Redside... Best side? Right??

[Dev Unitas]

Hello everyone! I wanted to field some community discussion on a topic that is near and dear to many of our hearts- the wonderful, picturesque Rogue Isles!

 

As we all know, player interest is lower overall in City of Villains content, with populations being consistently lower than heroes by a significant margin. I'd simply like to ask why people personally think this is, beyond the clear recursive chicken-and-egg situation (ie. less players leads to less players). It's intriguing, because I've seen a decently common sentiment that Redside has higher quality content overall. I've also seen the atmosphere of the zones as a reason why people don't play there.

 

As a follow-up question, what would you think is a good solution to increasing general interest in the Rogue Isles?

 

Also, Praetoria is not a part of this specific conversation- it's a whole kettle of fish on its own, and perhaps worthy of independent discussion in a future thread.

 

Quick Disclaimer: This is a question purely being asked by me, not the development team. I'm simply curious what people think, and this is absolutely not indicative of anything in future being planned. Please take on the post at face value and refrain from speculation within the thread.

[Glacier Peak]

The stories and zones were written in a way to convey progression of a character from the bottom gutter of the Zig to the same table as Recluse. Each zone you meet another contact that elevates your character to a higher point in the story. At the end you're taking on the major heroes in the game and even Recluse himself. It's a fantastic way to enjoy the game and I think it is good all on its own. With the advent of Archetypes no longer being locked to blue or red side (along with faction switching being instant), there's not really a side anymore (except Gold side!). 

 

As to what could increase player population? Well I don't see much "City of Villain" anywhere on Homecoming's forums, discord, social media, or Wiki accounts. It's City of Heroes and that's what people probably think first to try. Maybe make some more CoV logos and slap them on things? In game, I'll just say that being a Villain doesn't mean what it used to mean. You're making choices that are mostly just Vigilante writing outside of the real dark contacts. It's always about making cash until you get to Grandville, then it's about power. Maybe that's what I said is worth trying, make being a Villain mean something.

Edited January 20 by Glacier Peak

[Lunar Ronin]

In one of the City of Heroes AMA on Reddit after shutdown, one of the Paragon Studios developers (I forget which), said that prior to sunset, the City of Heroes population was roughly split 80% heroes, and 20% villains.  On Homecoming, the split is roughly 90% heroes, and 10% villains.

 

Why is there a greater disparity between hero players and villain players on Homecoming compared to live?

 

• The ability to play villain ATs hero side out of the gate only became available on live one year prior to sunset.  As such, most red side characters on live started out red side.  Homecoming on the other hand has had the ability for villain ATs to start hero side since launch.
• Null the Gull lets characters switch alignment at will.  There's no gating, unlike live.

Those two combined have effectively cut Homecoming's red side population in half compared to live.

 

What to do about it?  Well, again in the AMA on Reddit, the developer stated that villain characters would get permanent lackeys in Issue 25, to help level out the playing field.  Every villain essentially would get a pet, so they don't have to rely as much on other players.  The first permanent lackey was going to be Fiona Kal, the daughter of Mortimer Kal.  Now I know that Homecoming is not beholden to anything that Paragon Studios had planned, but it's an intriguing idea.

 

Just please, please don't change the zones to become more like hero side.  I almost exclusively play red side, mostly because I much prefer the red side zones to blue side zones.  They're more distinctive and have more character.  YMMV.

 

 

 

[Dev Unitas]

17 minutes ago, Lunar Ronin said:

Just please, please don't change the zones to become more like hero side.  I almost exclusively play red side, mostly because I much prefer the red side zones to blue side zones.  They're more distinctive and have more character.  YMMV.

 

As I said at the end of the OP, this isn't indicative of anything we have planned, I was mainly just putting out the question because I'm curious if community response might differ from internal opinions. Fret not! I love the Isles, I wouldn't want them to be more Blueside-like in tone or character.

[Lunar Ronin]

Other ideas now that I'm thinking about it:

 

• Increase the drop of infamy red side to 1.2x or so.  Not enough to woefully unbalance things, just a nice bonus and a small incentive to play red side.  Hey, villains care a great deal more about material wealth than heroes.
• There really should be a level eight to fifteen strike force in Port Oakes, comparable to the Positron TFs blue side.  Right now, if you're lucky you get to do a DFB red side... and then what?  Missions are great, but for those who prefer to team, SFs are better.

[Rudra]

The thing about the Rogue Isles compared to Paragon City that I and most people I know/knew in the game liked was that the arcs tended to stay in zone. Whereas in Paragon City, you would jump from Brickstown to Atlas Park to Founder's Falls and so forth. So red side does have that going for it. The 2 biggest issues I've heard about from players that insist on being blue side is that they do not like the content red side has (because it is villainous and they don't like doing things like that even in a video game) and all their friends play over on blue side. How do you counter those 2 points? I have no idea.

 

I mean, I suppose you can flag some contacts as being more villainous/vile than others, such as Peter Themari or the contact that gets mentioned more often (for a single mission at that), Krylov. Knowing how to avoid missions/arcs they don't want to do could possibly bring a few players over to try it, but I give that an extremely low chance of success. Another option could be to make more rogue-specific missions/arcs for those players to limit themselves to, but that would only have a slightly better chance than flagging content.

 

I'm opposed to adding incentives like increased infamy unless it was for a very specific (and brief) period of time. The biggest challenge is convincing players that red side isn't the horrific, sacrifice innocent people for no good reason set of missions/arcs that they perceive it to be.

 

Edit: Though I really should note that a lot of players do go red side to unlock the patron powers. I guess you could make some red side accessible only sets that you have to play through an arc to unlock on that character like with patron powers, but that seems more than a little farfetched and unfair.

 

 

Edited January 20 by Rudra
Edited to add missing "has".

[Super Atom]

The truth has always been simple

 

Atlas Park. It's the go-to hang around area and always has been since the beta, a lot of costume contests and other such happenings go on there. City of Heroes/Villains is a social game at its core and the people will always be on the side where it's easy to hang out. Pretty much anytime you ask anyone, Which side has better content? It's always City of Villains. It's not the content, It's not anything you will ever be able to fix. it's Atlas Park having a giant empty square right at the entry point of the game that is nice and sunny and easy to people watch.

 

[Rudra]

6 minutes ago, Super Atom said:

The truth has always been simple

 

Atlas Park. It's the go-to hang around area and always has been since the beta, a lot of costume contests and other such happenings go on there. City of Heroes/Villains is a social game at its core and the people will always be on the side where it's easy to hang out. Pretty much anytime you ask anyone, Which side has better content? It's always City of Villains. It's not the content, It's not anything you will ever be able to fix. it's Atlas Park having a giant empty square right at the entry point of the game that is nice and sunny and easy to people watch.

 

So basically Mercy Island just needs that platform where the Arbiter and Quartermaster are cleared of plants and benches, and players will migrate to red side?

[Akisan]

1 hour ago, Rudra said:

The 2 biggest issues I've heard about from players that insist on being blue side is that they do not like the content red side has (because it is villainous and they don't like doing things like that even in a video game) and all their friends play over on blue side

 

This... pretty much sums it up perfectly for me.  About 95% the first issue, 5% the other.  I've a few alts I've shifted to Vig. so I can team with red-leaning friends, but that's as far as I'll go.

 

As for getting my interest in going to the rogue isles, maybe something along the lines of "Longbow raid on <Faction> hideout" style of missions and/or zone hunts.  No idea how that'd work mechanically/lorewise, since that sounds like it's asking for Arachnos counter-raids and/or open-world PvP and I've no interest in either of those cans of worms.

 

Edit to add:  I could totally also see some Vigilante contacts/story arcs over there - our characters may be there to ferret out certain enemies and/or factions they have a grudge with, and there's little to no chance of said enemy being foolish/brave enough to actually show up in Paragon City.

Edited January 20 by Akisan

[Troo]

Atlas is an easier zone and has more population.

Nearly everything in Atlas is at least a little easier. One or two, probably would be no biggie, but it is currently many things and they seem to add up.

• How many badges can a player get in Atlas before being exposed to any danger? More than in Mercy.
• Can a player get to Pocket D without risking damage?
• Connections From Atlas: Normal Paragon City zones, Sewer Network, Recluse's Victory, Rikti War Zone, Fort Trident, Pocket D
• Connections From Mercy: Normal Rogue Isles zones, Pocket D
  • No access to Sewer Network, Recluse's Victory, Rikti War Zone, Fort Trident
• Zone transportation and tunnel transit are easier to get to and barely skirt any potential enemies.
• The P2W is right near the main trainer.
• Note: The base access portal in Mercy is closer to the spawn point.

Putting together Atlas being an easier zone and it having higher population, and it's not hard to understand why more don't play Redside.

 

Very similar to the current server experiment. (having lower population servers give more XP to incentivize people to play on them)

We are seeing that population trumps increased XP for a lot of players.

 

 

On 12/31/2022 at 4:29 AM, Scarlet Shocker said:

Mercy in its original iteration felt right. You're a nobody, sprung from gaol by Arachnos and given the chance to make it in an arena where the winner takes all. You're "special" - one of Recluse's Chosen Ones. That's not even remotely obvious in the new zone content. In the current Mercy you're just one of many

On 12/30/2022 at 4:55 PM, gabrilend said:

When I came back to Homecoming I was so confused - why do we skip half the zone?

On 12/31/2022 at 4:50 AM, Naomi said:

and the zone is already out-leveled much more quickly than it used to be.

 

On the technical side of things, the phasing, spawn placements and speed-spawning by themselves objectively need work, they have no life or charm to them and create no memorable experiences.

On 12/31/2022 at 5:58 AM, nihilii said:

but I'm 100% with gabrilend in feeling like the flow has become weird and awkward. Old design made use of the core geography of the map and moved you logically, new design moves you in non-patterns without clear landmarks or progression.

Also echoing Naomi on spawns. Boy does it feel gimmicky to watch 2 longbows pop in front of you, slap them, then watch 2 more identical longbows pop up 20 feet away. This is the good old MMO sin that moves a game from immersive experience to theme park.

 

 

 

 

[Scarlet Shocker]

I had to work out what was going on here, being referenced in a brand new thread from somewhere else, but I am good throwing my few penneth worth in.

 

From memory, Mercy changed for the worse when Going Rogue launched (or was it Freedom?) when we got effectively new training missions from Blue Spectrum, Twinshot and Mr Graves.

 

Mercy was effectively gutted during that, and it's rubbish now. It's not exciting, it adds little to the player experience - and the lower level content is eminently skippable. If you want to play red-side, far better to start blue, run a few DFBs and get some power levels, then visit Null the Gull, swap sides and head to Cap au D or Port Oakes.

 

The only reason you'd start and stay red, so far as I can see is for RP reasons.

 

To fix it, make the zone engaging. Maybe the Snakes and Arachnos form an uneasy alliance to throw Longbow out of Mercy and that involves you as a player. Give the low level players a reason to stick in the Rogue Isles and make a difference even if it's just for their own benefit. If players can actually feel like a part of the story of the Isles and it's written well enough (and I know HC team do have some quality scriveners) then it could be a great reason to play red, either solo or as a team, take names, kick ass and progress. It also has the potential to turn into a whole arc that takes the player from 1 to 50, through all the red zones and elevate the player character to somewhere equal to the lower signature characters such as Silver Mantis or Viridian.

 

The cheaper version would be to replace the fetid clip show arc of Alain Dessoc, and turn it into the VEAT arcs but that doesn't give new players a reason to engage with red side from the start so kills the idea stone dead.

 

 

[Jimmy]

5 hours ago, Glacier Peak said:

It's always about making cash until you get to Grandville

 

For me, this is actually one of the major turn offs for redside. Most of the early to mid content isn't actually... evil? The motivations are always a bit bland. You don't really feel like a true villain, and you are rarely fighting actual heroes.

 

I know "being a bad guy" isn't appealing to everyone - but even it does appeal to you, CoV's early content never really delivered on that fantasy very well.

[Saiyajinzoningen]

ok so I play almost exclusively red side.

As a vet from 2004 i know blue side like the back of my hand

its rare I encounter an area I am unfamiliar with

On red side, I see something new almost every day

before the gull and power expansion

the pull for red side was the new AT's and the new Powersets

that incentive no longer exists

without a unique incentive folks will always gravitate toward the familiar.

Blue side has more everything

more players, more zones, more quests, more sunlight (sorry snarky)

Red side has silence and dreariness (yay)

Red side needs a gimmick if its to become more popular

yes I said it, a gimmick. I know gimmicks are stupid but they work

Here are 3 proposals to rebalance the sides:

 

Evil fix                = Remove AE from blue side completely. Farmers and sitters will flock to red and that will balance things

Lawful fix           = Create a SF that rewards a unique temp ability that looks "cool" like gigantification or something.

Chaotic Fix         =  Create an ongoing red side event called "sovereignty" red siders can do quest chains to take over blue side hazard zones (not pvp) Red side gains incremental buffs  the more zones they own. Hazard zones reset weekly. Blue side can defend the zone with their own quests but all they gain is the power of friendship (lol)

 

I  wanna also just say in the comics its rare the villains outnumber the heroes so the imbalance we see is par for the course.

[Luminara]

The zone layouts are all unpleasant to navigate if you don't use flight.  Too much backtracking and zigzagging to get from point A to point B.

 

I can level a character from 1 to 50+3 without ever talking to any of the Detectives in Paragon City.  Can't do that in the Rogue Isles because content is bottlenecked or locked behind newspaper missions.

 

The color palettes are reminiscent of the sewer maps.

 

You're rarely the bad guy.  You're misunderstood, or sympathetic, or a bumbling idiot, or doing good just to thwart a greater evil... always an excuse to paint the character in a less unsavory way.  And when you are the bad guy, it's typically petty.  Not petty in the "small time" sense, but immature and spiteful.

 

Too fucking many escorts.  Having to stop and re-acquire the hostage every few goddamn seconds is one of the major annoyances for me, and there are more of them red-side than blue-side.  I can avoid escort missions entirely as a hero/vigilante.  I can't play for an hour without having one shoved in my lap as a villain/rogue.

 

EBs and AVs are more common, and they're in story arcs instead of *Fs, which gives the impression (for players who started out in CoH) of "needing" a team... and the lower population makes it more difficult to find teammates, which leads to a "why bother" sentiment that reinforces the whole problem.

 

In the end, you're still a lackey.  You're not a contemporary of the Big Bad, you're not part of the Sinister Six or the Legion of Doom, you're just a lieutenant at best.  You rob banks, ransom hostages and burn books for 50 levels so you can... get a job.

[Greycat]

So... eesh. Trying to compile everything in here... I do play *some* redside, not much though. In part that's just from being kind of RP heavy these days and not having things take me over there.

 

For me though... In part, some of the "strengths" of redside are what make me not like it.

 

"The writing is stronger." Is it? Most of it ends up with your character doing things *you* may not want them to (I have few redsiders who'd turn someone over to be experimented on, for instance) or coming out as at *least* just a lackey, if not incompetent. (This goes for alignment missions as well as story missions - I recall one where you end up facing yourself at three different points in the future because you decided to betray Frostfire... and yet in that situation, many of my characters wouldn't have to begin with. But I *had* to to do the alignment thing.)  I really hate having my characters told "this is what you do" no matter what.

 

Plus, of course... well, it is flat out harder to write for villains. Heroes look for cats to rescue from trees. Villains put them there in the first place. Or, heroes tend to be *re*active, villains tend to act. And very little 'til near the end made me feel like I was the instigator of anything. (Near the end... well, they were trying by changing the voice.) Redside basically had to be a bunch of AEs so *you* could be the one plotting and carrying things out.... the way you would. Newspapers were about the only way to plot your own disjointed path outside of that.

 

Which blends somewhat into the next two points. One, the arcs could vary wildly in tone, and it's hard to tell which would really suit. In one you're a bumbling lackey. Next arc you're murdering people left and right, directly or indirectly but with full knowledge. (And as an aside there, I really wish we'd have the *option* not to hurt civilians in mayhem missions. Most of my villains are not psychopathic mass murderers.) There's no indicator, there's no competent-in-between.

 

The other point is related to something I'd brought up recently. One of the "strengths" mentioned for redside is fewer zones (... followed by complaints of not enough zones, so...) and that they're so "compact." Know what else that leads to? Burnout of seeing the same thing in the same order over and over. Blueside, I can go from atlas to the hollows to Skyway to Indy, deal with Faultline or not, deal with Striga or not, or Croatoa, depending on what my character would do and what fits them.  Redside just becomes "meh, did it already."

 

Also, the "compact" zones... ok, some are ok. Mercy, Oakes, Sharkhead (somewhat,) Nerva kind of make sense. Others? St Martial is schizophrenic. This should be the big, shiny, touristy place, but we go from some casinos into broken freeways into woods into carnies? (With, as I recall, burning garbage to the side.) This needed to be bigger - or be more than one zone. It doesn't really have a consistent identity. And Grandville looks... awful, to me. Doesn't look like a capitol, doesn't look like a technopolis, it looks thrown together.

 

Plus, frankly, redside quite often just looks *dingy.* Which is not particularly fun to play in.

 

(Just as an aside... this isn't just redside, but I'd love to see Mercy reverted and Arachnos kicked out of Atlas. It's completely nonsensical for them to be there and *taking over territory.* Agent here or there? OK, fine...ish. But "We've taken over one of your islands/part of your city?" No.)

 

What I think would help would be ... well, yes, more bespoke redside zones, for variety. And... giving your character more agency. It'd probably have to adopt the sort of system goldside has as far as giving choices. And a more ... antihero path wouldn't hurt. Having actual, easy to follow *paths* for those who want to be that sociopath/hardcore sort, versus lackey trying to make it, versus... whatever else would make it less jarring, too.

[PancakeGnome]

9 hours ago, Dev Unitas said:

As we all know, player interest is lower overall in City of Villains content, with populations being consistently lower than heroes by a significant margin. I'd simply like to ask why people personally think this is

I think it's time to do away with the red / blue. Just allow all characters to go to all zones.

For the longest time I wouldn't convert my characters to a different alignment "because i was a hero!". But now most of the time I leave it as vigilante so i can actually access the full game.

But today I was trying to put together a strike force (high level) and 30% of the people who sent me a message were confused on how to get to the strike force..... and some just refused to change from being a hero. One said "my other characters are vigilantes, so I don't want to switch this one too".

How players THINK about their characters is important. So asking them to "give up being a hero" in order to play anything on red side is....well, you get less players who do it.

But if you stop treating city of heroes and city of villains as different games then players will explore more.

[Seed22]

Blueside has more people for ease of teaming. And of course the zones are brighter and somewhat easier to navigate for new players, but redside still has better content.

 

What could help Redside is adding in less lackey material and more  be your villain material. Add in more plots that you can initiate, make more mishs where you actually impact and disrupt the status quo of Paragon and/or the Isles.

 

There arent any really evil arcs besides Westin in GV, so im unsure why people cant stomach being a lackey unless somehow thats like holding a mirror up to them IRL and forcing them to look into it 🤷🏾‍♂️

 

But yeah, more agency for sure. Bluesiders arcs are bland and all just horrible but at least they have agency

[Etched]

Anyone ever play Pac-Man, I'm not talkin about in the arcade, I'm talkin about for the Atari? You first get it and it's like OMFG this is fun! You're  sitting in your living room or bed room and you're listenin to Night Ranger on the redio and you think life couldn't get any better. Until you realize that not mush really is goin to change. Chasing the dots, avoidin the ghosts until the next level, hoping something would be different.  And it don't. 

 

That is how Red side is for me. I played it beta, I was there for the release,  and I played it until it got borin.

 

Not mush has changed. I know the HC Devs has added more content and I played that, not a lot I will add but after that....

 

Still the same Red side.

Blue side is really no different.

 

Most of the time I go where the team or tf goes.

 

I love the Aeon sf.

I love the Recluse sf.

 

The story arcs, are kinda bland. 

As others have said above,  you don't get to be a villain. More like a soft hero, if that makes sense. 

 

Would I go back to Red side?

It would have to be really good.

 

@Etched

 

 

[Aracknight]

From a roleplay perspective, I think the average person likes being the hero of a story more than they like being the villain.  I don't think it comes down to inf, zone, archetype design, or anything other than that.

 

I only played through redside through Oroborous once on my badger.  If there hadn't been badges, I'd have never set foot over there.  I don't mean this disrespectfully, it's just how i feel.

[JasperStone]

12 minutes ago, Aracknight said:

From a roleplay perspective, I think the average person likes being the hero of a story more than they like being the villain.  I don't think it comes down to inf, zone, archetype design, or anything other than that.

 

I only played through redside through Oroborous once on my badger.  If there hadn't been badges, I'd have never set foot over there.  I don't mean this disrespectfully, it's just how i feel.

I agree.

Reading Watchmen, particularly the Ozymandias character arc, has made me rethink this a little bit. 

[Greycat]

17 minutes ago, Aracknight said:

From a roleplay perspective, I think the average person likes being the hero of a story more than they like being the villain.

 

Mmm... I'm not sure I agree. Though I suspect a lot would go more "antihero" than actual villain, really.

 

(I've made, and enjoyed playing, villains that *everyone* hated by the time I was done. It's a weird feeling to feel successful because everyone wants to kill your character...)

[Parabola]

I solo pretty much all the time so in theory I could split my time evenly between the factions right? Nope; blueside, all the time. Every now and again I try redside thinking I'm missing out and I never stay long.

 

I don't like the zones, or the enemies, or find the content any more engaging than blueside. I suspect that part of the problem is that heroing is reactive and so fits the medium, villainy is supposed to be proactive but you can't do that with pre-written content. So basically you end up doing missions that are almost indistinguishable from blueside missions but with a grimy coat of paint.

 

I'm not sure there actually is anything that could be done that would encourage me to visit redside more often. Certainly without ruining it for people that like it the way it is. If the redside AT's hadn't been brought over I probably would dabble a little more but as it stands there's not much to draw me to it.

[Sovera]

The reason is, IMO, simple: it's niche. We don't root for Lex Luthor or the Red Skull.

 

Plus the blue side is simpler in motivation. We are a hero, we help, bad things are happening or going to happen, we strive towards preventing or stopping them.

 

Red side, we are bad guys. Well, to begin with there is not much bad guy-ing happening for a chunk of the playstyle. We actually go against other evil factions, and yes, it makes sense since we are taking territory, but it should be later. We fight against villains most of the time. Then the implicit narrative of being a bad guy is that we are not altruistic. Helping others? We're helping ourselves. Even the rewards are seldom mentioned and it's worked out as favours or whatever.

 

Tangible rewards like 'do this and you'll get X dollars' or 'do that and I'll get you upgrades to your powers' stated explicitly would flow better.

 

But the very narrative of someone going red side to play is (generalizing) not someone looking to a henchie for the Joker. They want at least to be a Deathstroke.

 

 

I do play redside very once in a while but I skip all dialogue because it irks me to no end to be treated like crap by the NPCs where in blue side there is no such show of establishing dominance and we're just told of problems that need fixing.

 

 

My truly unfeasible suggestion would be having more choice in our replies. The NPC is bad mouthing us? We should have an option to fight them. They say to go do this or that and we pick the option we want and that aligns to our idea of how a character would behave.

 

But man, it is nuts the amount of work this would involve for 10% of the population. People STILL do not root for Lex Luthor or Red Skull.

 

In a more simple fashion the suggestion above of a boost in influence gain or merits if playing redside might work better and more players will snowball more players playing.

[Saiyajinzoningen]

1 minute ago, Sovera said:

The reason is, IMO, simple: it's niche. We don't root for Lex Luthor or the Red Skull.

 

Maybe not but....................

Magneto was right 😉

[Sovera]

25 minutes ago, Saiyajinzoningen said:

 

Maybe not but....................

Magneto was right 😉

 

Magneto hasn't been a villain in two decades. But again it also falls in the lack of agency. Magneto, the hero, would help if people need help. He might grump but he would not refuse to help. Magneto the villain would do things for himself, work with others at best and not under them, and then not if he disagrees on the goal. And 'lo to people snarking him to his face.

 

All of these we go through as a redsider. We are snarked to our faces, we are insulted, we are threatened. We are literally treated like idiots and backstabbed. And we take it like a chastised puppy. All of this by little boss level mobs we'd put down in 3-4 hits. It doesn't feel good, y'know? A hero takes the high road because they are a hero, but a villain?

 

 

It's my opinion that a more epic villain side experience would draw more people in.

 

Number one a choice to beat up an NPC that is threatening or insulting us and henceforth their dialogue is a lot more respectful.

 

Number two mostly ignore the other villains and focus on fighting good guys or stealing from big corps (everyone loves that and each day that passes it just gets stronger) such as banks or Crey. Seriously, we don't rob nearly enough banks or jewelry stores, not all villains want world domination.

 

Number three... perhaps multiple choices for missions. Again, this is a lot of extra work. But, lets say current mission is rob an orphanage. With this change the choice is now rob an orphanage, or break into a jail to free an associate.

 

I know I'm describing radio missions with the latest but as they are radio missions are pretty shallow and are especially not rewarding in Homecoming with how they don't grant merits and double XP eats influence.

 

Number four we stop being treated as a rookie but by level 15 we're already treated as a danger and worthy of hiring. By 30 we get blurbs like 'I had a job and thought of you right away'. By 50 we are a Deathstroke, a recognized name and the NPCs treat us accordingly.

 

 

I don't feel these are feasible ideas because they involve a hefty rework of the missions and dialogue.

 

Edited January 20 by Sovera