Incentivize playing a villian

[retiarius]

And if they're willing to do it, then they should probably do one goldside (Praetoria) as well, since that seems even more sparsely populated than red.

 

[SwitchFade]

I would play villain, outside of the one post that I would try a Dom there, if redside were fun and compelling.

 

No amount of xp will make me switch. It's not compelling, and arachnos are really annoying, unengaging and repulsive. Lord recluse is pathetic. The whole world smacks of a single player offline game, not an mmo...

 

Make it team oriented, diverse and engaging, I'll gravitate to it.

[biostem]

Currently, the majority of players play as Heroes. This painfully clear when trying to form a party on the villain side vs the heroes side. This then compounds the issue of people playing heroes over villains.

 

Suggestion: Try various incentives to try and balance the server. IE: An additional experience or infamy passive and always on boost. Reduced prices at the stores. These incentives can swap back to heroes if there are more villains than heroes playing.

 

I am sure other people can give other/better suggestions on how to help get people on the villain's side.

 

I wonder if they could implement a global XP and inf bonus based upon the % disparity between the hero and villain sides, (like if there's 20% more people playing as heroes, villains get a 20% buff to XP and inf)...

[Clave Dark 5]

And if they're willing to do it, then they should probably do one goldside (Praetoria) as well, since that seems even more sparsely populated than red.

Fair point.  I was never much a fan of the lore behind it, but I did play it some when it was first introduced because it offered flavor variation to the usual red/blue early levels (and it looked very nice!).  It was also dang hard, I know I died much more over there, which sort of kept me away.  I have yet to check it out again since rebirth.

[Legree]

There is one surefire way to increase the redside population, though I daresay it wouldn't be very popular - remove Null the Gull.

 

The proliferation of all ATs other than the HEATS and VEATS to both sides happened on live, and I imagine that in itself reduced the villain population somewhat, but the existence of Null the Gull utterly negates the side-switching mechanic if you choose to use it, and players are choosing to use it in sizeable numbers, if the amount of queries in Help chat about the fastest arc to run to get Patron Powers is any indication.

 

Remove Null the Gull and 'heroes' will have to spend more than a half day holiday on redside if they want their Patron Powers, and who knows - while they're there they might actually join some of the teams people are trying to form.

 

Isn't that forcing people to do content?  Yeah, kind of, but as has been said about other game mechanics - e.g. accolades 'forcing' people to do Synapse TF - those mechanics exist for a reason, and that reason is in part to encourage players to do content they otherwise might not.

 

I'm not actively advocating for Null the Gull to be removed - personally I don't care either way - but so long as he's there no amount of incentivising will convince blueside-only players to take a walk on the redside.

[justicebeliever]

I'm not actively advocating for Null the Gull to be removed - personally I don't care either way - but so long as he's there no amount of incentivising will convince blueside-only players to take a walk on the redside.

 

Removing Null the Gull seems contrary to HC's philosophy about enabling more playstyles not fewer. 

 

But I'm not sold on the fact that incentives are all or nothing.  I think there are ton's of incentives that could get people to "walk on the redside".  That's easy.  I don't think there are many good incentives to "keep people on the redside".  Or I should say "keep most people on the redside".  If most people play for a weekend and then change their alignment back - SUCCESS, that means a few people stayed...And again, a 2% change in hero population is a 10% change for villains...

[Catgoyle]

And if they're willing to do it, then they should probably do one goldside (Praetoria) as well, since that seems even more sparsely populated than red.

 

Main problem gold has is that it's just up to level 20ish, then the character moves to red or blue.I'm a 'filthy casual' but even my slow soloing gets a toon to 20 within a few days.

 

Edit to add: Gold has other problems besides not having content beyond 20.  While I think the storytelling is great, I get tired of the same slog-fest tunnel map over and over again, topped off with the mindbogglying overdone ambush game mechanic.  When I'm struggling up towards level 20 and still on TO's, I'm NOT equivalent to 50+ mobs.

 

[Titomancer]

The "incentive" for playing redside is that it has some of the best writing in the game, albeit in the high level zones.  Grandville specifically.  Phipps, TV, Von Grun (Hi Becky!).  These are some of the most entertaining arcs on either side.  Not to mention the patron arcs are super fun as well.  The power choices for patrons dont suck either.  So yea, people are going to bounce around a lot.  But I would be willing to bet more than 50% of the population has dipped a toe on red for one reason or another, if they didnt fully commit. 

 

The issue Ive gotten when I asked people why no one played redside was that no one wanted to play someone's lackey. Which, fundamentally, is what you are doing on redside.  You arent a villain so much as a merc.  So the only way to get people to STAY redside instead of just popping redside for some quick content would be to overhaul the entire experience and make you your own villain instead of someone's errand boy.  And given the mechanics of quest-giver/Mission, it doesnt really seem possible. 

 

The other thing a few people have answered when I asked was "the zones are ugly". Which is true.  The Rogue Isles are a filthy lawless craphole of a country.  It is what it is.  It doesnt have to be everyone's style. 

 

Personally, I dont think its a problem with redside, I think it's an issue of taste.  Compare it to tankers, or defenders, or MMs, or whatever.  There's nothing wrong with red side.  Its just not everyone's cup of tea.  Its not everyone's playstyle.  The early levels dont grab your attention super well.  Its dirty, everyone is an enemy, even the people you work for.  But, if you play to its strengths, it can be a really rewarding journey.  I like the idea of going from lowly peon street thug up to Recluse's homeboy.  Or at least Recluse's Homeboys' Homeboy. 

 

And again, the content in grandville is super awesome.

[Clave Dark 5]

The other thing a few people have answered when I asked was "the zones are ugly". Which is true.  The Rogue Isles are a filthy lawless craphole of a country.  It is what it is.  It doesnt have to be everyone's style. 

 

Personally, I dont think its a problem with redside, I think it's an issue of taste.  Compare it to tankers, or defenders, or MMs, or whatever.  There's nothing wrong with red side.  Its just not everyone's cup of tea.  Its not everyone's playstyle.  The early levels dont grab your attention super well.  Its dirty, everyone is an enemy, even the people you work for.  But, if you play to its strengths, it can be a really rewarding journey.  I like the idea of going from lowly peon street thug up to Recluse's homeboy.  Or at least Recluse's Homeboys' Homeboy. 

 

And again, the content in grandville is super awesome.

 

I agree with pretty much everything you've said, but again, there is a prob with reside, in that the numbers are super low, compared to where they were live.  I used to play on servers with one dot at night at 3 am and still saw more folks redside than I do now at 10 pm.  I don't think we'll ever have as many players as blue, but we should have more.

 

Removing Null the Gull is an interesting idea, I mean, I know I have popped up a new toon on Mercy and then just run to Pocket D when I couldn't find anyone.  But if you did so right now, with the way things are currently, I think you'd be freezing in place the imbalance.  And I have to admit I like the idea of having the chance to swap at a moment's notice anyway.

[Sunsette]

It's a bad idea. A few of us die hard blues actually sneak over for brief periods now, where we just wouldn't go over under any circumstances at all before.

 

Without Null the Gull, given the low populations of these servers to begin with, people would just go blue and never come back.

 

Two exclusive factions is just a bad gameplay mechanic that many MMOs repeated because WoW got lucky with it and in every single case, low population ended up making that choice a pain in the ass later on.  Even in WoW -- CRZ was introduced in significant part to handle that particular problem.

[pattycake]

Redside is my all time favourite. Lots of solo play, but lacked in the community aspect. However, if there was a reason for villain being not as well as blue side were the mobs being too easy compared. Snakes and Arachnos units are very underwhelming to defeat, and the mooks as well. I don't remember dying much leveling to 50 on redside, but I know I died plenty of times facing as a hero from units that do considerable more damage.

[Razia]

I don't like being bad so I start all ATs as Heroes but going Vigilante instantly so I can play both sides. I wonder why people red side don't consider going rogue so they can play both side?

[justicebeliever]

I don't like being bad so I start all ATs as Heroes but going Vigilante instantly so I can play both sides. I wonder why people red side don't consider going rogue so they can play both side?

 

I think a lot of redside does do this already.  So it’s not a problem of “I can’t find anyone to team with,” but more “I can’t find anyone to team with to do my (redside) content”

[klokwerkaos]

My two cents.

 

I am a dedicated redside main, so I know a lot about the issues concerning villains.  I do play heroes just for experiencing the content, but I'm always a villain at heart, gotta love em.

 

Reasons people don't do villains as much:

 

They lack access to lots of story content and cool zones heroes get that is the primary focus of the narrative.

A lot of the enemies suck to fight on villain side playthroughs.

Grandville isn't really much fun to navigate if you don't take fly.

The city scapes are dirty/dingy.

Nobody else plays villains so it perpetuates that nobody plays villains because getting teams is impossible unless it's peak time on the weekend (so the rest of the week you have to go to Null and flip just to make any decent progress).

Some people just like heroes and think playing a villain is not fun for them.

 

Adding infamy and xp bonuses is grossly unbalanced and I'm not for it because not only is it horribly unbalanced as a game mechanic, but there's also no excuse story wise that this should happen which means it's also lore breaking and even if there was it would be terribly unbalanced.

 

Adding content is a nice idea, but strictly speaking, it's much easier to write one narrative, make 2 maps, change a few minor details and call it a day from a creator perspective, meaning it's much better to create for both than 1 whenever possible and that means it's functionally a waste to create for 1 side only, or worse, only create for villainside since most players won't experience it.

 

Since PVP is not the main focus of the game as it's primarily PVE by design and player numbers, this means the best way to get people to play more villains is to introduce your friends to the game and encourage them to join your supergroup and help them along the way.

 

They still might end up preferring heroes, but at least you gave it a shot.

 

Since the game is PVE mostly and also completely free, over time the user base will grow and villains finding teams will be less of an issue, and since that's the case, there's really no incentive to seek to balance the populations especially since it wouldn't work very well since people just like playing what they want to play.

 

 

 

 

[Ghost49X]

I like to play both sides but I'll roll characters for each side as opposed to lean on Null de Gull when I see the opportunity to join a team on the other side. I don't see the need for him especially since people can pick any side with any AT and even convert over later on. Maybe starting off as a Vigilante or Rogue should be an option but Gull is kinda redundant to me.

 

Also on a side note, I'm perfectly happy rolling a new character to match a specific need for a team. With the current Sidekick/Lackey system there's no need for me to be any set level to enjoy any group content (maybe aside from high difficulty end content) I typically get invited for.

[Rikis]

It is interesting how quickly players will go redside when a free AE farm is offered in the Rogue Isles. Makes me think that maybe increasing rewards isn't as bad an idea as people are making it out to be. Perhaps not exp, as that does disrupt the flow of players who want to play at their own speed, but maybe infamy or merits might do. It'd have less of an effect on players trying villains/rogues than  say, more exp, for sure, but it'd be more subtle and not as disruptive.

[Steampunkette]

Or you could let people just play what they enjoy playing.

 

Redside has always been anemic. People by and large prefer to play the hero rather than the lackey, and thanks to the game's writing you will -always- be a Lackey when you're Redside.

 

Add in the supergroups, friends, teams, and relationships people have Blueside, since it was out for a -while- before Redside launched, and top it off with the fond memories people have, there..?

 

Plus we can't forget the atmosphere which is happy and positive and welcoming in the Blue and hostile, dirty, and dark in the Isles...

 

Yeah... No amount of "Incentivizing" is going to change much of anything. You'll get people who use Null to run over to redside to Farm a bit, then they'll head right back through the D to chill in Atlas Park. You'll just be shifting around where people go to grind from the AE to whatever Redside Content offers big shinies before they default back to their comfort zone.

 

 

[Hallibel]

Yes, it would be double whatever your current XP gain is, if you already boost to double XP, it would be quad. 

 

Imposing restrictions on this (like you can't change alignment) means a.) it won't have a lot of takers, b.) those takers will be PISSED when they find out later (rightfully so) they can't switch because no matter how it is communicated people will miss the fine print, and c.) Now we have moved from simpler solutions - temporary boost to redside XP, to more heavy duty coding solutions (restricting alignment) without even knowing that there would be benefit.  /Jranger to that...

 

How would it hurt if for a week/month, redside (and to be clear, we need to include Praetoria in this as well) got double XP?  I don't see how it would hurt me on the blueside at all.  And it seems like it would definitely help on the red...

 

I don't see the harm in trying a temporary event either.

[Catgoyle]

If there's any sort of XP incentive, *please* make it optional for the four or five of us that play for the storylines and already outleveling content.  There are already XP boosters for people that want that kind of thing.

 

I don't really see something like an XP boost doing much to attract people that would actually "come for the XP, stay for the content."  The primary XP chasers are content to do DFB/DIB/AE in an endless loop so I don't see content as being more than a very distant secondary interest.

 

 

Redside has some designed-in issues that will always put it in the "not everyone's cup of tea," and they're especially daunting for newer players.

 

 

1. Navigation vs AP/KR.  Maze-like Arachnos base with ginormous walls in the way everywhere.

 

2. Unforgivable lack of foe variation in early mission arcs.  Not everyone wants to fight nothing but snakes and Arachnos.  There's obviously Longbow and "police" around at that level, so why not more arcs with them instead?  I personally had three different contacts send me on the *same* "vs snakes" arc.  And some builds don't do well at low levels with the Mu's endurance drain.

 

 

3. No level overlap between zones, so you're  have to go into the next zone and beast-run around hoping you don't get insta-gacked.  And you can't build up a level buffer before going to the next zone because contacts completely cut you off.

 

Those are the "mechanics" issues, there are also a couple of other "common" complaints.

 

A. They overdid the "gritty and dark" to the point where half of Mercy is literally a garbage dump with buildings stuck in it.

 

B. Not feeling especially villainous.  You're basically an errand boy for people that are too lazy/incompetent to get their hands dirty.  And anything you do vs. Arachnos is just going to gain the favor of Lord Arachnos because he likes seeing his less competent minions have their ass handed to them.  After running through Preatoria, it makes me realize how much potential they wasted with CoV.  Why not have Arachnos loyalist/rebel arcs?  More "just blow stuff up for the sake of seeing the world burn" missions?  Or "win the hearts and minds of the various factions?"

 

[Clave Dark 5]

Redside has always been anemic.

Yes, but as pointed out, it wasn't this anemic before shut-down.  Something 's changed here and we should react to that, much like reacting to people doing nothing but AE farming required a nerfing of that system.

[Steampunkette]

Redside has always been anemic.

Yes, but as pointed out, it wasn't this anemic before shut-down.  Something 's changed here and we should react to that, much like reacting to people doing nothing but AE farming required a nerfing of that system.

 

This whole -game- wasn't this anemic before shut-down. There were still around 2 million players when the lights went out, Clave. Now there's 100,000. There's not enough people to fully populate the game to a literal 1/10th of the degree that it was populated before the shutdown.

 

There were more players on -Virtue- than there are players, today. Consider that whackiness.

 

If we should "Incentivize" anything it's getting another 900,000 players to come back to the game. That would largely "Fix" the Redside population 'cause if even 1/10th of them were to go Redside that'd be the whole population of all the Homecoming Servers.

[Clave Dark 5]

The ratio of villains to heroes wasn't as lopsided, no matter how robust the population was, best I can tell (at least on the single server I currently play on).  On the other hand, I believe the devs in the past publishes such numbers; have the Homecoming devs done so?  Is there any way to check the ratio?

[justicebeliever]

 

If we should "Incentivize" anything it's getting another 900,000 players to come back to the game. That would largely "Fix" the Redside population 'cause if even 1/10th of them were to go Redside that'd be the whole population of all the Homecoming Servers.

 

That seems like an awesome, but highly untenable solution.  We should probably focus on possibilities that are more realistic.  I think a week or two of XP could work.  If we get 500 players to switch for a week or two, and only 10% keep their alts their, that's a 10% increase in the current population.  What do we have to lose?

[ed_anger]

On the other hand, I believe the devs in the past publishes such numbers; have the Homecoming devs done so?  Is there any way to check the ratio?

 

it tells you right here, in real time: https://forums.homecomingservers.com/status/

[Steampunkette]

 

If we should "Incentivize" anything it's getting another 900,000 players to come back to the game. That would largely "Fix" the Redside population 'cause if even 1/10th of them were to go Redside that'd be the whole population of all the Homecoming Servers.

 

That seems like an awesome, but highly untenable solution.  We should probably focus on possibilities that are more realistic.  I think a week or two of XP could work.  If we get 500 players to switch for a week or two, and only 10% keep their alts their, that's a 10% increase in the current population.  What do we have to lose?

 

So let's go over it:

Sidelocking characters would require a bunch of work to set up thanks to the current alignment system. We'd have to develop a way to lock them out of receiving tip missions or benefitting from them, then add a Null the Gull "Do not interact" flag.

 

The XP Boost would mean these players wind up skipping scads of content to create a character that does... what? Trials? Why do Trials with a double XP character when you can just do Trials with your main? "Oh, we could give them double trial rewards!" Oof the big bad of -that-. Though with the way Vet Levels work, you'd already be doing that!

 

And in a month when those 450 leave redside 'cause of a plethora of OTHER REASONS That this 'Fix' doesn't touch: we get another one of these threads.

 

Holding a carrot in front of a horse only works until the horse eats the carrot. And then you're right back where you started. Incentives don't work long-term. For that you need ACTUAL fixes.