Red side..no wonder the place is mostly empty.

[Ukase]

So, let me try to convey this with transparency. I've always preferred blue side. Why? Because I find all the roaches, snakes, spiders ...well, unsavory. That, and the initial implementation ripped my SG in half, when half bailed on blue to go check out the red side. Never saw those folks again. So, never did like red side. 

Years have elapse, and well, I've done all the blue stuff. There's still some things I'll re-visit, either for kicks or for accolades, but figured I'd start doing some red side stuff in the 20's, 30s & 40's. 

Hey, I'm trying to give red side equal time. But, just like on blue side, I'm sent from Granville to St. Martial, to Grandville, to Mercy, back to Grandville, back to St. Martial. Add to that - it took the 3rd mission before Vernon Von Grun would give me his number. 

This notion that red side doesn't send you zone hopping is clearly false. 

My missions were set to +4/3 on my fire blaster, level 47, and I just took down 15 Spires in a pseudo-Eden map. Just big bags of HP. I didn't even see any mobs, lol. Just 15 chunks of HP to knock out. And none of them gave any XP! 

You villains have an odd definition of fun. 

 

[Luminara]

[Snarky]

43 minutes ago, Ukase said:

So, let me try to convey this with transparency. I've always preferred blue side. Why? Because I find all the roaches, snakes, spiders ...well, unsavory. That, and the initial implementation ripped my SG in half, when half bailed on blue to go check out the red side. Never saw those folks again. So, never did like red side. 

Years have elapse, and well, I've done all the blue stuff. There's still some things I'll re-visit, either for kicks or for accolades, but figured I'd start doing some red side stuff in the 20's, 30s & 40's. 

Hey, I'm trying to give red side equal time. But, just like on blue side, I'm sent from Granville to St. Martial, to Grandville, to Mercy, back to Grandville, back to St. Martial. Add to that - it took the 3rd mission before Vernon Von Grun would give me his number. 

This notion that red side doesn't send you zone hopping is clearly false. 

My missions were set to +4/3 on my fire blaster, level 47, and I just took down 15 Spires in a pseudo-Eden map. Just big bags of HP. I didn't even see any mobs, lol. Just 15 chunks of HP to knock out. And none of them gave any XP! 

You villains have an odd definition of fun. 

 

better than go hunt 40 crey.  go hunt 40 crey.  go hunt 40 freaks.  go hunt 40 crey go hunt 40 crey go hunt 40 crey, okay, you want to do a story arc now?

[SuperPlyx]

Never much cared for the Von Grun arc myself....but he introduces Operative Grillo and /or Abyss . 

Now these 2 have arcs I do like., Grillo has the snake temple mission, this mission alone is worth doing his arc. It's awesome.

Abyss is the Hero killing arc, so many Heroes to deal with....fun stuff

[Ukase]

45 minutes ago, Snarky said:

better than go hunt 40 crey.  go hunt 40 crey.  go hunt 40 freaks.  go hunt 40 crey go hunt 40 crey go hunt 40 crey, okay, you want to do a story arc now?

Kindly tell me which contact gives those hunts. 
I'm aware of the insane Numina hunts..and those are annoying, for sure. 

And I did have Christopher Maxwell tell me to tackle ..I think it was 25 Nemesis 3x in a row, but there were 48 merits waiting on me, so I took the hit. 

I don't complain to say that blue side is better than red. I complain to say that red side is not the best side. It's all subjective, but red side is not immune to useless busy work missions. 

[Without_Pause]

Going from level 1, there is minimal traveling between zones for quite some time. There are some contacts who might ping you back and forth early on, but it doesn't feel that bad. Sure, anything level 50 is going to be all over, but that's a number of contacts blue side which aren't doing portal missions. With all of the ways to travel between zones it is honestly easy as ever to get to missions regardless of where they are at.

[biostem]

2 hours ago, Ukase said:

So, let me try to convey this with transparency. I've always preferred blue side. Why? Because I find all the roaches, snakes, spiders ...well, unsavory. That, and the initial implementation ripped my SG in half, when half bailed on blue to go check out the red side. Never saw those folks again. So, never did like red side. 

 

In a sense, I agree - the implementation of CoV did divide the playerbase.  A better implementation, IMO, would have been to keep things on one side, but have the villains operate "underground" within Paragon City, with you being able to eventually opt to become a full-fledged villain and leave the city altogether, (much like the vigitlante/rogue implementation).

[Snarky]

1 hour ago, Ukase said:

Kindly tell me which contact gives those hunts. 
I'm aware of the insane Numina hunts..and those are annoying, for sure. 

And I did have Christopher Maxwell tell me to tackle ..I think it was 25 Nemesis 3x in a row, but there were 48 merits waiting on me, so I took the hit. 

I don't complain to say that blue side is better than red. I complain to say that red side is not the best side. It's all subjective, but red side is not immune to useless busy work missions. 

The blue side origin contacts in the 25-29 and 30-34.  All of them.  Like, all.  All ten.  4-6 hunts each.  Thankfully it is down to 2-4 in the 35-39 bracket. So far

[Glacier Peak]

Yeah the Nemesis Mole Machines from Black Scorpion's Patron arc are a pain too. 

[Without_Pause]

I feel like at 29 I've one hunt outside of Mercy.

[The_Warpact]

I don't know what missions/arcs your playing but I'm lvling up a toon in the mid 30s right now and I've had 2 missions that I've to zone hop so far.

Von Grunn is the only contact that does that to my knowledge because its a rarity it stands out.

[Snarky]

there are a couple 35-39 St Mart arcs that send you back and forth St Mart to Nerva back and forth mission after mission.   But you have travel powers, etc.

[The_Warpact]

6 minutes ago, Snarky said:

there are a couple 35-39 St Mart arcs that send you back and forth St Mart to Nerva back and forth mission after mission.   But you have travel powers, etc.

Yeah once I hit that area, I'm moving onto patron arcs. 

[Ukase]

Hah, figures the contact I choose is one known for making zone hops a requirement. But on my Redside crawl teams, anecdotally, this isn't a one-off. It happens routinely throughout the levels, across many contacts. 

And yes, there are zone transport tools, which my character does have -- but when you finish these missions quickly - and the recharges for them are longer than it takes to finish the missions, I'm forced to do things the old fashioned way - hop to ouro, hop to grandville or wherever...I miss the instant SGTP macro that you could use from anywhere during those times. 

(useless info - ALL my characters get all the transport tools from p2w, including the sg portal, unless they're a special challenge character) 

And I don't dare suggest blue side isn't the same, as far as zone hopping goes. Only that both sides share this negative feature. Routinely. It is what it is. 

[Ura Hero]

My biggest issue with Red side is the environment.  It's dark, dreary, blacks, grays, browns, with a little bit of red thrown in here and there.  It's depressing for lack of a better word.  It looks and feels like a ghetto.  Like there's no crime bosses living in Park Place.  Lets all go hide out on a bunch of islands that look like the remains after a war.  Yup, that's where I would want to live as a great criminal.  I get that for low level criminals, but once you get some money and power, most crime bosses move to someplace a bit nicer just saying.

 

For me the missions are fine although again why do all Arachnos bases look like they can't afford a lightbulb?

 

I think the Strike Forces are probably better done than the Hero side Task Forces as far as time spent and story line.  It's pretty obvious that the team had learned a lot from the first 5 Issues that they put to use in designing City of Villains.   I just wish that I didn't have to play It's a Small World After All on repeat to stay happy in order to play through it.

[Luminara]

9 hours ago, Snarky said:

better than go hunt 40 crey.  go hunt 40 crey.  go hunt 40 freaks.  go hunt 40 crey go hunt 40 crey go hunt 40 crey, okay, you want to do a story arc now?

 

Contacts ask you to perform one non-arc mission, then offer you a new contact if you haven't unlocked all of the contacts appropriate for your level range.  The next mission they offer is dependent on your level.  If you've out-leveled that contact, they'll give you a hunt or "Talk to X security chief".  If you're within their specified level range and you haven't already completed the arc they offer (which is possible, since two or more contacts can offer the same story arc at lower levels), they'll give you the arc.

 

When origin restrictions were removed, it didn't actually open up a lot of new content because most of the content was pooled across multiple contacts.  At lower levels, for example, three to six contacts will offer the same arc, and since contacts are limited to a single arc, they can't give players anything more than hunts and unrelated door missions.  This is one of the reasons why The Hollows, Faultline and Striga are preferred early leveling zones, because they streamline the process by offering one story arc per contact, and only one contact per level range.  In contrast with that, you'll note that in Steel Canyon and Skyway City, every story arc is offered by four different contacts, and since that's all they have, completing the arc on any one contact inherently leads to the other three having nothing but street work and unrelated door missions.

 

CoH also has a problem with directing players to contacts with different content when they reach an appropriate level.  Some contacts aren't introduced to players by other contacts, some are only suggested when using the Find Contact function, and some don't even show up then, they require the player to know who and where the contact is and go find them.  Concurrently, multiple redundant contacts are crammed into the player's contact list.  All of this is a result of origin restrictions.  When players were restricted from accessing contacts by their origin, the system worked.  Now, with every contact open to every origin, the 1-30 experience in CoH feels like it's chaotic and lacking in direction, brimming with hunts and inconsequential door missions which offer no incentive and engender ennui, and worse, the opportunity to engage in different content isn't presented to players because the contact chains are still in place.  Contact A1 will tell the player to talk to Contact A2, and Contact A2 sends the player to Contact A3, but none of them mention that Contacts B1-B5 and C1-C5 and D1-D5 and E1-E5 exist and have different content.  The Find Contact function partially addresses that, but not well and not reliably (still far too easy to miss contacts).  The only way to access all previously origin-restricted content is to go back to City Hall and talk to the origin starter contacts, and that's not well known. 

 

From 30 onward, contacts aren't pooling story arcs with the intensity they do in the pre-30 game (30-35, you'll see up to two contacts offering the same arc, and after that, every contact has unique content), but by that time, the first impression has already settled in.

 

There are a lot of contacts in City of Heroes, but not, comparatively, a lot of valuable (meaning, story arc) content.  City of Villains and Going Rogue utilize fewer contacts to deliver roughly the same amount of valuable content, which creates the illusion of disparity, when, in fact, the vast majority of content for individual contacts in CoH is just filler, legacy chaff left over from Cryptic's attempt to give relevance to origins.

 

You don't have to hunt, patrol and run filler door missions.  There's enough story arc content "blue-side" to level from 1 to 50 without touching a single one of those missions.  You do have to understand the flaws in the contact system, though, and work around them.

[Uun]

I've been leveling on red side lately. The arcs are generally more interesting and much shorter (usually around 5 missions). Doc Buzzsaw and Mr. G are really good. Darrin Wade is interesting, and fills in some lore. If you're a rogue, Bobby Curtin and Sgt Schorr are good.

[The_Warpact]

12 minutes ago, Ura Hero said:

My biggest issue with Red side is the environment.  It's dark, dreary, blacks, grays, browns, with a little bit of red thrown in here and there.  It's depressing for lack of a better word.  It looks and feels like a ghetto.  Like there's no crime bosses living in Park Place.  Lets all go hide out on a bunch of islands that look like the remains after a war.  Yup, that's where I would want to live as a great criminal.  I get that for low level criminals, but once you get some money and power, most crime bosses move to someplace a bit nicer just saying.

 

For me the missions are fine although again why do all Arachnos bases look like they can't afford a lightbulb?

 

I think the Strike Forces are probably better done than the Hero side Task Forces as far as time spent and story line.  It's pretty obvious that the team had learned a lot from the first 5 Issues that they put to use in designing City of Villains.   I just wish that I didn't have to play It's a Small World After All on repeat to stay happy in order to play through it.

Well Mercy was a nice place until Longbow started their criminal invasion and through their war crimes have decimated large portions of this once beautiful area.

 

Port Oakes isn't bad its a nice port town, with local sport venues, and a wonderful business district. 

 

Cap is a technological wonder, with a small town charm, a port, and a university.

 

Sharkhead is a large Port and mining operation with row houses for the local workers.

 

Nerve once again would be nice a series of Ports and tourist Isles but Longbow continued military incursions should be brought before the UN.

 

St. Martial is a lovely tourist destination with casinos, resorts, and some Ports.

 

Grandville is the seat of power for Arachnos and is largely a military installation.

 

If the unsanctioned invasion of Longbow would cease, the Rogue Isles would be a great tourist and business destination. Unlike Paragon City which has large swaths of the city uninhabitable from the continued "hero" elements which causes untold loss of life and billions of dollars in damage, a few areas slipping into other dimensions, and some of the most dangerous creatures and criminal elements assaulting everyday citizens. The "Rogue Isles" are a paradise.

[Six-Six]

40 Crey... pfft.

Come to me when you've killed 1000 Longbow (Kristoff Jaeger)
or when you've done a respec trial (Arbiter Leery)
or defeated Ghost of Scrapyard (Crimson Revenant)

[A Cat]

1 hour ago, Snarky said:

there are a couple 35-39 St Mart arcs that send you back and forth St Mart to Nerva back and forth mission after mission.   But you have travel powers, etc.

Mage Killer Zuhkara in GVille is pretty bad for sending you to the ass end of Nerva repeatedly too. 

 

Personally I like Von Grun. His dialogue and story arc are hilarious even if the actual missions aren't that fun. 

 

My main impression of story arcs in general is that the newer stuff is better than the stuff from the very early issues. Redside doesn't have any of the truly ancient stuff so it is generally pretty good overall. But the new hero arcs are also incredibly good IMO. I also liked the Twinshot arc a lot more than Dr. Graves. Dr. Graves just felt like a bunch of missions of him crying "NOOOOOOO! You can't do that!". 

Edited January 14, 2022 by A Cat

[Ukase]

19 minutes ago, A Cat said:

Mage Killer Zuhkara in GVille is pretty bad for sending you to the ass end of Nerva repeatedly too. 

 

Personally I like Von Grun. His dialogue and story arc are hilarious even if the actual missions aren't that fun. 

 

My main impression of story arcs in general is that the newer stuff is better than the stuff from the very early issues. Redside doesn't have any of the truly ancient stuff so it is generally pretty good overall. But the new hero arcs are also incredibly good IMO. I also liked the Twinshot arc a lot more than Dr. Graves. Dr. Graves just felt like a bunch of missions of him crying "NOOOOOOO! You can't do that!". 

One thing that I have noticed, and it may just be perception bias, but the newer contacts, newer arcs seem to give more story arc bonus XP. Noticeably more. 

On one character, on blue side, I was tracking the bonuses. The hard part was if you're level 7, you'd get bonus X, but if you're level 8, you'd get bonus X plus a little more, so it's really hard to compare apples to apples in that regard. 

If anyone is curious, the spreadsheet is attached. 
 

xpbonus.xlsx

[Snarky]

1 hour ago, Ukase said:

Hah, figures the contact I choose is one known for making zone hops a requirement. But on my Redside crawl teams, anecdotally, this isn't a one-off. It happens routinely throughout the levels, across many contacts. 

And yes, there are zone transport tools, which my character does have -- but when you finish these missions quickly - and the recharges for them are longer than it takes to finish the missions, I'm forced to do things the old fashioned way - hop to ouro, hop to grandville or wherever...I miss the instant SGTP macro that you could use from anywhere during those times. 

(useless info - ALL my characters get all the transport tools from p2w, including the sg portal, unless they're a special challenge character) 

And I don't dare suggest blue side isn't the same, as far as zone hopping goes. Only that both sides share this negative feature. Routinely. It is what it is. 

I always solo’d redside live with no travel powers until mid 30 except vet reward 30sec jump every ten minutes or so and the Ferry system.  Oh and the Pocket D vip transport.  Never felt it was an issue

[Ukase]

1 hour ago, Snarky said:

I always solo’d redside live with no travel powers until mid 30 except vet reward 30sec jump every ten minutes or so and the Ferry system.  Oh and the Pocket D vip transport.  Never felt it was an issue

When ya get to be my age, you lose patience. At least I do. The closer I get to death, the more impatient I get. 

At least they don't make ya wait for the ferry to arrive before you can take it. 

[Shenanigunner]

Blueside, Indigo not only sends you to every zone in the game but requires you to go check in with Crimson at the ass end of PI almost every time. It never ends.

[Placta]

33 minutes ago, Shenanigunner said:

Blueside, Indigo not only sends you to every zone in the game but requires you to go check in with Crimson at the ass end of PI almost every time. It never ends.

 

PI's small, and Crimson's not far from the ferry, TUNNEL, and Ouro drop point. Now, Crimson having you go talk to Indigo in her remote corner of FF...

 

And as much as the devs did learn, they still did things like put Jenni pancaking Adair in the Nowheresville neighborhood of Talos and you have to go back to her in person twice out of three missions. In issue 17.