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

[Darmian]

1 minute ago, GraspingVileTerror said:

I feel like I'm going to need to brush up on the research related to mood-weather interrelations. 

 

 . . . 

 

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6704634/

Only 24 subjects?

Pha!

Need more research!

 

 

Ahem!

Anyway.

The weather complaint always struck me as odd . . . but then I realized; I'm one of those "weirdos" who much prefers a good rainy day (or, dare to dream, a thunderstorm and heavy shower!), or a good snowy gloom in -real life,- let alone the game.

As far as I'm concerned, the sun can fuck right off, if not for all that life-facilitating photosynthesis going on.

 

If things started getting as sunny in the Isles as they do on Blueside, I'd be pretty miffed, personally.

But I'm not against more diverse weather in -all- zones!  Bonus points if players can opt-in/opt-out of being exposed to certain weather phenomena on a personal basis.

1) I'm Irish. Rain is one of our things.  (You ever wonder WHY that place is so green?)

 

2) Despite the baffling description of the Etoiles they are about 800 miles north of Bermuda, nowhere near where some think it is.

 

3) Yes, there are riffs on Cuba politically, the overthrow of a dictator and replacement by another, however, see (2)  nowhere near actual Cuba either.

 

4) Tone. It's all about tone.  The sunny uplands of Pleasantville Corporate Fascism do exist.  It's Praetoria.

[Luminara]

9 minutes ago, Darmian said:

1) I'm Irish. Rain is one of our things.  (You ever wonder WHY that place is so green?)

 

Stop trying to sound mysterious, everyone knows it's because green fire lizards bred uncontrollably and were sent there to keep the rest of Pern from being overrun.

[Darmian]

1 minute ago, Luminara said:

 

Stop trying to sound mysterious, everyone knows it's because green fire lizards bred uncontrollably and were sent there to keep the rest of Pern from being overrun.

I never did read any of those Pern books - I did work as a manager in a book store and ran the Fantasy & Sci Fi section though, so I've seen them at least - we have one type of lizard, and that's the only reptile that isn't imported as a pet or in a zoo/etc.  And of course to mix it up it's a vivaparous lizard.

 

Even so, it rains enough that I can imagine green fire lizards having difficulty getting started in the morning 🙂

[Luminara]

3 minutes ago, Darmian said:

I never did read any of those Pern books

 

The divorce papers are signed and in the mail.

[ZemX]

10 hours ago, GraspingVileTerror said:

But I'm not against more diverse weather in -all- zones!

 

This.  I'm not saying overcast is always bad.  I'm saying it's bad when it's.... always.

[Hew]

10 hours ago, ZemX said:

This.  I'm not saying overcast is always bad.  I'm saying it's bad when it's.... always.

People in Vancouver BC and Washington State would like to have a word with you.

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

On 7/12/2021 at 11:41 AM, Clave Dark 5 said:

I don't see them as drab whatsoever, compared the soulless and detail-less sky scrapers of blueside.  For one thing, many of those structures feel like older architecture, which was more human-scale.  My subjective bias.  😃

I kind of am of both sides minds. I rather love many of the building designs in the red side. It often far better suits the mood of my batman homage who ends up doing more time red side street sweeping solo then many other things just because it suits his concept best. I would love to see the city scapes of paragon reimagined with more diverse building designs  sprinkled in among the less skyscraper filled regions.

 

And the sad thing is we cant even begin to know how the city may have grown to look as we know the Live Devs had planned on doing to all of Paragon what was done to Atlas Park. We know they wanted to start making use of the assets in red and gold side in blue side, simply because blue side was the only side really worth investing dev time in due to player base almost entirely choosing to play in it.

 

Its why i think for HC the best choice would be to due away with sides entirely and let players go and play and do missions for who ever they want freely. Put the alignment powers in P2W so we dont lose them entirely for those who may care about them, and let us actually wander the larger game world we have as easily as possible.

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

On 7/7/2021 at 10:56 AM, Xenosone said:

I thumbed up a post that detailed whys but really it comes down to Redside has more competent people. Ae babies do not goto redside. People that cant figure out basic things like zoning and null the gull cant goto redaide. They can handle interesting strike forces like Tarikoss, Silver Mantis and Renault.  While the lead up to the last missions in those three are generic those last missions offer something a bit unique in terms of map and how to approach the big bad. That levaiathan room is something else. 

 

Anyways. The strong survive. The weak hide in ae. Its pretty simple.

I just have to ask the forum admin how a post like this is even allowed? It is clearly denigrating a huge portion of the player population.

[Triumphant]

53 minutes ago, Llewellyn Blackwell said:

I just have to ask the forum admin how a post like this is even allowed? It is clearly denigrating a huge portion of the player population.

Well, I don't know about that.  I play more Blueside than Redside, but I'm not offended by one guy's opinion.

 

On the other hand, I know there are plenty of AE babies (I confess the name makes me chuckle, and I have done my share of AE door-sitting, believe me) that hang out Redside, so I take the comment with a grain of salt.  There are less of them than there are on Blueside, but that's only because there are comparatively fewer players on Redside.  The ratio of the AE babies feels about the same to me.

 

Typically, I play villains/redside when I want to let my inner misanthrope out of the bag to run riot.  If you do that in the real world, you get thrown in jail.  Not so great.  🤷‍♂️  Better to indulge myself this way in a fantasy game.  😉 

 

I've played most of the story arcs in this game (both red and blue).  I don't find redside to be significantly more challenging than blue.  JMO.

[ZemX]

13 hours ago, Hew said:

People in Vancouver BC and Washington State would like to have a word with you.

 

If they want to tell me it's literally never sunny (or at least partly cloudy) there like there's literally never a clear patch of blue sky in the Rogue Isles, that word would be a lie.

[ZemX]

10 hours ago, Llewellyn Blackwell said:

I just have to ask the forum admin how a post like this is even allowed? It is clearly denigrating a huge portion of the player population.

 

Eh... if someone wants to post such an obviously self-aggrandizing comment as that, let them.  It says more about them than anybody else.

[DoctorDitko]

On 7/14/2021 at 3:52 PM, Ukase said:

You go to rob a bank, and hero has to pop in to stop you.

 

Oh, so much this! I hope it wouldn't be hard to code, but opt-in PVP Mayhem missions would absolutely make my day! It could be something announced in chat like zone invasions, or come up as a an alert for Radio missions. Would feel very much like comic book heroics to respond to that!

 

And imagine being a villain in mid-robbery and seeing "Alert! Captain Justice has entered the zone!" Sweet!

 

On 7/16/2021 at 10:31 PM, GraspingVileTerror said:

Bonus points if players can opt-in/opt-out of being exposed to certain weather phenomena on a personal basis.

Speaking of "make my day," you know how some PVP zones have a running tally and announcement of which side controls the zone? How about something similar that lets you influence the weather in the Isles?

 

A little sunshine might actually help with some dastardly plans...

 

 

Edited July 18, 2021 by DoctorDitko
Padding my nickel-per-word count. (Kidding, but it used to be the game industry gold standard!)

[GraspingVileTerror]

The biggest hurdle for Mayhem PvP is that hardcore PvPers are leagues beyond normal players, and would absolutely ruin the experience for them.  And that's not a dig at PvPers, since they're playing the game the way the enjoy it.  But mixing the general population with PvPers is a recipe for a lot of deeply upset regular players.

Without yet-another overhaul of PvP mechanics, the best option is asynchronous PvP, where Villains accumulate points in Mayhem Missions (or some new form of content) to launch NPC/AI-run events in Blueside zones.

Both Heroes and Villain players get to maintain the regular play experience, but still get that almighty sense of "Villains Act (and have agency), and Heroes React (and save the day)."

 

But a full-disclosure PvP Mayhem/Safeguard, where everyone knows what sort of extreme cases exist with PvP builds?  Yeah.  Okay.   Just make DAMNED sure you choreograph well in advance what a regular player is getting themself in to with something like that.  Maybe make them only available from inside PvP Zones, just so there's that extra layer of security from a regular player being annihilated without warning.

[Darmian]

2 hours ago, GraspingVileTerror said:

The biggest hurdle for Mayhem PvP is that hardcore PvPers are leagues beyond normal players, and would absolutely ruin the experience for them.  And that's not a dig at PvPers, since they're playing the game the way the enjoy it.  But mixing the general population with PvPers is a recipe for a lot of deeply upset regular players.

Without yet-another overhaul of PvP mechanics, the best option is asynchronous PvP, where Villains accumulate points in Mayhem Missions (or some new form of content) to launch NPC/AI-run events in Blueside zones.

Both Heroes and Villain players get to maintain the regular play experience, but still get that almighty sense of "Villains Act (and have agency), and Heroes React (and save the day)."

 

But a full-disclosure PvP Mayhem/Safeguard, where everyone knows what sort of extreme cases exist with PvP builds?  Yeah.  Okay.   Just make DAMNED sure you choreograph well in advance what a regular player is getting themself in to with something like that.  Maybe make them only available from inside PvP Zones, just so there's that extra layer of security from a regular player being annihilated without warning.

So, rather like Army of the Dead?  You could have a Mayhem mission in one of the PVP zones where going in there means exactly what you think it means! Rob the bank in a warzone. Excellent!

 

Personally I'd like to see the Asynchronous version.  Accumulate enough Mayhem or Safeguard points and "you" are loaded in as the next hero/villain in a following Safeguard/Mayhem. though you may, if you cross alt like many of us do, actually run into yourself!  And that would be interesting!

Edited July 19, 2021 by Darmian

[GraspingVileTerror]

There's a Badge idea for you:

Star-Crossed Haters

Run in to one of your own alt-characters in an Asynchronous PvP Mayhem or Safeguard Mission.

[Darmian]

Might be hard to tell with one of my main villains - apart from the name obviously.

 

Wendigo Montoya, ex Skull.

[Arnabas]

I always need to play a character as in I need to have a story for them and write up a bio.

 

I tried playing red side when it first came out, but couldn't connect with any character I made, so I would always delete them. What finally allowed me to play was to create a stalker who had been taken as a child and turned into a mind-controlled assassin. She finally broke free, but without those who trained her realizing it. She then continued to go on missions to "remove" targets, but would actually fight her way to them, incapacitating (not killing) everyone along the way. When she would reach her objective, she would help them fake their death and escape to Paragon.

 

So basically, she was now heroic, but undercover as a villain, and that made her fun to play.

[TombTyrant]

Man it ain't that overcast. Nerva and Cap are actually pretty sunny. Nerva might actually be the best lit zone out of Praetoria.

[GraspingVileTerror]

I also wonder what effect people's various monitor and display settings might have on their perception of Redside being "too dark/gloomy."

[TombTyrant]

Well Mercy is dark and gritty. And so is Grandville. So you start and end in the dark. And if you are generalizing, bookends make a powerful impression on an observer. For whatever reason, the developers thought it was important that a villain's story begins and ends in darkness. 

 

Sharkhead is also hella gritty and polluted and depending on your contacts and level path, you can spend a lot of time there.