Making Villian side more attractive?

[tidge]

2 hours ago, DrRocket said:

As i see it, red needs an incentive to make it more appealing that blue and yes, using accolades as bribes seems a way to accomplish that

 

From my experience, the only thing that gets players to go to Red/Gold en masse is cheap and easy XP/Inf  from Mapserver leagues.

[OEM61]

Temporary fixes are just that.

A bunch of heroes crossing over in order to run missions to get an accolade before they go back to blue side is not a "fix".  It gives red side players that want to participate in those same specific things a larger pool of players to work with for however long players are crossing over to do so, but I don't see it doing much to help with other things.

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Having "undercover contacts" for heroes means that some players will send their heroes over to red side to run the "undercover" missions and nothing else. 

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Giving more money to players on red side means that a whole lot of people won't care because they have enough money for about anything and if they decide they want to start raising some more they log in a 50, make a lot of money, and mail it to the alt that needs money.

Because a 50 can make a lot of money fast.


I know that I am not offering much in the way of ideas, but I struggle to think of how you can make someone WANT to play a side that they may have already tried and didn't enjoy.

I only played red side back on live when an in-game friend wanted to play red side.  If that friend and/or his son are still out there I do not know about it.

I have a toon sitting in red side right now, but I am only running Ouroboros missions for badges outside of, so far, the Efficiency Expert missions which I had to run live and mayhem missions which I ran for the exploration badges (and Lord Schweinzer for everything except PI).  I should have a time-sensitive badge tomorrow when I log on and then I will begin the process of turning them back to the blue.
Down the line I know that I will dip back to red side for some more badging, but for now I have had my fill.

And all of these 'solutions' feel like more of the that

Offering players something that they can dip over to red side to get, and then they go back to blue, or something that they can just ignore with no great loss.

I like to play blue side.
I do not like to play red side.

There are things that can make me switch over temporarily, but I have not yet seen the thing that makes me enjoy playing the villain more than the hero, so I will always switch back to that side.

Edited Monday at 09:43 AM by OEM61

[DrRocket]

14 hours ago, OEM61 said:

Temporary fixes are just that.

A bunch of heroes crossing over in order to run missions to get an accolade before they go back to blue side is not a "fix".  It gives red side players that want to participate in those same specific things a larger pool of players to work with for however long players are crossing over to do so, but I don't see it doing much to help with other things.

=============

Having "undercover contacts" for heroes means that some players will send their heroes over to red side to run the "undercover" missions and nothing else. 

=============

Giving more money to players on red side means that a whole lot of people won't care because they have enough money for about anything and if they decide they want to start raising some more they log in a 50, make a lot of money, and mail it to the alt that needs money.

Because a 50 can make a lot of money fast.


I know that I am not offering much in the way of ideas, but I struggle to think of how you can make someone WANT to play a side that they may have already tried and didn't enjoy.

I only played red side back on live when an in-game friend wanted to play red side.  If that friend and/or his son are still out there I do not know about it.

I have a toon sitting in red side right now, but I am only running Ouroboros missions for badges outside of, so far, the Efficiency Expert missions which I had to run live and mayhem missions which I ran for the exploration badges (and Lord Schweinzer for everything except PI).  I should have a time-sensitive badge tomorrow when I log on and then I will begin the process of turning them back to the blue.
Down the line I know that I will dip back to red side for some more badging, but for now I have had my fill.

And all of these 'solutions' feel like more of the that

Offering players something that they can dip over to red side to get, and then they go back to blue, or something that they can just ignore with no great loss.

I like to play blue side.
I do not like to play red side.

There are things that can make me switch over temporarily, but I have not yet seen the thing that makes me enjoy playing the villain more than the hero, so I will always switch back to that side.

its always easy to critique, the idea is for constructive how to solve the issue...

[Ultimo]

To me, the biggest issue with playing as a villain is the lack of agency, the freedom to be your OWN villain.  From the very start to the very end, you're a lackey of a minion of a lieutenant of some other villain.  That might work for some characters, but others would never prostate themselves before Recluse and his various agents.  Those kinds of characters need to have some way to pursue their OWN agendas.

 

I've posted a somewhat detailed suggestion on this topic before.  It would take some work, but amounts to this:

Villains choose an objective from a list.  It might be to get rich, or it might be to conquer the world.  It depends on the villain, and on his level.

He then chooses a method to accomplish it.  Perhaps he'll conjure demons or build an army of robots, perhaps he'll infiltrate the government, there could be any number of methods.

Once these are chosen, a set of objectives will be generated, related to his method of achieving his agenda.  These objectives would be substantial, and might take weeks to achieve.  For example, suppose he's building an army of robots to conquer the world with.  He'd need a base (ANY agenda would start with this), metal components, electronics, fabrication machinery, computer chips, etc.  On any mission he's a part of, there might be some of the things he'd need (as glowies).  He could also do missions specifically to gather such resources, or he could assign such missions to OTHER PLAYERS, acting as a quest-giver himself.

Once all the objectives are completed, he's ready to achieve his agenda, and a final mission is generated.  He would need to survive an assault on his base by NPC heroes.  The assault would be timed, and the enemies would be beyond daunting, even getting to the point of facing the entire combined Freedom Phalanx.  The player is NOT expected to win.  If he loses, he gets standard rewards of some substance.  If by some miracle he WINS, he gets temporarily upgraded to Arch-Villain status, increasing his health, damage and so forth, allowing him to go anywhere in the game.  While an Arch Villain, he would be automatically open to PvP in any zone.  He can attack or be attacked anywhere.  Rewards he gets while he's an AV would be greatly increased too.

 

This would give villains something special to do, a reason to BE a villain.  As it is, there really isn't any reason to be a villain.

[Stormwalker]

51 minutes ago, DrRocket said:

its always easy to critique, the idea is for constructive how to solve the issue...

 

The problem he's describing is one that can't be solved.

 

You can't magically make someone who doesn't want to play a villain suddenly want to play a villain.  And adding "incentives" to play red side over blue will just make the players who don't WANT to play red side disgruntled.

 

It is what it is.

 

Even as someone who does play both red and blue, I enjoy playing blue side more than red, and I spend a lot more time playing blue side than red.  There are a few things here and there (which I've already mentioned) that would make red side somewhat more appealing than it is, but it's never going to be as appealing to me as blue side, because the idea of playing a villain is inherently less appealing to me than the idea of playing a hero.

[BasiliskXVIII]

15 minutes ago, DrRocket said:

its always easy to critique, the idea is for constructive how to solve the issue...

And everyone always complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it!