant's thumb when there's a nice clean City over yonder full of ripe targets and easily corrupted public officials? If imbeciles like Frostfire and Castillo can survive there, I'd be running the place in a year. But nooo, every time I visit I have to get in the submarine and go back to the scrap heap.

 

As to the OP, I look at CoV like a dark roast of coffee. Some people swear by it and find everything else weak and unsatisfying, others never really develop a taste for it at all. It's not a matter or better or worse, but simple personal preference. As for me, I can do it now and then, but it's usually not what I'm in the mood for when I log in.

[oedipus_tex]

FWIW the kind of mission that should exist a lot more on Red side is reverse-door missions: you are the schemer stealing or breaking in or whatever and then your task is interupted by pesky heroes showing up to try to stop you. It's a subtle difference versus the dungeon-run style of blue side but I wish red had a lot more of that. 

 

It would help, too, if Red side involved any stakes. Being arrested and waking up in the hospital rather than you know... jail will always feel like a missed opportuntity to me. Even just one high risk zone where the law is more than dungeon orcs ready to be cut down would feel great.

Edited July 6, 2021 by oedipus_tex

[TheMoncrief]

I don't think the game structurally fits well with villains. Heroes, sure, they run around, talk to people who they know to be well informed, learn what the bad guys are doing, and stop them. Heroism is fundamentally a reactive endeavor.

 

As a villain, they other folks should be reacting to *ME*. Certainly I shouldn't be taking marching orders from random dudes I'm sent to by a "broker." Some of the villain missions do overcome this structural problem, but in the end, I tend to feel more like a lackey or henchman than a true independent villain.

 

The redside writing, however, is much better than blueside. Few of the blueside contacts feel like anything other than random computer terminals I get in AE. The redside contacts, at least some of them, are written as real characters. Golden Roller, Doc Buzzsaw, the Radio and the Television, all are more memorable as characters than anybody I encountered blueside.

[Rishidian]

I wish I could mug the pedestrians for pocket infamy.

 

Part if the issue is that CoH and CoV missions are the same.  One, you are saving someone, the other, you are kidnapping someone.  Other than the dialog, not much difference.

 

Would be cool if there were reverse door missions where you have to defend your loot, or keep a hostage.

 

I like the Mayhem missions - you can kill the innocents (and other objects that seem to trip the Good Guyz).  This part is more villainous to me.

[ZorkNemesis]

I tend to play red content since I like to keep to myself.  I pop into help and general as needed but nearly all of my game time is solo play and with red being the ghost town it is it fits me pretty well.  I tend to play in the middle of the night on Indom, most nights it's single digits for redsiders when i'm on despite our reputation for being the PvP server.

 

4 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

FWIW the kind of mission that should exist a lot more on Red side is reverse-door missions: you are the schemer stealing or breaking in or whatever and then your task is interupted by pesky heroes showing up to try to stop you. It's a subtle difference versus the dungeon-run style of blue side but I wish red had a lot more of that.

 

This is why I love tip missions, especially when red.  Tips feel like you're the one making the plan, even if it's by happenstance.  One thing I would love to have out of the Homecoming team is just a slew of new random tip missions to capitalise on the idea of free-thinking villainy (or heroism, both sides are great for tips).

[oedipus_tex]

3 minutes ago, ZorkNemesis said:

This is why I love tip missions, especially when red.  Tips feel like you're the one making the plan, even if it's by happenstance.  One thing I would love to have out of the Homecoming team is just a slew of new random tip missions to capitalise on the idea of free-thinking villainy (or heroism, both sides are great for tips).

 

 

I've recently taken to leading tip missions on teams and found them really fun, a good break from radios or task forces. I'll need to try out the villain ones. 

[ZorkNemesis]

2 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

I've recently taken to leading tip missions on teams and found them really fun, a good break from radios or task forces. I'll need to try out the villain ones. 

 

In my opinion, some of the best tips are the Villain tips while you're a Vigilante.  Lots of questionable moral choices and brutal justice, things you might expect from someone like the Punisher.  I dock points however as too many of them do have the mission's head honcho saying "we're not so different" or similar phrasing.

[DoctorDitko]

Mayhem Missions, far and away the best part of Redside!

 

Seriously, check the Guides for how to get Lord Schnauzer as a contact, Mayhem Missions are some of the most fun you can have with your costume on!

 

I find low-level Villain mishes, fighting Snakes and such, to be a lot of fun after endless Outcasts and Skuls.

 

Have to confess, in the mid-range, where you start to feel like an aspiring lackey, is where I wander off. Radio and TV are a blast, though!

 

[Bill Z Bubba]

2 hours ago, Rishidian said:

I wish I could mug the pedestrians for pocket infamy.

 

I never felt particularly villainous redside. Far too much time being a lackey to other wannabe villains.

 

So I PL blueside, run Black Scorpion's arc to unlock PPPs, and that's that.

[UltraAlt]

19 hours ago, retrobytz said:

Tell me what Red Side offers you to keep playing, and perhaps it will help me play Red Side longer and find the fun in being a villain.

 

I love the fact that I'm seeing no villains explaining why they like to play red side and so many people are posting about why they don't.

 

I guess there maybe a couple that I have on ignore that are commenting on how glorious it is to be a villain, but those are the people that tend to get threads locked <-- which they seem to be doing intentionally which is pretty villainous in my book.

 

12 hours ago, DoctorDitko said:

Mayhem Missions, far and away the best part of Redside!

 

I agree with this.

- most of the time -

One of the last times I ran a Mayhem mission, the team lead just ran all over the place active the side and get badges and didn't care where the rest of the team was or if they could keep up with them safely or if they were there with them when they went into a side. Pretty annoying. But that's villainy for you.

 

Obviously, I alt out. I think I have like maybe 5-6 villains. Most of the time, I move them from the Isles to hero side, run hero content, complete the content, taunt the heroes for running with a Rogue, and then move them back over to park on the villain side.

[MrAxe]

You don't ever really get your very own villainous plot line. Where as heros are automatically doing everything they should, fighting crime and saving people. You're a real hero and never a true villain, more like a glorified henchman. I do find plenty of character in the red side zones but ultimately prefer blue sides look. Being a hero is more relatable, too. I know the question was the opposite of my answer but I can't find anything that keeps me there. I do enjoy it for a bit of variety here and there though.

[Sovera]

One thing to add is that for a so called villain I spend too much time fighting villains. Call it what you may. If a villain I'd rather be stealing the jewelry stores, the kitchen soup beating, up on cops (the good sort, not the crooks red side has), and a number of heroes shouting one liners as they try to stop me.

 

Instead half the time I'm wondering if the contacs aren't good guys manipulating the system into turning bad guys versus bad guys in order to making life easier for red side civilians.

[Hew]

1 hour ago, MrAxe said:

You don't ever really get your very own villainous plot line.

There are two places you do. One is new, I don't know about the other. The Marchand equivalent has you assemble a full team of lacky minions based on your actions in missions, Some come, some die or don't talk to you or stuff.

 

The other has you assemble a full team of lacky news reporters that spread your deeds far and wide. 

[ZemX]

3 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

I love the fact that I'm seeing no villains explaining why they like to play red side and so many people are posting about why they don't.

 

I love how you admitted this is because you put people who disagree with your anti-redside opinions on ignore.  It's not the sort of thing I'd be proud of, personally.

[Zhym]

23 hours ago, retrobytz said:

Seriously, most villains I make won't go beyond level 4 before getting deleted.

That's a large part of the problem.  Early redside content is...not good.  Snakes, snakes, and more snakes.  Plus Dr. Graves, which is the redside version of Twinshot's slow-roll tutorial arcs, but even worse.

 

It's at the mid to upper levels that redside really starts to shine.  Once you get there, the story quality is much better than most hero arcs.  And, as a nice bonus, the arcs tend to be short—something I really appreciate when my character is in the 40s and the hero options are really long Issue 0 arcs (with all the mission design flaws that come with them).

 

BTW, if you're interested in reading about some of the arcs some redsiders think are worth doing, check out this thread:

 

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/21898-the-mean-missions-guide-a-villainous-levelling-journey-through-story-arcs/

 

[JayboH]

The environment makes me avoid it.