Redside... Best side? Right??

[Razor Cure]

I started in CoV and love Redise. But in general, all the content is harder. Lots of this has to do with Longbow (that can still utterly wreck you) and lots of Arachnos. Sad fact is that its hard to get a DFB (at least on Torch) on redside.

Just a random idea. I have recently been playing JA3. In JA2, you get teh sorta 'character' builder at the start, where you answer various questions and it influences your traits. Maybe something like that, but all it does it determine which side you start on, Blue or Red (or even Gold?). It would need to be override-able, so people didnt feel forced, but it could be fun. Some of the questions could even be references to story arcs we come across later on each side.

[SaxyGuitar]

12 hours ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

Pulling over yes.  Staying over, obviously not

 

Yes this is want I was trying to say haha. Just more things like it might make them stay.

Edited February 3 by SaxyGuitar

[Cybersbe]

Regarding the whole “It doesn’t make sense for heroes to have to become villains to go to the bad side of town and vice versa” thing, I think it’s worth remembering that Paragon City and the Rogue Isles are in different COUNTRIES, so it’s not simply a case of going to “The Bad Side of Town.” 
 

That said, I don’t think it would be a bad idea take a page from Monster Island. That place is a villain-exclusive zone, but is obviously just the northern part of Peregrine Island. With that in mind, perhaps there can be room for other zones that are similar, allowing players to properly play the part of a Villain menacing Paragon.

[Britannic]

There's Arachnos hidden bases in Atlas and New Overbrook (Faultline) so the idea that our Rogue Island villains and Paragon City heroes can't be in confrontation easily is somewhat odd. So hazard zones, or high risk areas, should be no problem for villains to come and go as they please.

[Rudra]

1 hour ago, Britannic said:

There's Arachnos hidden bases in Atlas and New Overbrook (Faultline) so the idea that our Rogue Island villains and Paragon City heroes can't be in confrontation easily is somewhat odd. So hazard zones, or high risk areas, should be no problem for villains to come and go as they please.

Our red side characters, even the VEATs to an extent, are not part of Arachnos. Arachnos maintains lots of secret bases, even in the Rogue Isles, but characters are not made privy to them because they exist for specific purposes for Arachnos, which our characters are not part of. Same thing with the Longbow presence in the Isles. Our blue side characters are not part of Longbow. And though Longbow is willing to work with our characters as they deem necessary, their bases/facilities are not made available to blue side characters to use because they are for specific Longbow operations of which our characters have no involvement.

[sykoholic001]

On Torchbearer, the LFG Chat is almost always the same thing: Posi 1, Posi 2, Synapse, and MLTF. Not only is it almost always the same but it is also pretty much constant. So, simply based on that observation, it seems many people prefer Blue Side because its task forces are better "farms" for quick and easy XP.

 

[Earth Dragon]

3 hours ago, sykoholic001 said:

On Torchbearer, the LFG Chat is almost always the same thing: Posi 1, Posi 2, Synapse, and MLTF. Not only is it almost always the same but it is also pretty much constant. So, simply based on that observation, it seems many people prefer Blue Side because its task forces are better "farms" for quick and easy XP.

 

This was part of the reason I felt they could bring SG badges back that could give a push to do a varied amount of SFs/TFs again.  The individual does it once, gets the badge and it's done.  Just go back to farming the same few.  But if the group has to be present for 10-20 runs, that gives just a little incentive to spread it out a little bit.

 

While the initial explosion on a release like that will be the biggest, and many will go back to just spamming the same few, there will always be new bases started and some folks would like to get their "bumper stickers" and start those teams themselves.

[Clave Dark 5]

4 hours ago, sykoholic001 said:

On Torchbearer, the LFG Chat is almost always the same thing: Posi 1, Posi 2, Synapse, and MLTF. Not only is it almost always the same but it is also pretty much constant. So, simply based on that observation, it seems many people prefer Blue Side because its task forces are better "farms" for quick and easy XP.

I've mentioned it elsewhere, but this is what Excel was like too before the new influx of people, but it still reverts back to that during the overnight hours.

 

I'm really starting to bounce off the game because of this narrow focus on grinding out the same few segments of the game endlessly.

[sykoholic001]

That might encourage people to play the red side SFs/TFs but it wouldn't encourage them to stay on red side. As @Clave Dark 5 said, it might pull them over but it wouldn't keep them.

"Come to Red Side. We have cookies!" Well... they show up, eat the cookies, and leave. They don't stay and hang out. They're just there for the cookies. 😒

[Clave Dark 5]

1 minute ago, sykoholic001 said:

"Come to Red Side. We have cookies!" Well... they show up, eat the cookies, and leave. They don't stay and hang out. They're just there for the cookies. 😒

Such selfishness is very villainous!

[Terenos]

1 hour ago, sykoholic001 said:

That might encourage people to play the red side SFs/TFs but it wouldn't encourage them to stay on red side. As @Clave Dark 5 said, it might pull them over but it wouldn't keep them.

 

I mean, that's one obstacle taken care of: getting the to realize there is a red side, they can go there, and that there's fun/teams to be had there. The goal of a change like that is not to get people to abandon Blue Side entirely (which I think is no one's goal), but to make it appealing to team up on Red Side. The side benefit is that suddenly there's teams playing some sort of content Red Side, which means those who are there to play villains and enjoy the total experience have people they can join up with and do more content.

[Rudra]

8 minutes ago, Terenos said:

 

I mean, that's one obstacle taken care of: getting the to realize there is a red side, they can go there, and that there's fun/teams to be had there. The goal of a change like that is not to get people to abandon Blue Side entirely (which I think is no one's goal), but to make it appealing to team up on Red Side. The side benefit is that suddenly there's teams playing some sort of content Red Side, which means those who are there to play villains and enjoy the total experience have people they can join up with and do more content.

I'm not understanding how they wouldn't be aware there is a red side though. The game lists villains as available to play on the very first page of character creation. And when you finish character creation, if you choose to skip the tutorials, it flat out asks you if you are a hero or a villain. And if you choose to go through the tutorials, there are three different tutorials with a handy guide right there explaining one is a hero tutorial and one is a villain tutorial. If they choose neither of those tutorials and go with the third? They get flat out asked in the tutorial if they choose to be a hero or a villain. So how is there a lack of awareness of red side?

[Terenos]

Just now, Rudra said:

I'm not understanding how they wouldn't be aware there is a red side though. The game lists villains as available to play on the very first page of character creation. And when you finish character creation, if you choose to skip the tutorials, it flat out asks you if you are a hero or a villain. And if you choose to go through the tutorials, there are three different tutorials with a handy guide right there explaining one is a hero tutorial and one is a villain tutorial. If they choose neither of those tutorials and go with the third? They get flat out asked in the tutorial if they choose to be a hero or a villain. So how is there a lack of awareness of red side?

 

Sorry, I should be more clear. I'm not saying they literally don't know that Red Side exists. "Realizing Red Side exists" is a rhetorical device here. I'm saying that there's way more teaming opportunities being advertised there, so the default choice (or awareness) feels like it should be to always remain a hero because it's easier to see rewards and teams there. Getting people to step foot on Red Side for the first time is often the hardest part - once they're there, they may take the time to do a story arc, and then maybe their next alt is a Villain to experience some of the stories there. Then, if people are also running the SFs there, that also means there's teams there to break up soloing - as it stands, SFs just don't get organized nearly enough to create those opportunities.

[Lunar Ronin]

3 minutes ago, Terenos said:

 

Sorry, I should be more clear. I'm not saying they literally don't know that Red Side exists. "Realizing Red Side exists" is a rhetorical device here. I'm saying that there's way more teaming opportunities being advertised there, so the default choice (or awareness) feels like it should be to always remain a hero because it's easier to see rewards and teams there. Getting people to step foot on Red Side for the first time is often the hardest part - once they're there, they may take the time to do a story arc, and then maybe their next alt is a Villain to experience some of the stories there. Then, if people are also running the SFs there, that also means there's teams there to break up soloing - as it stands, SFs just don't get organized nearly enough to create those opportunities.

 

I formed a kill most Mortimer Kal SF recently.  A couple of people had never been red side before.  I had to hand hold them through changing alignment to Vigilante and how to get to Sharkhead Isle.  One of them, I literally had to go to Pocket D and show him where Null the Gull was, and then how to get to Sharkhead from Pocket D.  It took a little bit of time.  But you know, it was worth it.  About two thirds of the way through the SF, one of them said, "Dang, maybe I need to play red side.  None of the TFs over there are this easy to get to."  In reference to how all of the missions after the first can be gotten to via ferry.

 

So, if it took ten extra minutes to form the SF because I had to hand hold two people, but one of them decides to play red side on his or her own?  More than worth it.

[sykoholic001]

Going back to the OP....

  

On 1/19/2024 at 9:48 PM, 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, 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.

 

Lack of Agency and Focus

This has been discussed at length many, many times but nonetheless it is (IMO) a major factor. "City of Villain" failed to meet player expectations. We were expecting to be able to play bad guys, running around Paragon City, doing bad guy things. Instead, we're running around a giant slum, serving as someone else's lackey. Not only are we not pursuing our own master plan, we're not even our own masters. We're not supervillains. We're hired thugs.

 

The problem is, the level of freedom/agency we were wanting simply can't be put into a video game. It can be done in a tabletop, pen-and-paper RPG because there is a Gamemaster running it who can ad-lib and alter things spontaneously in response to the player-characters' decisions and actions. In the case of a video game though, we can only do what the game is programmed to let us do. We can't spontaneously decide to go rob the neighborhood jewelry store. Why? Because the game isn't programmed for the jewelry store to be rob-able ("rob-able"? Is that even a real word? 🤨). Most buildings we can't even enter freely, beware actually rob, bomb, or take the occupants hostage.

 

As others have said, villains are proactive and are the catalyst to which heroes react. Giving players the level of agency needed for their villain characters to be "proactive" would require the devs/writers to anticipate every single thing a villain player might possibly want or try to do and program the game to accommodate it... and that just isn't feasible.

 

Tips and Newspaper missions do have some measure of agency, simply by involving a greater element of choice, but they don't ever amount to anything. Go beat up some Goldbrickers and take this piece of advanced tech. Do we actually get the tech and actually get to use it? Is it a piece of Salvage or a Temp Power? Is it a vital component of the orbital bombardment death ray we've been secretly constructing? Nope. It's just a plot device. A story element. Nothing more. If it was a Tip mission, it is at least one more step on our path towards changing alignments... which we can already do freely and on a whim, thanks to a sentient, extra-dimensional, seemingly all-powerful, seagull (huh? 🤪).

 

The lack of agency plays into another issue with City of Villains... it's all about Arachnos. From the very start, the whole objective is to build/improve our characters' standing in the eyes of Arachnos. Even if we choose Burke the Mercenary as our first contact thereby thumbing our nose at Arachnos, it is still all about them. We aren't the main character of our own story. We're supporting characters in their story. What if we don't give give a fat, hairy, wet rat's hind end about Arachnos? What if we'd rather ally ourselves with the like of The Circle of Thorns or Devouring Earth or maybe side with Darrin Wade and Rularuu? Nope. No such content. No such option. Arachnos or nothing.

 

The Zones

The Rogue Islands are islands (obviously) which means there is limited space. Nearly every bit of what little space there was has been used. As such, they are cramped and crowded and getting around can be quite the chore. Realistic? Yes... but also a complete and utter pain in the backside. So much so that some players simply refuse to go there.

Oddly, as cramped and crowded as some of the zones are, it seems like large portions of those same zones go unused by the game. Are there any "door" missions in the Vagabond Hills in Cap au Diable? Not that I can immediately recall. The only reason to go up there is the Exploration Badges or to run around, playing Whack-a-Mage to get the "Soul Binder" badge. As a result of this, all the "action" is confined to small portion of an already small and confided zone, thus making it seem even more "small and confined". Not only that, but there also seems to be a very small and select number of "doors" that are actually used so not only is travel around the zone a hassle but it's a repetitive hassle ("Oh gee... we get to go all the way across the zone to that very same sewer grate AGAIN!") and makes getting defeated and having to work your way back to the mission even MORE annoying.

 

As for the very look and atmosphere of The Rogue Isles... I could be wrong but I think the idea is to not only reflect Lord Recluse's disregard for the well-being and quality-of-life of his subjects but also such conditions create adversity which, in turn, "separates the wheat from the chaff"... which is what Arachnos is all about. Those capable of elevating themselves and rising above will do so. Socio-economical natural selection. Okay... yeah... I get it... but let's face it: all the grimy brick and rusted pipe is damned depressing. That alone is enough to turn some people off of red side.

 

Roleplaying

With the ease at which we can change "sides", being a villain or a hero no longer really means anything in-game. Choosing to be/stay one or the other is a "story decision" and  a matter of roleplaying... and some (I dare say "most") people just don't care about that stuff. They simply want to go where the action is and the rewards are better... and, for whatever reason, that seems to be blue side.

[Rudra]

10 minutes ago, sykoholic001 said:

Not only that, but there also seems to be a very small and select number of "doors" that are actually used so not only is travel around the zone a hassle but it's a repetitive hassle

Villain Movers Inc. "We move you in faster than the last guy moved out."

(In game joke among players I know for when our paper or tip missions have us using the same door back to back. Often in triplicate.) (Edit: I think it would make for a good red side billboard too.)

Edited February 6 by Rudra

[Thraxen]

So many of the maps are just so dark. I can’t see shit most of the time. Might only be a few maps but damn when they come up it’s just too dark. 

[Clave Dark 5]

On 2/5/2024 at 10:13 PM, Lunar Ronin said:

 

I formed a kill most Mortimer Kal SF recently.  A couple of people had never been red side before.  I had to hand hold them through changing alignment to Vigilante and how to get to Sharkhead Isle.  One of them, I literally had to go to Pocket D and show him where Null the Gull was, and then how to get to Sharkhead from Pocket D.  It took a little bit of time.  But you know, it was worth it.  About two thirds of the way through the SF, one of them said, "Dang, maybe I need to play red side.  None of the TFs over there are this easy to get to."  In reference to how all of the missions after the first can be gotten to via ferry.

 

So, if it took ten extra minutes to form the SF because I had to hand hold two people, but one of them decides to play red side on his or her own?  More than worth it.

Hard for me to believe this is true, and yet...?  Had the same thing happen to a redside team that I was on a couple of days ago.  Except the team leader apparently didn't want to hand hold them all the way, sigh.

[Vic Raiden]

On 2/2/2024 at 10:48 PM, Rudra said:

Warhammer 40K is a science fantasy game. (Not even really sci-fi. It's Warhammer Fantasy with spaceships.) So it doesn't fall under the Superhero/Supervillain bit.

 

Are there superheroes or supervillains in GTA? If there is, then it falls under what I was saying and I sit corrected. If there aren't? Then it doesn't.

I don't like to play devil's advocate, and I apologize for how late to this I am, but I believe you're missing the original poster's point. It's less about superheroes and supervillains in particular and more just about morality in general.

 

Grand Theft Auto is a series where the protagonists are all criminals (and thus villains, however sympathetic) to start with, which nobody would ever play if your statement about nobody liking to play a villain was completely true. And yet these games exist and are well-liked, simply because messing around as a gangster can be just that fun, a nice change of pace from both the typically uneventful everyday life and the tendency of other games to cast the player as a hero.

 

Similarly, Warhammer 40,000 is a setting populated nigh-exclusively by various shades of evil forces, with the Salamanders chapter of Space Marines (as well as Ultramarines, Blood Angels and Lamenters, to name a few others) being one of the few active forces of genuine good, memes about their burn-on-sight racism against Eldar children notwithstanding. But good and evil aren't even the main draw of any 4OK faction - it's their aesthetics and combat doctrines, or even simpler, how cool they can be.

 

Now tying this back to the main topic, it's not at all uncommon for villains of various works, superhero works included, to gain significant fanbases simply because of their inherent cool factor. And let's face it, who wouldn't enjoy being the cool bad guy who doesn't have to obey all the rules, even if just from time to time? Unfortunately, that kind of coolness is kinda hard to find in City of Villains because all the real supervillainy is handled by NPC factions, leaving players as errand-runners with little to no agency in the game world. And I don't doubt that this is at least one of the reasons why people don't stick much to redside: they come in expecting to be awesome supervillains like Lord Recluse and his cronies, get disappointed by the contact-and-mission system still being in effect, and decide to stay blueside because there they at least know what to expect.

Edited February 9 by Vic Raiden

[Rudra]

3 minutes ago, Vic Raiden said:

I don't like to play devil's advocate, and I apologize for how late to this I am, but I believe you're missing the original poster's point. It's less about superheroes and supervillains in particular and more just about morality in general.

 

Grand Theft Auto is a series where the protagonists are all criminals (and thus villains, however sympathetic) to start with, which nobody would ever play if your statement about nobody liking to play a villain was completely true. And yet these games exist and are well-liked, simply because messing around as a gangster can be just that fun, a nice change of pace from both the typically uneventful everyday life and the tendency of other games to cast the player as a hero.

 

Similarly, Warhammer 40,000 is a setting populated nigh-exclusively by various shades of evil forces, with the Salamanders chapter of Space Marines (as well as Ultramarines, Blood Angels and Lamenters, to name a few others) being one of the few active forces of genuine good, memes about their burn-on-sight racism against Eldar children notwithstanding. But good and evil aren't even the main draw of any 4OK faction - it's their aesthetics and combat doctrines, or even simpler, how cool they can be.

 

Now tying this back to the main topic, it's not at all uncommon for villains of various works, superhero works included, to gain significant fanbases simply because of their inherent cool factor. And let's face it, who wouldn't enjoy being the cool bad guy who doesn't have to obey all the rules, even if just from time to time? Unfortunately, that kind of coolness is kinda hard to find in City of Villains because all the real supervillainy is handled by NPC factions, leaving players as errand-runners with little to no agency in the game world. And I don't doubt that this is at least one of the reasons why people don't stick much to redside: they come in expecting to be awesome supervillains like Lord Recluse and his cronies, get disappointed by the contact-and-mission system still being in effect, and decide to stay blueside because there they at least know what to expect.

Let me clarify then. In my experience, strictly the things I've seen people do and play, people tend be more willing to play the bad guy when it comes to games like GTA. And in Warhammer 40K, everyone is the bad guy. So while people may choose a faction because they think it is a noble or good or whatever group? Everyone in 40K is the bad guy and that is its main draw for several (not all or even most) people I know that play. (Because everyone is the bad guy, it sometimes comes down to a competition of being the most bad. In a game where everyone is known to be bad.) So yes, people will play the bad guy. Especially in games where being the bad guy is the central theme. In other games, people only play the 'bad guy' as long as they can be 'good'. Which is why so many fantasy races have been progressing towards individual morality rather than racial morality such as in D&D.

 

Now when you go into games where the basic premise is to be the good guy? Like a superhero game for instance. You suddenly run into a wall of hesitance towards playing the bad guy if it is made available for players to do. You can't cast the presented bad guy as good, at least not until you go Rogue alignment in CoX, and even then only in Rogue tip missions or when you go blue side to do missions over there, and people tend to focus more on "This is a superhero game, so why would I want to play the villain?". You even see this in D&D and Pathfinder. Where someone will only play say an orc or an ogre if they can be good (while leaning into the orc's savagery or ogre's brutality, sort of a vicious anti-hero motif), or as long as they are not 'the bad guy'. (Yes, there are players that will play evil characters and have lots of fun with it, but those are the kinds of people already most likely to be playing red side. And this thread is about getting others to at least try it.) So I don't think I'm missing the point of the comment. (Maybe I am, I'm not perfect.) I feel it's more that it isn't really relevant since the intent isn't to get players that are already willing to play the bad guy and so go play games where they get to be one already, but to get those players that don't want to be 'the bad guy' to at least try red side.

[Vic Raiden]

Okay, now that you elaborated upon your point like this, I do understand where you're coming from. Admittedly, playing a bad guy as long as they're presented as good is a problem in this game, because aside from a small handful of dedicated Rogue arcs and tip/alignment missions, Rogues are basically stuck doing purely villainous stuff, only with the ability to visit Paragon City at will outside of instanced missions. I can't really think of any solution to that beyond eventually making more content dedicated to the two intermediate alignments.

 

That said, I still suspect redside content isn't seen as all that fun by most, and I think playing a villain could be more appealing if villains got more interesting things to do, both in terms of quantity and interestingness... but then bluesiders would still only go redside temporarily to do this particular content before switching back to blueside, thereby perpetuating the problem.

 

Therefore, I propose another solution: dispose of Null, or at least revoke his power to change player alignments on a whim.

[ranagrande]

2 hours ago, Vic Raiden said:

Therefore, I propose another solution: dispose of Null, or at least revoke his power to change player alignments on a whim.

Null is far too useful to remove, and I would very much be against removing his alignment ability unless alignment tips and their associated missions became available from level 1.

 

If anything, I would want to see Null's alignment powers extended to Praetoria so that it would be possible to do a full blue/red/gold playthrough on one character without needing to use Ouroboros.

[twozerofoxtrot]

3 hours ago, Vic Raiden said:

Therefore, I propose another solution: dispose of Null, or at least revoke his power to change player alignments on a whim.

 

I'm not sure if you've played on other servers where he isn't available, but this has the opposite effect of cultivating a redside population there.

[Rudra]

8 minutes ago, ranagrande said:

Null is far too useful to remove, and I would very much be against removing his alignment ability unless alignment tips and their associated missions became available from level 1.

 

If anything, I would want to see Null's alignment powers extended to Praetoria so that it would be possible to do a full blue/red/gold playthrough on one character without needing to use Ouroboros.

Per the Live devs, the game only has 2 alignments: Hero and Villain. Rogues and Vigilantes are still Villains and Heroes, but cludged to be able to get to the other side's zones. Praetorians are another cludge and aren't Hero or Villain, as best as I know. And if you give them the ability to get one of the alignments before they finish the Praetorian content? Then they will only be able to do the First Ward and Night Ward content (when they get to an appropriate level to do so). So, there is a reason why Null won't even give the alignment change option to Praetorians.

[Luminara]

Make a high quality nude skin with jiggle physics that changes to a low quality skin with pixelation over the no-no bits if the character is moved out of the Rogue Isles.  Absolutely guaranteed to increase the population there tenfold, and the slogan is catchier.

 

Red side, breast side.

 

See?