Skysaurus

Come on, wouldn't you like to play City of Morally Ambiguous Super-Powered Beings?

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Yea, becuase you know the devs wouldn't POSSIBLY make ANY changes to hazard zones if they give them to the other side of the game. Despite the fact that you guys are sitting there claiming about how the devs know better, you blindly insist that it would just be a straight port, no attempt to revamp or fix the zone, no attempt to add anything to it, nope. Devs wouldn't POSSIBLY do that if they transfered zones over.

Give it a rest guys. You don't want the zones. We do want new zones. Why are you fighting so hard to deny Villains ANYTHING?

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I'd much rather see CoV get its own, brand spankin' new zones than just grab some old ones from CoH. Especially since the CoH hazard zones are probably going to get a Faultline-style revamp in the future so heroes will want to play around in them again.

Besides, Paragon City is the City of Heroes. Why would they give zones over to villains?

It's content. It may be rarely-used, empty, pointless content, but it's still content.

I highly doubt we'll see any more content like that in the future. The Striga model set the new standard for future hazard zones.

I had some time to think about this. What CoV, specifically, needs in contacts is... more choice. More ability to shape your own personal destiny. As Sam said, the contact who gives you a bunch of things to do and expects you to do them works for heroes, and it works for mercenaries, but not so much for actual villains.

Villains need choice. Remember back in Breakout when you're given a choice between two contacts, Jimmy Dortz and Angel Lopez, and you can only choose one? And how when you get out you get a choice between Kalinda and Burke? What needs to be done is to bend that tech into something allowing an almost "choose your own adventure" story.

Imagine, a new zone like Striga, with several contacts as part of a zone story arc. It's a big jungle island with a forbidding castle at its peak. Somewhere during the course of the zone story arc, you find out that inside that castle is an old, uncompleted doomsday device. (Bingo, you have a tried-and-true comic book supervillain McGuffin.) Now the story allows you to diverge a bit. Your current contact, not wishing to get involved with this knowledge any further, presents you with an option. Your next contact can be the Arachnos marshal for the island, letting you notify them of the device's presence, and he'll need your help to get it back into working order. Or, you can be the ambitious one and get ahold of a technician contact who will assist you in rebuilding the device under the nose of Arachnos, as long as you can brave the danger of acquiring the materials to do so.

Either story arc culminates differently. While you may not be able to blow up Paragon City in the end (status quo must be maintained and all) your actions can still make the difference between gaining Arachnos's respect as one of their loyalists, or as a villain in your own right.

Bonus points if you get the opportunity to monologue.

Sure my Brute could've used a ranged attack. I know I took Hurl on my Tanker because I wanted to be able to hit things without actually walking right up to them.

But the concept of it really bothered me. Why would a lizard-man-mutant-walking-inferno suddenly gain the ability to throw a ghostly shark at something? I'd much rather be able to use the Tanker's Pyre Mastery ancillary pool for my concept. I took Mako as my patron because, y'know, beastly mutants gotta stick together and all, but throwing sharks around just doesn't cut it for me.

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too bad we cant go back using ouroboros to slap the idea of PPP's right outa the mouth of whoever spoke it.

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They're so... confusing.

My Dark Corr still wants to know how Soul Storm is any different from the plethora of other Holds, etc. that he has.... great power, but its different from other Corr stuff, er... how? and my Brutes are wondering what the [bleep] good a Snipe is to them, especially having come 39 levels without one.... but plainly I know nothing.

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What brute set gets a snipe?

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Brutes don't get snipes in their PPP's. They get a ranged attack, an AOE attack, and AOE immobilize, and a pet.

Stalkers get a snipe... too bad they're nigh useless for anything put PVE pulls. Extended activation times, and they use the ranged damage modifier, instead of the melee damage modifier like Castle had originally intended.

I ran around a bit in RV with a couple of my Blasters, one with Force Mastery, one with Cold Mastery. I can definately see that ancillary powers like Hibernate and PFF are far more useful in a PVP setting than a Brute firing off an immobilize, or a Stalker firing off a hold (yay for Break Frees). And I didn't see anyone using any of the top tier patron pets... heh.

I'm getting behind the suggestion that villains ought to get their own versions of the ancillary pools. Then, to even it out, give heroes some Freedom Phalanx Mentor pools.

The downside of that would be, the PPP's would need some serious tweaking or they'd be obsolete for anything but concept purposes. And if they were tweaked, you'd better believe people would be asking to be able to re-choose the pools. So... a lot of effort on the Dev's part would have to go into a change like that. Which is a good reason why we haven't seen anything from them yet.

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Pretty much.
FA should never have been more than twice as effective as tactics in the first place. Id have gone for a little over tactics (maybe 1.5times) at similar cost.

IIRC as a comparison the pool armours with S/L resists are about 1.7-1.8 times the resistance of tough. (I have to check that and dont have mids here, so please correct if I am wrong)

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Focused Accuracy was intended to be Targeting Drone. In fact, I have a PM from Castle where he confirms that it was supposed to be the same Scale to-hit buff.

However, that's still pretty darn high at 18.5%.

The problem is that Targeting Drone isn't bad for Blasters because Blasters have a .075 Melee to-hit modifier. That makes it 13.875% for them. Tankers and Scrappers have a .1 modifier.

But the problem with this power is that there is simply no problem with it in PvE. None. It's broken in PvP and PvP alone. Thus for the devs to nerf it they would have to acknowledge that they are nerfing a power in PvE solely and completely for PvP.

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How badly is maximum strength FA needed in PVE, though? I can only think of a handful of situations where you'd really need it, most of them involve pushing to the edge of the purple patch and/or fighting very strong AVs such as Fake Posi, Mako in the STF, etc.

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Kinda like complaining controllers get click mez protection in one epic pool.

Last time I checked Doms get it at level 1.

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Yeah, I have heard complaints about Blasters getting tweaked before Stalkers, but Dominators got tweaked before Blasters did.

(Though, to be fair, Dominators were designed around an inherent while Blasters were not.)

Another thing I just thought of... two of the Brute secondaries, Energy Aura and Electric Armor, already have Conserve Power. (Stalkers also have it in their version of Energy Aura.) I think that alone would kill any chance of seeing Conserve Power in the melee villain PPP's.

I was here for the GDN and ED nerfs. I can imagine it. I suspect it'd be less than the uproar over those two, but more than the uproar over the nerfing of Fire Imps and Controller Epic damage.

Balancing the epic pools because of outlier powers like FA is kind of like balancing melee sets because of powers like ET - very sticky. Do you buff the underperformers or nerf the outliers? Will the sets lose their "flavor?" And how do the changes affect the big picture? PVE? PVP?

Interestingly enough, check out what Castle had to say just yesterday.

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...Sometimes, I don't have the time to do full fledged "Let's see what the community wants" deals. I'd go so far as to say that's the majority of the time. In those cases, having a place to go to read what players are discussing and garner ideas on what they'd like to see is handy.

These threads easily get heated at times, and their length can reach brobdingnagian proportions, making getting anything useful difficult, but quite often great ideas emerge from them.

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If I wanted to know what was up with the PPP's, I'd make a thread to ask about it that didn't try to accuse the Devs of any wrongdoing or dishonesty. I don't care if people feel it's justified, coming off like you're blaming them for something or misattributing behavior to them is an easy way to get them to ignore your topic.

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Ahem.
The thread linked above was started a year or more ago. It started out without any accusations on the part of the devs. It was asking a question. To this date there have been ZERO red name replies.

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Um... why is the first reply to that thread
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You don't call out the devs.

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It got pinned at least. The devs are probably reading it, but I would guess they haven't commented because they're still figuring out what they can do about the PPP's.

The Devs aren't going to respond to people calling them out. Not only that, given the amount of bickering in this thread, I'd be shocked to see them touch this topic with a 10-foot pole. The only redname activity I expect to see here is eventually locking the thread if it spirals downwards far enough.

If I wanted to know what was up with the PPP's, I'd make a thread to ask about it that didn't try to accuse the Devs of any wrongdoing or dishonesty. I don't care if people feel it's justified, coming off like you're blaming them for something or misattributing behavior to them is an easy way to get them to ignore your topic.

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Sweetie, I'm not obligated to lead you by the hand and find each and every post re the subject, print it off in 6"-high letters and shove it under your nose so you can finally find it.

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Okay. You're not obligated. But it does nothing to convince me that this posting history of which you speak is largely a fabrication.

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My point here is that you're attempting to manipulate reality, but your saying that "no inequities exist" does not erase said inequities, despite what you may think.

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Here is where I laugh, because I see this as plain hypocrisy to accuse me of trying to manipulate reality, then attribute a a statement I've not expressed in any form to me in the same breath.

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Don't worry, sweetie. Next issue or perhaps even sooner, this content will be 'ported to blueside. It'll completely suck when it is - much as Safeguards completely and absolutely suck when compared to Mayhems - but you can bet your bottom dollar that heroes will get this content, if at least three of them start wailing about unfairness.

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That's sarcasm, right? Because I don't see how anyone could honestly believe that.

This thread is moving on to more constructive discussion. Posters like Emnity and BillZ are coming up with a lot of fair-minded arguments why the premise of the OP simply isn't true. Conspiracy theories aren't relevant here anymore, because the premise they're resting on has already been shot so full of holes that it looks like swiss cheese.

Whew, this thread is getting to be quite a long read. But now that I've caught up, a few things I'd like to say.

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And there should NOT be an alternate version created for the other side, such as Safeguards to compare to Mayhem Missions.

...

I said it before: It was the heroes who cried about I7 that make it so that now, neither side can get good, unique content. You spoiled it for everyone else. Now all we can get is half-[censored] shared content becuase "it's all one game anyway".


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I don't see it that way at all. I see it as part of the Dev's vision for the game as a whole to make things FUN. FUN is what this game is supposed to be about. If one side has something that's fun, what justification is there for keeping that restricted to just that side? Why not share the love? Likewise, if development time, effort, and resources were not an issue, we'd probably have villainous EATs by now. It's just simply selfish to want to keep something like Mayhems/Safeguards exclusive to "your side" and deny it to the other side, when the alternative is to let everyone enjoy it no matter what side they choose to play.

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Finally, as for the straw man that blue siders as so font of bringing up - that they don't want to see a full CoV dedicated issue.. NOBODY HAS BEEN SUGGESTING IT.

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Okay.

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Terra, would you support that additions from this point on that left the current "blue side" exactly as is while updating only red side?

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But wait... didn't you just say...?

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If CoV and CoH really are just one in the same to some of you, then why are you fighitng so hard against more CoV specific features?

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If you mean CoV-specific features like new PVE zones, villainous EATs, more villain-side strike forces, and the like, then my response is: We are? Are we? No, I don't think we are.

If you mean CoV-specific content like the above-cited Mayhem/Safeguard example, then refer to my above response.

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Well, if it's content that doesn't really fit the story line very well then it's not just a matter of "not liking it personally." If the red side needs more help, it should get it. Period.

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Well, while I'll admit to the existence of that particular problem, it's actually little more than the symptom of a larger problem to behold CoV-side - the story sucks. The overarching story of the game just isn't all that good, things considered. Yes, it's a good story in and of itself, but not good enough to define an actual world for players to take part in. CoV isn't villainous enough, and attempts to make it so end up in ghastly unpleasant stories, such as Peter Thermai and Westin Phipps.

As compared to City of Heroes, the world of City of Villains is much, much more rigidly defined, to the point where almost no new content is really enough to "make sense." Yes, helping save the world isn't the most villainous thing in the world, but it is a staple of villainy when the need arises, and is as such perfectly acceptable. But in a game that doesn't give us the ability to "Rul ze vorld!" that content is just out of place.

If we had the option to build our own doomsday device, build our own evil empire and launch invasion strikes on the world's largest cities, take part in open warfare in the city streets and so on and so forth, then hey, a little good will won't kill us, right? Instead the bulk of the game is just one big mercenary job, with little hints of everything else tucked away in out-of-the-way places. Mayhems offer some destruction, Bases offer some empire-building, PvP zones offer a feeling of open warfare, but by and large the game just isn't very villainous.

If I were looking to make the game more villainous, however, the one thing I'd not try to fix is make it more evil. CoV is plenty evil enough, but evil is not the same as villainous. Our villains are basically relegated to being angsty, obnoxious grown men who live in their parent's basement and after they're done painting skulls and listening to death metal, we're sent to clean up the garage and mow the lawn.

I think CoV ended up with an over-abundance of "Go do that for me, bub!" missions. They sort of work for CoH, because reacting to threats is a very large part of what heroes do, but for CoV it just ends up like lots of busywork for a lowbrow mercenary. Villainous, yes, but not by much. "I answer to no-one!" missions would have been really great, but the very setting of the game makes this improbable. Where heroes exist in a city where they can do pretty much anything they want without having to constantly kowtow to, say, City Hall, or at least not do so in an obtrusive way, villains are constantly reminded that they're living in Lord Recluse's back yard, doing his dirty work and looking up to be his chosen. Blarg!

So, yeah, the new content is the latest in a long line of content that doesn't fit the villain theme. So what else is new? What the side needs more than "just new content," is content that actually contributes to the environment and the settings. Sooner or later the developers will figure out that writing missions briefings to sound like we're working for ourselves, rather than for the one big bad, is an easy step that would improve things tremendously.

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Superb post, Sam. It's very close to my own feelings about the CoV storyline.

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Just how many characters were created before the badge was put into the game? It had to be more than villains since badges were a part of the game's build. They were not a part of the initial CoH release.

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Probably quite a few. I know that at the time my earliest alts were going through that level range, it was common for higher level players seeking the badge to tip or offer to pay for a spot on the mission team.

Still, it's a weak point at best if you're trying to prove that flashback is better for heroes than villains.

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Are there any badge missions mission from Heroes? badge missions that, say, are required for an accolade?

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Yes. Specifically, the missions for Spelunker and Doctor's Ally.

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Just an observation. Feel free to pick it apart.


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Okay.

First of all: minor nitpick - the new defiance and the accolade change weren't features of Issue 11, they came along in the next patch.

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There are more heroes than villains right? It stands to reason that there are more heroes that missed things than villains.

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I really don't see the significance of this.

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Heroes have many more arcs that they may not have access to due to origin contacts. Villains never had that limitation so were able to pick and choose the content that they wanted to do.

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Origin contacts are only the starting contacts, and none of them currently offer any story arcs. In fact, heroes don't get any story arcs at all until levels 10-15, at which point you can do any of them regardless of your origin. Villains, however, get story arcs from their starting contacts. In addition, villain-side has the only "unlockable" contacts. Ouroboros allows villains to do those story arcs even if they missed those contacts because they either couldn't get the badge in time or simply didn't know the contact even existed. I'd say that may even be a point in the villains' favor.

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Accolades: Once again, just numbers. There are many more high level heroes with late accolades that would have been affected by flashback than villains. Simply because there were more heroes than villains when badges were introduced in the first place. So by default more hero characters benefit than villain characters.

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Still, there were a number of villains who were level 40 before villain accolades were brought in. And the Elusive Mind accolade was brought in after that. The change was beneficial to everyone.

That's all I'd like to say.

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You realize that, unless you can provide some direct evidence of those things actually being said by blue-side players, your "argument" here is nothing but pushing over a bunch of straw men? That's the kind of thing that makes people think "victim mentality."

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I have an odd idea over here: I keep imagining that half the people reading these posts are NOT children who have to be lead by the hand and have everything printed out in letters six inches high, and then shoved under their noses with a "HERE IT IS: LOOK!" underneath.

I keep imagining that half the people reading these posts do not have the memory-span of an ADHD child running on three hits of amphetamine and a shot of vodka; when will I learn?

In short, I expect people to be honest enough to admit to some stuff being such common knowledge/seen so often on these forums that one need not drag in a Supreme Court ruling everytime someone says.... pretty much anything. Bahahaha! I even make ME laugh, at the mere thought of such a silly expectation.

In short, I expect you to be smart enough - and honest enough - to not shout "straw man" about common forum knowledge, and to actually exert yourself in thinking up a cogent rebuttal other than "Nyah nyah, nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah."

I know that is foolish of me, but hope springs eternal and all that.

waitin' for more wit and wisdom re everyone playing CoV being a "VICTIM! ZOMG!!!":
Bad

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Actually, I've followed a few of the recent threads about CoV as far as my tolerance for ridiculous forum antics would allow, and don't seem to recall so much sentiment about how "CoV sucks." I do seem to recall plenty of people stating honest, well-thought-out reasons why they don't prefer to play on the redside, ranging from personal preference for heroic characters, the graphics intensive nature of the zones, and the general dismal aesthetic appeal, but I can't recall anyone just flat-out posting something like "CoV sucks."

So, really, if you can show me at least three posts like you describe then I'll back down. Otherwise I'll continue to believe it's a part of your delusional victimization fantasy.

I'd also like to take this time to address a couple of other points.

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Despite your complete lack of any solid argument here, your statement that *I* somehow CAN point to something from I8-I11 as being "build especially for CoV" is flatly absurd, on many levels.

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Mender Tesseract's TF. It was made for villains. I'll say it again: THE MENDER TESSERACT TF WAS MADE FOR VILLAINS AND VILLAINS ONLY. Heroes can't do it. I'll add in that Mender Silos has a version of his TF that was made for villains as well. (Isn't that what Death Mage said he wanted out of I10? If both sides are given the same content, that the villains ought to get something villain-themed instead of the same thing the heroes were doing?)

I'd also like to make it known that I've played both sides of this game, and while the villains I have will probably eventually play through the RWZ arcs, I AGREE that having villains get the same contacts and missions in the RWZ was contrived. It takes a great suspension of disbelief to accept that a brutish beast with the blood of a thousand Longbow soldiers on his hands would be welcomed with open arms by the Vanguard. Having no screening process is an invitation for total disaster in my book. I personally think that the proper way to do the RWZ would be to have Arachnos make its own organization to counter the Rikti threat and then enter into a(n uneasy) truce with the Vanguard to better coordinate earth's defense.

But I do realize that the reason we got what we got in I10 was not because the Devs hate villains, but because it was a cost-effective measure. To add in all the stuff I would have liked to have seen would probably have pushed the release date of I10 back by weeks if not months, and remember they were set on sticking to their promise of 3 issues a year.

Take heart, there is hope for villains! The NCSoft acquisition has given the Devs more resources to work with, and I would be willing to bet that once I13 rolls around we'll see CoV getting some of the attention it deserves, if not sooner.

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Yup, pretty much. Heroes whined and complained and got their way. But you misunderstand their intent. They never specifically wanted to get content. Even with I7, we still had twice as much as villains. No, what they actually wanted was to deny villains more content. They didn't really care what they got, or if they actually got anything, just as long as no content was being added to the villain side.

See, it's a long-standing practice - hero players would sooner see no content being developed for either side than see anything developed for villain-side.

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I am aware this is meant as a joke post, but sad to say I see more than a few shreds of truth to it.

We see bits of this all the time, like so:

A villainside player starts a thread: "Why don't the developers pay more attention to CoV?"

respondant 1: because CoV sucks.

respondant 2: But why does it suck?! How can it ever NOT suck, if it gets no more attention?!

respondant 1: I don't want more exclusive redside content 'cuz I never play over there. It sucks.

respondant 3: Villains got i7! STOP WHINING!

OP: We just got i11. You don't think i7 is a bit long in the tooth to be holding up as 'look what you just got'?

repondant 4: NO because CoV sucks and everyone knows it.

..... and on and on the moebius-strip of stupidity and circular logic goes. We recently had a thread with people actually saying that they wanted CoV to get more attention.... as long as that didn't mean that even one issue wasn't swung 98% heroes/2% villains, because i7 was a nightmare to them that they still were not really over! [or words to that effect]. GEEZ, wt*-ever.

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You realize that, unless you can provide some direct evidence of those things actually being said by blue-side players, your "argument" here is nothing but pushing over a bunch of straw men? That's the kind of thing that makes people think "victim mentality."

Samuel Tow's beam of truth pierces your tin foil hat to annihilate your brain!

I finally got the last of my Pinnacle alts to 50. Dark Celeste, Warshade, hit 50 tonight after a long, grueling march through Crimson's story arc.