Redside... Best side? Right??

[Lunar Ronin]

I was perusing the archive of the old blue boards tonight (thank you @Michiyo ), when I came across an old post of mine quoting some game statistics Paragon Studios released in April 2011.  Unfortunately, the game statistics Paragon Studios released appear to be lost in the sands of time.  However, according to my post from thirteen years ago, City of Heroes had a roughly 60% hero/40% villain population, per the statistics Paragon Studios released.  Granted, I'm biased, but I think I'm a pretty reliable second hand source.

 

According to a Reddit AMA, when the game sunset a year and a half later, the game's population was roughly 80% hero/20% villain.  That's a pretty big drop in villain population.  Why would that be?  That's easy.  Side switching (which became available a few months before the statistics were released), and the ability to create all ATs blue side several months after.  So it's pretty clear that the red side ATs were a big part of the draw that red side once had.  I'm not sure, what, if anything, can be done to make up for that.  That was a mechanical game advantage or draw that red side had, not a flavor one.

 

 

[Wavicle]

I don't think there's anything at all that can change the fact that more people want to pretend to be heroes than want to pretend to be villains.

[Lunar Ronin]

22 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

I don't think there's anything at all that can change the fact that more people want to pretend to be heroes than want to pretend to be villains.

 

Not without a mechanical reason, no.  Obviously the red side ATs were incentive enough to want to play red side.

[Wavicle]

1 minute ago, Lunar Ronin said:

 

Not without a mechanical reason, no.  Obviously the red side ATs were incentive enough to want to play red side.

 

But the very fact that it would require a mechanical reason just indicates people DIDN'T actually want to play redside. They simply HAD to do so in order to play those classes.