Opinion: More players should see Null the Gull

[Justisaur]

I change alignment to Rogue, it's a little harder, since most folks are blue, and you have to be in a blue zone or the zone their in to get an invite, but I get all the villain side stuff.  As to 'not feeling like a villain' there's plenty of missions where you do or have the choice.  There's an early one where there's another villain who's injured in a burning longbow base, you can choose to kill him, leave him to die, or rescue him.

 

Also the mayhem missions are way more fun than safeguards, they're kind of like playing GTA with superpowers.

[Scientist]

I do think some of the redside arcs are better written than blueside ones, but I agree for a lot you are working for someone else, and they are really getting the rewards for it.  I'm playing one redside character for the arcs I liked (Vernon von Grun, for example, really any of the mad scientist ones).  I also agree the Mayhem missions are more fun.  I wouldn't play exclusively there with a highly team oriented character like a tank or defender, though, population just isn't high enough, and when you are actually reading stories it is hard to do that on a team anyway.  I think it's a great place for a Mastermind, though, a lot more AVs in the arcs, and many MMs can actually deal with those.  

 

I was part of one VG that worked well, but it was with RL friends.  Concept was kind of like the Paranoia game, we all had implanted cortex bombs to prevent disloyalty, called each other Comrade, and made threatening comments to report each other at any real or imagined infraction.  "Oh, Comrade, what a pity you failed to survive that encounter.  I'm sure the Supreme Command will be very forgiving, though, they have that reputation, do they not?"   Add bad Russian accent for even more flavor.  I actually found it fairly fertile RP potential compared to anything I saw blueside, where supportive comments and "Lets get'em!" action cries got a little hard to be creative with.  

[boggo2300]

3 hours ago, Scientist said:

I do think some of the redside arcs are better written than blueside ones, 

See this I just don't get, I keep hearing it, and just don't see it, to me the red side writing is much much worse than the blue side (and the blue side writing is bad, sadly yellow side writing is quite good, but yellow side gameplay sucks) but that's just personal choice for some reason people think the Timothy Zahn star wars novels are good to, and they seem like bad fan fiction to me :shrug: people is different who knew!

[DR_Mechano]

On 9/1/2019 at 1:56 PM, Boltess said:

Well that's a constraint of the game's rating and audience. In order to keep the game family friendly and below an M rating, you can't actually do any awful things to innocent people.  Remember you don't actually kill any one in this game, you defeat them.   There are no kids to kidnap, no cute furry animals to stomp. The worst you do is rob a bank, and that's it.

 In some ways, I think COV shouldn't have existed at all, instead they took the time and resources to build it into beefing up the hero content, which generally is poorer than redside(compare Virgil Tarikoss SF to Synapse TF, for example).  

It is a shame how much better designed the Strikeforces are. I looked at the mission list for Numia since its the weekly and by god is that second most boring design for a taskforce I've EVER seen. I get the feeling that one was a Jack Special. It literally contains about 13 'go here defeat X number of X' missions. The WORST designed taskforce has to be the legendary Quaterhell. Defeat all after defeat all after defeat all for 22 missions...twenty...two...missions...

Edited September 3, 2019 by DR_Mechano

[Tahliah]

Another how do we get people who are attracted to a (fundamentally) superhero game to suddenly want to play villains thread.  Sigh.  I get that redside wants players, and I totally sympathize.  Sure, "nudging" people to visit Null the Gull is fine as a suggestion, but (for example) I already know about Null the Gull and still (stubbornly) insist on playing blueside.

 

There's little that would tempt me to take my blue toons red, but there are some reasons, at least for my main, to do so (and she will . . . eventually): badges, lvl 50 redside content is pretty awesome, and badges. 

 

AND double merits for both the blue and redside weekly strike forces.  Someone asked if you got double for both strikes in Help the other day, and I realized that I would hop over to Null lickety split if I were going to get double merits on that strike, in addition to the blue strike.  That said, it wouldn't help populate redside since I wouldn't stay there except to run the strike, but it's something that I know would lure me over (if only for a single SF a week), so I thought I would mention it.

[Boltess]

4 hours ago, DR_Mechano said:

It is a shame how much better designed the Strikeforces are. I looked at the mission list for Numia since its the weekly and by god is that second most boring design for a taskforce I've EVER seen. I get the feeling that one was a Jack Special. It literally contains about 13 'go here defeat X number of X' missions. The WORST designed taskforce has to be the legendary Quaterhell. Defeat all after defeat all after defeat all for 22 missions...twenty...two...missions...

If HC ever gets the green light to modify and create new content, they should focus their efforts on revamping the task forces, especially synapse and quartermane.  Numina may be boringly designed, but at least its different than the others. 

[boggo2300]

29 minutes ago, Boltess said:

If HC ever gets the green light to modify and create new content, they should focus their efforts on revamping the task forces, especially synapse and quartermane.  Numina may be boringly designed, but at least its different than the others. 

Er they are modifying and creating new content, they just don't have huge resources to do so

[Zodai]

5 minutes ago, boggo2300 said:

Er they are modifying and creating new content, they just don't have huge resources to do so

To my understanding it's more balance patches and gameplay health fixes.  I don't know if that's substantially different from what Bolt mentioned in regards to getting a green light but it seems separate from what Bolt was referring to at least.

[justicebeliever]

14 minutes ago, boggo2300 said:

Er they are modifying and creating new content, they just don't have huge resources to do so

The only content they rolled out in the last 7 years was the Market Crash TF in Kallisti Wharf, they rolled out a new zone, Kallisti Wharf (though most of that was already done in the code before SCoRE got their hands on it), the Guardian of Forever Badge mission, and that's it...

 

Not knocking the great work they do...and I don't think it's because they haven't gotten a "green light", but it hasn't been their passion or skill set to do much there...I would love for that to change in the future...

[boggo2300]

3 hours ago, justicebeliever said:

The only content they rolled out in the last 7 years was the Market Crash TF in Kallisti Wharf, they rolled out a new zone, Kallisti Wharf (though most of that was already done in the code before SCoRE got their hands on it), the Guardian of Forever Badge mission, and that's it...

 

Not knocking the great work they do...and I don't think it's because they haven't gotten a "green light", but it hasn't been their passion or skill set to do much there...I would love for that to change in the future...

SCORE isn't Homecoming, there are a lot more people working on things now than before

 

but even then  have you SEEN the base changes?

[molten_dragon]

Just like on live, I think the blue/red disparity is multi-faceted.  

 

A lot of people just don't want to play the bad guy.  And for those that do, redside content doesn't really do a very good job of making you feel like a supervillain.  You spend pretty much your whole career as a henchman to the real supervillains.  

 

There's also the issue of the zones being more difficult to navigate, and the enemy groups being more difficult.

 

And finally there's the self-perpetuating circle of:

It's hard to find teams on redside > I don't go on redside > there are fewer players on redside > It's even harder to find teams on redside

 

Ultimately I'm not sure it really matters that much.  If people don't want to play redside content, no one's being hurt if they just avoid it.

[justicebeliever]

3 hours ago, boggo2300 said:

SCORE isn't Homecoming, there are a lot more people working on things now than before

 

but even then  have you SEEN the base changes?

A lot more?  How many were there before HC?  How many still are working on it?  I haven’t a clue myself, since SCoRE is pretty secretive and HC isn’t clear on who does exactly what (I’ve only seen Leandro and Captain Powerhouse as true Developers).

 

And all of the content I listed was SCoRE.  I haven’t seen any new content from HC.

 

Regardless, I’m not trying to diminish the value of what they’ve done overall to the game.  They’ve made a lot of great changes...just not a lot of content.

 

Yes, I have seen the incredible amount of assets that they have repurposed for the bases.  But they are existing art assets not new ones.  Again, not diminishing, because of all the assets they have repurposed, bases have become amazing places in a way we never saw on Live.

[Yoru-hime]

13 hours ago, DR_Mechano said:

It is a shame how much better designed the Strikeforces are. I looked at the mission list for Numia since its the weekly and by god is that second most boring design for a taskforce I've EVER seen. I get the feeling that one was a Jack Special. It literally contains about 13 'go here defeat X number of X' missions. The WORST designed taskforce has to be the legendary Quaterhell. Defeat all after defeat all after defeat all for 22 missions...twenty...two...missions...

Numina looks a lot worse on the wiki than it turns out to be playing. The Hunt Missions can be a tedious slog, but they can also go by quite quickly if the team knows what it's doing and everyone is in the right place when they need to be. It rewards planning and organization. I wouldn't go so far as to call it fun, but it's unique and not really something I dread the way I do the "Two Straight Hours of Clockwork" TF.

 

Synapse and the Shadow Shard TFs are really the bottom of the barrel, IMO. 

[DR_Mechano]

2 hours ago, justicebeliever said:

A lot more?  How many were there before HC?  How many still are working on it?  I haven’t a clue myself, since SCoRE is pretty secretive and HC isn’t clear on who does exactly what (I’ve only seen Leandro and Captain Powerhouse as true Developers).

 

And all of the content I listed was SCoRE.  I haven’t seen any new content from HC.

 

Regardless, I’m not trying to diminish the value of what they’ve done overall to the game.  They’ve made a lot of great changes...just not a lot of content.

 

Yes, I have seen the incredible amount of assets that they have repurposed for the bases.  But they are existing art assets not new ones.  Again, not diminishing, because of all the assets they have repurposed, bases have become amazing places in a way we never saw on Live.

I think this is the problem we're having with the two seemingly different development paths between servers. For example one set of servers is adding another completely new AT in The Guardian. Which is a mix of assault powersets and support/armor secondary. I know some servers that never implemented the Sentinel. The other problem is that I, personally, think content development has slowed on HC is because they're going the route of trying to be legitimate with NCsoft. I get the feeling their not adding any content until the talks get done.

[justicebeliever]

57 minutes ago, DR_Mechano said:

I think this is the problem we're having with the two seemingly different development paths between servers. For example one set of servers is adding another completely new AT in The Guardian. Which is a mix of assault powersets and support/armor secondary. I know some servers that never implemented the Sentinel. The other problem is that I, personally, think content development has slowed on HC is because they're going the route of trying to be legitimate with NCsoft. I get the feeling their not adding any content until the talks get done.

Sentinel is a 100% SCoRE creation...wouldn't call it "content", but it is really cool to have a new AT...There seems to be some bad blood about the Guardian AT between the servers...It's funny that HC and SCoRE have been all about going in new directions with the game, and the other server with the "Guardian" is trying to stick to as close as the game was when it sunset, but it's HC that's running with the ball with NCSoft...

[DR_Mechano]

15 minutes ago, justicebeliever said:

...There seems to be some bad blood about the Guardian AT between the servers...

What was the cause of this bad blood. I know the HC devs feel that it was trialed some time back and people didn't enjoy it so they're not adding it but I'm kind of curious now.

[justicebeliever]

6 minutes ago, DR_Mechano said:

What was the cause of this bad blood. I know the HC devs feel that it was trialed some time back and people didn't enjoy it so they're not adding it but I'm kind of curious now.

This is all I know - 

 

 

[jubakumbi]

2 hours ago, DR_Mechano said:

What was the cause of this bad blood. I know the HC devs feel that it was trialed some time back and people didn't enjoy it so they're not adding it but I'm kind of curious now.

Useless Drama?

The Usual Reason?

😉

 

[Lost Ninja]

On 8/31/2019 at 7:51 AM, Zodai said:

I'm aware people know it's there, it's more like... I feel that people are more drawn to hero-type characters, either culturally or within the context of the game themes having a more hero-centric focus.  Less awareness and more encouragement, so maybe someone might be interested to come up with a cool villain in response to hearing people were trying to come together more on it.  Trying to like draw people into the redside community, even if it's in a small way.

People like being heroes,  whether in real life or fiction. And if people want to be a villain going red side won't scratch that itch because there is little genuine villainy. You're either assisting some other not very villainous villains or stopping really bad (but still not very villainous) types from being badder than you/recluse. No Rape, Torture, Mind Control... etc (and I get that's it a game so it cannot really have those in anyway but...).

[subbacultchas]

I loved COV when it first hit, and almost immediately switched to playing over there. I loved the new zone designs, the GMs, new ATs and all of it. But having played it for years, I found the actually villainy there to be almost comical in nature. I get it, it needs to appeal to a large target audience of children to adults so there are going to be some things the don't and shouldn't focus on. 

But I just couldn't escape that the villains felt more like something out of the old Freedom Force games, and just a little too hokey for me. That's one of the reasons I haven't been back there much.

[Lazarillo]

On 9/3/2019 at 12:31 PM, Justisaur said:

As to 'not feeling like a villain' there's plenty of missions where you do or have the choice.

In my case, I like playing Rogues because on the whole they feel less evil than Vigilantes.

[Justisaur]

2 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

In my case, I like playing Rogues because on the whole they feel less evil than Vigilantes.

I always RPd my villains more like rogues back before rogues existed.  They were in it for the money and power and sticking it to the man (I always enjoyed robbing banks, and beating up cops and longbow most) not so much for the sake of revenge or just wanting to watch the world burn (well, maybe a bit of mayhem.)  Even Arachnos feels a bit of underdog, since the islands are much smaller.  

 

There's a couple I made that were just monsters, like my Necro/Poison MM "Corpse Maggot" though.

[Chuckers]

On 9/1/2019 at 8:56 AM, Boltess said:

Well that's a constraint of the game's rating and audience. In order to keep the game family friendly and below an M rating, you can't actually do any awful things to innocent people.  Remember you don't actually kill any one in this game, you defeat them.   There are no kids to kidnap, no cute furry animals to stomp. The worst you do is rob a bank, and that's it.

 In some ways, I think COV shouldn't have existed at all, instead they took the time and resources to build it into beefing up the hero content, which generally is poorer than redside(compare Virgil Tarikoss SF to Synapse TF, for example).  

 

Actually, you do kill people... If you've played some arcs in Preatoria, there is at least one mission where you kill a contact and that contact is removed from your map.  The devs had just started with the 'player instanced' zones when CoX was shut down. I believe there would have been more of them if the game had been kept alive. 

 

If you want bad, run Weston Phipps arcs in Grandville.  

 

On 9/1/2019 at 4:07 PM, RikOz said:

I was rather surprised while doing a Safeguard not long ago. I was fighting the Lost vandals who were busy slaughtering parking meters and trash cans, when a panicked civilian ran right past ... and one of the Lost pulled out his shotgun and blew him away. Like, whoa, did that just happen? I mean, the civilians are usually completely ignored.

 

In the Mayhem missions, you can 'kill' citizens. In fact, there is a badge for killing 1000 civilians. 

 

[justicebeliever]

Killing even introduced hero-side...3rd mission arc in Atlas, you are betrayed by Aaron Thiery and have the option to kill him (not arrest) at the end of the arc

[Trademarked Name]

Look up "SNL world's most evil invention" on youtube. I think whomever wrote that skit played COX back in the day.

I rolled a couple of Redside supers recently and had a couple of "woe! that's heavy!" type of reactions to a couple of missions where I felt "my villain isn't villainous enough for this. He's more 'Martha Stewart insider trading evil', then 'kill a guy's family because he snitched on you to some Arachnos higher-ups' evil". The SNL skit reminded me of those moments. Redside just isn't everyone's cup of tea, and people that want to talk/roleplay villains....some people on redside make me want to alert the authorities to keep an eye on you in case people start going missing in your neighborhoods. I know that's the Shtick you're going for, but yeah. You totally convinced me to visit Null the Gull..... to go in the other direction.

 

Rock: "See, this guy agrees with me."

(not so) Evil Scientist: "Stop saying that!"

 

 

Edited September 5, 2019 by Rocketeur
grammar