getting more players to try red side

[Injunuity]

why not offer the xp bonus on the red side, and maybe have it removed if they change alignment to blue or vigi?

 

maybe not like what the current xp buff is going on. but still, to see if helps those level a red side alt to end game levels while it lasts?

[Rudra]

And what about gold side? Praetoria tends to be less player populated than the Rogue Isles. And if you start giving added incentives to get players red side, gold side is going to want it. And if gold side gets it too, blue side is going to want it. So why not just let players play whatever side they prefer without trying to incentivize them into playing a side they don't have much interest in? (Edit: Bear in mind, I tend to play red side more than blue. Players will play what they want.)

Edited January 13 by Rudra

[Injunuity]

45 minutes ago, Rudra said:

And what about gold side? Praetoria tends to be less player populated than the Rogue Isles. And if you start giving added incentives to get players red side, gold side is going to want it. And if gold side gets it too, blue side is going to want it. So why not just let players play whatever side they prefer without trying to incentivize them into playing a side they don't have much interest in? (Edit: Bear in mind, I tend to play red side more than blue. Players will play what they want.)

ok, so red and gold side, but blue's got enough players to not warrant getting any more than the p2w xp bonus. the idea is to get players to try out the lesser populated content. but after hitting 20, gold has to choose either red or blue to exit praetoria. so that makes it kinda iffy to get gold an exp buff to rush to exit to red or blue, doesn't it?

[Reiska]

Leveling too fast also actually breaks the progression of goldside; on the event that I level a character through there I usually forgo 2XP until 20.

[lemming]

So, would this apply to redside zones only, or if the character is rogue or villain?   What about co-op zones?

[Rudra]

1 minute ago, Injunuity said:

ok, so red and gold side, but blue's got enough players to not warrant getting any more than the p2w xp bonus. the idea is to get players to try out the lesser populated content. but after hitting 20, gold has to choose either red or blue to exit praetoria. so that makes it kinda iffy to get gold an exp buff to rush to exit to red or blue, doesn't it?

My response is basically a summary of the last thread about this topic/suggestion.

 

First, no, Praetorians do not have to go blue or red when they hit level 20. They can immediately go to First Ward and continue the Praetoria story line there. And that will eventually transition them to Night Ward which still continues the Praetoria story line. Night Ward can take them up to level 40 before the contacts will stop talking to them. And even at that, they can still level there up to 50. There are players that have done so and insist on doing so on other alts because they want to play as Praetorians. The go to Primal Earth mission is actually listed as a level 50 mission in Ouroboros, so Praetorian characters can skip getting that mission until they reach level 50 and not have any problems then getting to Primal Earth, if they so choose.

 

Second, when the request to give incentives to players to play red side was pitched the last time, the topic shifted over to which side needs help more: red or gold. That was a long discussion, with it being firmly established that gold needs help recruiting players more than red. So the gold siders insisted gold side get incentives to play there until they were at least as populated as red side before red side got their incentives. Which caused a fuss from the red side players looking to pad red side numbers. This eventually led to blue siders asking to also get incentives to bring players back to blue if gold and/or red got incentives to draw players as that would eventually deplete blue side of players. So shortened loooooooong story even shorter? Let's not try to incentivize any of the sides because it will eventually devolve yet again into an incentive war (at least on the forums) for getting players into each poster's preferred side.

[Injunuity]

there'd be no way to make everyone happy, but alternate red & gold incentives xp to get more in each area. as to not choosing red or blue after starting a gold char, that's player choice really. as gold wasn't ever intended to be an option to go end game content after all, was it?

[Rudra]

24 minutes ago, Injunuity said:

there'd be no way to make everyone happy, but alternate red & gold incentives xp to get more in each area. as to not choosing red or blue after starting a gold char, that's player choice really. as gold wasn't ever intended to be an option to go end game content after all, was it?

Gold siders don't want extra XP. The mobs there are more difficult and so award more XP than red or blue side, so it is already very easy to out-level content gold side. Incentives does not mean XP, though it can.

 

And I personally am opposed to incentivizing any side over any other side. If players want to try the different sides? They can and will. Null the Gull even makes side switching easy so anyone can level up through the game doing everything in both red and blue side (if they are willing to turn off XP) already on a single character without ever having to use Ouroboros.

[VioLight]

Well, there are players like me who just don't like red side. It doesn't fit my characters, I don't like being a villain, and I really don't like some of the stories there, like "saving" people to have them killed and chopped up for zombie bits. Or to be written as a complete dupe and idiot where everything was a trap. You could offer 5x XP and 1000X inf and I still wouldn't because I wouldn't enjoy it. 

 

There's just nothing really about red side that appeals to me. And I don't think I'm the only one. 

[Rudra]

To be fair, I think red side and gold side already have their incentives:

 

Gold side has a very rich and dynamic story line. (Seriously, it's the only side that can remove a contact before you even get to the contact.) And you can change alignment at the end of every arc.

 

Red side has a much simpler progression and their arcs tend to keep you in the same zone so you aren't running across umpteen different zones chasing missions to get a single arc done.

 

 

5 minutes ago, VioLight said:

I really don't like some of the stories there, like "saving" people to have them killed and chopped up for zombie bits

If that is the story arc I am thinking of, that is a gold side story from the Crusader faction of the Resistance. (Though the Power faction of the Loyalists gets just as bad, just for different reasons.) Edit: AH! You're talking about the Krylov mission to help the Vahzilok to lead Longbow to them! Sorry.

Edited January 13 by Rudra

[Doc_Scorpion]

9 hours ago, Injunuity said:

why not offer the xp bonus on the red side

How does that get people to try playing red side?  And I mean that seriously, do you honestly think red side suffers from an inability to level and that's what's keeping people from playing there?

[golstat2003]

On 1/13/2024 at 1:41 AM, VioLight said:

Well, there are players like me who just don't like red side. It doesn't fit my characters, I don't like being a villain, and I really don't like some of the stories there, like "saving" people to have them killed and chopped up for zombie bits. Or to be written as a complete dupe and idiot where everything was a trap. You could offer 5x XP and 1000X inf and I still wouldn't because I wouldn't enjoy it. 

 

There's just nothing really about red side that appeals to me. And I don't think I'm the only one. 

 

If only play red side when I'm in an "evil" kind of mood. But most of the time I prefer Paragon City. And the restrictions on Gold Side just make it so difficiult to play.

Edited January 14 by golstat2003

[Clave Dark 5]

On 1/12/2024 at 11:41 PM, VioLight said:

Well, there are players like me who just don't like red side. It doesn't fit my characters, I don't like being a villain, and I really don't like some of the stories there, like "saving" people to have them killed and chopped up for zombie bits. Or to be written as a complete dupe and idiot where everything was a trap. You could offer 5x XP and 1000X inf and I still wouldn't because I wouldn't enjoy it. 

 

There's just nothing really about red side that appeals to me. And I don't think I'm the only one. 

I don't think the idea is to force anyone to play resdide, just to get some more to try it.

[Rudra]

34 minutes ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

I don't think the idea is to force anyone to play resdide, just to get some more to try it.

@VioLight isn't talking about anyone being forced to play red side. All (s)he is saying is that it doesn't matter what the incentive is, (s)he has no interest in playing red side.

[FupDup]

One thing I've noticed is that my redside toons seem to have a slightly harder time earning cash than their blueside equivalents, or at least it feels that way. That could be due to shorter story arcs giving fewer merits, or it could be due to less team content like SF's being run, which also translates to fewer merits/inf. Boosting the inf/merits redside wouldn't break progression like an XP boost would, so it's a somewhat more viable option. 

 

I haven't kept a spreadsheet log of it or anything so I can't back it up with maths, so "trust me bro."

 

I'll admit though that my choice of blue/red/gold is primarily dependent on concept/theme rather than incentives, so it's not like I would just create a bunch of villains for farming extra merits/inf doing redside stuff. I try to keep a ratio of 1 villain for every 2 heroes to keep blueside from getting too stale and because I find it easier to make hero/vigilante concepts than villains/rogues. I'm overdue for some more goldsiders...

[Rudra]

37 minutes ago, FupDup said:

One thing I've noticed is that my redside toons seem to have a slightly harder time earning cash than their blueside equivalents, or at least it feels that way. That could be due to shorter story arcs giving fewer merits, or it could be due to less team content like SF's being run, which also translates to fewer merits/inf. Boosting the inf/merits redside wouldn't break progression like an XP boost would, so it's a somewhat more viable option. 

 

I haven't kept a spreadsheet log of it or anything so I can't back it up with maths, so "trust me bro."

 

I'll admit though that my choice of blue/red/gold is primarily dependent on concept/theme rather than incentives, so it's not like I would just create a bunch of villains for farming extra merits/inf doing redside stuff. I try to keep a ratio of 1 villain for every 2 heroes to keep blueside from getting too stale and because I find it easier to make hero/vigilante concepts than villains/rogues. I'm overdue for some more goldsiders...

We fight the same enemies red side and blue side, so the rewards from that is the same. Red side does lack the extremely long arcs blue side has, so you won't find arcs that reward the same merits as the long arcs on blue side. And typically, I pretty much never see any red side SFs forming, so you likely see a lack from that as well. However, this last point can be addressed by forming SF runs yourself.