Incentivize playing a villian

[Charistoph]

I know I see a lot of MM's on hero side, even demons, which imho is a bit odd for a hero.

 

Within the fiction of the game, what's the difference between a MM and, well, just a team?

 

A lot and not much.  Sorry for the confusing answer.  With an MM, the character played is the lead, while everyone/thing else is largely disposable and otherwise faceless.

 

Heck, I did a Mercs/Trap MM who was called Insertion Point, and while he was team lead, his first job was to get in to a position to bring the Mercs in to the Mission.

 

Could Reed Richards be a MM, with Sue, Johnny, and Ben his minions?

 

It could be set up that way, but most of the Reeds aren't like that.

[Vuhart]

As a primarily redside player, I'd like to weigh in on the hero/villain content discussion.

 

When I went to 50 on blueside I felt the same as some of the other posters that the zones seemed to blend into one another without a whole lot to distinguish them. This mostly occurred in the teens through 20's although the revamps and new story arcs have definitely improved some of those zones. The later hero arcs, particularly once you get to PI, I thought were great.

 

The main draws of redside I feel are the stronger identity's of the villain zones and the writing style for the villain arcs. There's a lot of personality in the individual contacts you run missions for and getting to interact with members of various factions feels more memorable to me than the vast number of generic citizens you get on blueside. Again, this was addressed to a degree with later content updates but only so much was added. The humor in the villain arcs was also much more to my liking than anything I found playing as a hero.

 

There's value in stories where your character commits acts utterly reprehensible by most ethical standards. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea but for me it's interesting and provides reinforcement for how important values are.

 

That's just my experience though and those with more experience probably have better insight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[EggKookoo]

Within the fiction of the game, what's the difference between a MM and, well, just a team?

Demons are the odd bit to me, not the MM part.  My Bots/Traps is a military surplus catbot on Hero side.

 

Ah, gotcha. Hm, well, there are plenty of "heroic" (or at least not-evil) demonic characters in comics. Spawn, for one. Kirby's Demon is another. Ghost Rider. Hellboy. There's precedent.

 

A lot and not much.  Sorry for the confusing answer.  With an MM, the character played is the lead, while everyone/thing else is largely disposable and otherwise faceless.

 

Are they, though? Again, within the fiction of the game, my MM's thugs are actual people, with unique names and (presumably) personalities and identities. They're not disposable or interchangeable. When they're defeated, they come back (from the hospital?) just like any PC hero.

 

I guess a defining characteristic of MMs is that there's a clear leader, but that can happen with PC groups as well. I don't think the average NPC "notices" the difference.

[pattycake]

I enjoy playing redside.

 

The Blueside have Atlas, much more open and inviting atmosphere. Redside you have mazes of buildings and docks. Community is always better when you have a place to sit and meet up, especially from the very start of level 1.

 

 

[Ghost49X]

There's value in stories where your character commits acts utterly reprehensible by most ethical standards. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea but for me it's interesting and provides reinforcement for how important values are.

Please tell me about these acts that are "utterly reprehensible" playing on red side I do a bunch of stealing from other crooks, with a side of sticking it to Archanos. I'm sure there are some decent plot lines some where but as a player I'd rather go through content I have a reasonable guess will be engaging which I'm finding on blue side for now. If only I didn't out level these contacts so fast it'd be heaven.

[TheBlindGirl]

A major problem with redside content is that it takes place in the Rogue Isles, an authoritarian dystopia run by a sinister super villain Hellbent on world domination. The only good guys around are invaders or subversives like Longbow, the Legacy Chain, and Wyvern. Even if we drastically multiplied the number of such heroic antagonists, people who want to play City of Villains want to be super villains, and most super villains are criminals, not dictators. There's plenty of room in a villain story for infighting and gang wars, but so long as the action takes place mainly in the Isles, you have to have a sudden, drastic location switch in order to cap off a gang war with a battle against the police and a super hero. City of Villains would have a much harder time selling itself as an expansialone upon release if it took place in tweaked copies of Paragon City zones, but it probably would've been much better for the long term health of the game.

 

Unfortunately, it's way too late to fix this.

[Vuhart]

There's value in stories where your character commits acts utterly reprehensible by most ethical standards. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea but for me it's interesting and provides reinforcement for how important values are.

Please tell me about these acts that are "utterly reprehensible" playing on red side I do a bunch of stealing from other crooks, with a side of sticking it to Archanos. I'm sure there are some decent plot lines some where but as a player I'd rather go through content I have a reasonable guess will be engaging which I'm finding on blue side for now. If only I didn't out level these contacts so fast it'd be heaven.

 

Ok, so I went back through the villain story arcs and you definitely got me there. Westin Phipps has some nasty business but I guess it's not as bad as I remember. There may be things I'm missing but my feelings at the time were probably based more on subtext and consequences than especially evil behavior.

 

I do agree with the other posters that as a villain there is a lack of villainous schemes on your part that don't just involve sticking it to some other villain. I guess that has something to do with the tiptoeing Crypic did with regard to harming innocent people.

 

[Clave Dark 5]

Seems to me that the flavor of the stories on either side will only apply to a fairly small subset of players, I mean, how often to radio teams stop to actually read anything?  With all the PUGing I've done, I've never seen it.    I'm not saying you're playing wrong to do so, but I don't really think it matters to many or most players.  I do know that battling Longbow and Arachnos too much gets old though, and Grandville is a pain without a flight.  But there are things to like about it, such as the smoother transition from one area to the next via ferries (and level progressions), the slightly better graphics (blue-side's city just looks like a vaporwave video dream), the once-better ATs, for example.  (Personally I've always preferred the older style architecture of the zones and the more closed-in spaces over the flat boring park nature of the Blueside city too, but I know that's just personal taste).

 

I'd still like to second the idea post6ed earlier about anyone being able to join any team; when I post "35 newspaper team LFM", anyone should be able to get my invite and, perhaps after clicking a pop-up to be zapped over to the proper villain map, be able to team with me - and vice versa.

 

To take this idea more of a real-world, right-now possibility, I think from now on whenever I post one of those "35 Corr LFT", I'm going to toss in a "Red or Blue, either's good."  Granted I can't get invited immediately, but they can know I'm willing to take the minute or so to switch.

[Charistoph]

A lot and not much.  Sorry for the confusing answer.  With an MM, the character played is the lead, while everyone/thing else is largely disposable and otherwise faceless.

 

Are they, though? Again, within the fiction of the game, my MM's thugs are actual people, with unique names and (presumably) personalities and identities. They're not disposable or interchangeable. When they're defeated, they come back (from the hospital?) just like any PC hero.

 

The issue being that there is zero customizability for the actual pets you summon.  Sure, you can give them names, but in terms of looks and powers, they match every other MM with the same powerset.  This is what makes them faceless and disposable despite anything else about it.  Even considering that you can set them to be additional health pools for you.

 

Heck, even when City of Villains first launched, that was the idea behind Masterminds.

 

Unfortunately, since MMs can be created as Heroes, this is rather a moot point for incentivizing people to play the Rogue Isles.

[retiarius]

Assuming that individual players will play the content they wish to play, coupled with the fact that alignment can be changed at will, why would playing one side or the other need incentivization?

 

[Charistoph]

Assuming that individual players will play the content they wish to play, coupled with the fact that alignment can be changed at will, why would playing one side or the other need incentivization?

 

Very true.  At most, there is the incentive to briefly hop over to Red-side to get the Patron Pools unlocked, since the powers available there often do not match certain ATs on the Epic Power Pool sets.

[TheBlindGirl]

Assuming that individual players will play the content they wish to play, coupled with the fact that alignment can be changed at will, why would playing one side or the other need incentivization?

 

Redside players want to play group content and often can't. That said, there are hundreds of redside players per server. The matchmaking infrastructure is just insufficient to get them playing together.

[Ghost49X]

Funny enough when I look through the search window for team mates I rarely find any villains who are anything but "not seeking". We should use the tools given to us when we can.

[retiarius]

Redside players want to play group content and often can't. That said, there are hundreds of redside players per server. The matchmaking infrastructure is just insufficient to get them playing together.

 

If this is correct, then it's the matchmaking infrastructure that needs correction -- which doesn't entail there needs to be incentivization beyond providing a matchmaking / grouping interface that works efficiently and/or optimally.

[Vuhart]

Funny enough when I look through the search window for team mates I rarely find any villains who are anything but "not seeking". We should use the tools given to us when we can.

 

I believe this has been an issue since the launch of CoV. The villain ATs were designed to be more self-sufficient and solo-friendly from the get go so grouping isn't quite as attractive depending on the personality. Maybe we've seen more of the team-oriented players players that like the villain AT's go blue because of the higher server pop?

 

That's not to say you don't see hero ATs on redside from time to time but anecdotally I wouldn't say it's very common.

[TheBlindGirl]

It's a counterintuitive but omnipresent fact of MMORPGs that most people playing them prefer to play alone. Is that because they don't want to play with other people in this genre whose defining feature is having other people around? Or because grouping is a hassle and they don't want to wait in queue instead of playing a video game? The first is more likely than it might seem at first glance. Some number of people like to have a crowd present just so they can make the choice not to join it. It's not clear how many people redside are like that.

 

It seems like it shouldn't be too hard to have extra merit rewards for specific strike forces (and task forces, for that matter) on certain days of the week, in order to draw the redside population from being scattered all across the Isles to focus on rotating through specific content.

 

[Ghost49X]

It's a counterintuitive but omnipresent fact of MMORPGs that most people playing them prefer to play alone. Is that because they don't want to play with other people in this genre whose defining feature is having other people around? Or because grouping is a hassle and they don't want to wait in queue instead of playing a video game? The first is more likely than it might seem at first glance. Some number of people like to have a crowd present just so they can make the choice not to join it. It's not clear how many people redside are like that.

 

It seems like it shouldn't be too hard to have extra merit rewards for specific strike forces (and task forces, for that matter) on certain days of the week, in order to draw the redside population from being scattered all across the Isles to focus on rotating through specific content.

 

I don't know about waiting in queue. Hero side when looking to build a team for something we ask around, personally messaging people of the right levels and sometimes ATs that we think we need to see if they're up for it. On top of advertising in LFG for the content we're trying to build. That's how it worked red side back on the official servers too. It was way more engaging and personal than relying on a "join queue" system. I get that people especially kids are used to that sort of thing in MMOs but then again also people say that the advent of the LFG/LFR systems killed the community in other MMOs (thinking of wow in this case).

 

If you get the right type of group going I'm more than willing to switch toons to red side to join in a taskfore or other group content, hell I'm even willing to join an arena team for some fun and I'd be surprised if I was the only one who felt that way.

 

If you're alone and looking for a team, think about setting your search comment and tag so that people looking at building a team know you exist and that you're interested.

[Vuhart]

It's a counterintuitive but omnipresent fact of MMORPGs that most people playing them prefer to play alone. Is that because they don't want to play with other people in this genre whose defining feature is having other people around? Or because grouping is a hassle and they don't want to wait in queue instead of playing a video game? The first is more likely than it might seem at first glance. Some number of people like to have a crowd present just so they can make the choice not to join it. It's not clear how many people redside are like that.

 

It seems like it shouldn't be too hard to have extra merit rewards for specific strike forces (and task forces, for that matter) on certain days of the week, in order to draw the redside population from being scattered all across the Isles to focus on rotating through specific content.

 

+1 From me. I think it's much easier to sell that kind of event to the playerbase rather than increase rewards across the board for redside. Incentivizing SFs would help bring the cretin solo players like me to actually group more.

[EggKookoo]

It's a counterintuitive but omnipresent fact of MMORPGs that most people playing them prefer to play alone. Is that because they don't want to play with other people in this genre whose defining feature is having other people around? Or because grouping is a hassle and they don't want to wait in queue instead of playing a video game? The first is more likely than it might seem at first glance. Some number of people like to have a crowd present just so they can make the choice not to join it. It's not clear how many people redside are like that.

 

I like to level at my own pace. Not just because I'm selfish and impatient with other peoples' paces, but also because I don't want to make other players have to wait for me. So I guess I fall a little bit into both categories. I like the option of grouping when I want to, but grouping is also often a bit of a hassle. Not anything to do with the LFG mechanics or the social aspects (both of which are fairly painless in CoH). I just sometimes -- most of the time -- want to get in, get some exp racked up, and get out. I'm more likely to look for a group when the game content warrants it, like if I were to do a trial.

[Tahliah]

I think extra support for Redside community would go a long way.  A "Villains" top level Forum, and picking one server as the unofficial Redside server, seems like it would help a lot without requiring any dev time.  If most redside toons moved to whatever server has 238 in that pic, we'd have the population of one of the blue servers and a reasonable shot at getting groups.

 

+1

 

[Edit to add:  I don't care for redside.  Part of it's the desire to be the hero, the do-gooder; part of it is that I find redside hard to navigate (to be fair, I don't spend much time there); part of it is the low population/difficulty finding a team; part of it is the depressing scenery (again, to be fair, I find DA, Boomtown, parts of Faultliine equally depressing); and part of it is that the content isn't as interesting to me, see part the first--I don't want to be villainy).

 

All that said, I did enjoy doing SFs back in the day on my badger (who switched for the shinies) and had a blast doing the higher level redside content via Ouro that a lot of villains don't get to for whatever reason--the low level redside content seems grindy and the stories unappealing to heroes-at-heart, so I don't think I ever got a villain above the low to midteens on live.  Maybe I got one into the 20's. 

 

All that said, if there were an unofficial villain server (the one with the 238 in the pic upthread seems a good candidate unless they're all standing around RPing at level 5), I'd definitely roll a villain and join the fun.  I've probably missed a lot redside, and I'd be happy to dive in and give it another try if there was a chance of finding a team. 

 

As to incentives: I wouldn't do it on my own server for inf or merits or xp, though I might do it for a specialty costume piece or novel villain-only vet-type travel/tp/[insert whatever coolness] power.

 

/just my 2cents as a hero who can be lured to the dark side for occasional villainous fun]

[Sniktch]

A note on mechanics:  The reason that "any align, any team" isn't a thing is because of two factors:  Contacts/Tips and PvP zones.  Contacts will not deal with you if you aren't one of the 'correct' two alignments, Tip contacts included; this is why Rogues/Vigilantes can only access their main-side content from Oro, not both sides.  Three of the four PvP zones need to know what 'effective' alignment you are when you enter them, so as to mark you hostile to players and mobs of the other 'effective' alignment.  Fairly large mechanical stumbling blocks to clear.

[Legree]

Redside has always been less populated.  Always.  I imagine that it's only moreso now that all ATs are available on both sides.

 

Incentivising villains with extra xp, inf or merits won't work - unless it's so off the scale good that it outdoes blueside teaming, blueside TFs, maybe even blueside AE, and all that will do is annoy players who already like redside and find themselves being involuntarily PL'd by the game itself.

 

I think the only way to bring people over to the Isles is to point out that there's a lot of good story and atmosphere that they're missing out on if they never leave Paragon City.

 

 

[Solarverse]

I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority here, but I actually thought it worked better when AT's and Powersets were restricted by hero/villain. I liked that there was something to differentiate them.

 

This is exactly why I no longer play Villain side. Why would you? I can play a Stalker, Brute, Corruptor, Dominator, and even the VEATs on Hero side. All the incentives to play a villain are gone.

[SwitchFade]

I think the real issue is, if you happen to buy a Ford mustang, and you choose the Cobra edition...

 

You're driving a donkey-snake. Or a lizard-mule.

 

How sad.

[ShardWarrior]

Why not join an active supergroup?  We hold "terrible Tuesdays" where we all play villains together.