Redside is So Much Better Designed
By
Acemace,
Posted on: 2009-05-29 08:27 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
When Going Rogue comes out I hope there's a mission to permanently leave red side that ends with you bombing the Rogue Isles until it sinks into the ocean.
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so I gritted my teeth, and made a new Force Field / Dark Blast Defender.
I can't wait until Going Rogue.
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Didn't I say you were chomping at the bit to corrupt that shiny new hero the second GR was live. 
The only thing I don't really like is the dark dirty look of most maps redside, obviously there's a reason, though after awhile it's kinda like bleh.
I just don't like playing villains, and the few kinds of villain I would be interested in aren't really available. I'm just a blue side person. If I do play a badguy I like playing catburglar, thief types, and that's not really available. I do my best to only take missions that involve robbery, but the flavor text one gets entering into missions usualy tries to put a voice to my characters that I just don't agree with. It is also very difficult to avoid some of the missions that just don't sit as well with me.
The OP has also been playing the worst stuff there is to do. For content it's much more interesting if you do Hollows/Faultline/Striga/Croatoa/Rikti WZ. Hollows is the weakest, but they're all well written tight arcs. I'm afraid there aren't tons of good low lvl task forces, until you get to Striga and above, but there's always hope for the future.
I'd be thrilled if they had an issue that was simply a revamp of old task/strike forces, and maybe adding one a few each side at lower levels then 35+.
There are good things about the blueside. There are bad things about the blueside.
There are good things about the redside. There are bad things about the redside.
Frankly the only thing I really hate are the "side zealots" who think that one side is "all that" much better than the other and like to whine/boast about their OPINION about it here in the forums. *shrugs*
If you prefer one side more than the other then good for you.
I'm just frankly tired of hearing about such opinions spun in negative tones here.
Talk about beating dead horses...
Loth 50 Fire/Rad Controller [1392 Badges] [300 non-AE Souvenirs]
Ryver 50 Ele� Blaster [1392 Badges]
Silandra 50 Peacebringer [1138 Badges] [No Redside Badges]
--{=====> Virtue ♀
I vastly prefer redside content even if it is a little hit or miss at times.
Hero contacts on the other hand make me hope that the trigger for "Going Rogue" will be us strangling them to death with their cellphone chargers.
Infatum on Virtueverse
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Hero contacts on the other hand make me hope that the trigger for "Going Rogue" will be us strangling them to death with their cellphone chargers.
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Sounds fun, but you'll have to run seven missions for them before you'll be able to access the charger.
Blasters.
Also, as many have already stated, CoV is more like City of slightly immoral Vigilantes. CoV was, and kind of still is, a big let down for me. Some of the ATs are fun to play, some of the Story Arcs are great and very well written, but calling them Villains is just a lie. Also, Arachnos is lame and tying my character to Arachnos for my entire career, while still fighting them all the time...?, just doesn't do anything for me.
Blue side, as much as I despise the blatant abuse of 'run across three zones between each mission', actually lets me feel like a Hero.
-= idspispopd =-
[size=1]Arc ID: 3155 - Project Prometheus (Seeking Feedback, now with less invalidation)[/size]
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Then came the Positron Task Force. "Hey guys, come to Steel to meet me and start my TF!" "Okay, great, we're here in Steel." "Okay, good. Now, go to Skyway." Huff, huff, huff. "Okay, we're done in Skyway." "Great! Now come back to Steel!" Huff, huff, huff. "Okay, we're here." "Cool. Now go beat up these guys in Skyway!" "Again? Okay." Huff, huff, huff. "Vahzilok are terminated, sir." "Good job, guys. Now, head off to Perez Park." And so on, and so forth...
After all that running around, I decided to cool my heels and do some AE missions in Atlas Park. Yes, I know, I'm dirty.
Then, out of sheer and utter boredom, I decided to organize a Citadel TF.
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So you spent ages doing a Posi TF and got bored? Then after a brief stay at AE you wanted to a do a Citadel TF? That is some pretty quick leveling, suprised no one else has commented! :P
Anyway back on topic, Blueside might have some issues because of it being dated, but people are quick to criticize it I think. Each zone has a good layout and a good theme. Redside all the zones seem very bland and the same as each other except one or two noticable buildings.
The only thing I don't like about blueside, is that a lot of the missions, ESPECIALLY in the 30 - 34 region are VERY dated and the same missions are repeated from different contacts. Even down to things like captives referring to you as "rescuer" instead of "$name" just to highlight the point.
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There are good things about the blueside. There are bad things about the blueside.
There are good things about the redside. There are bad things about the redside.
Frankly the only thing I really hate are the "side zealots" who think that one side is "all that" much better than the other and like to whine/boast about their OPINION about it here in the forums. *shrugs*
If you prefer one side more than the other then good for you.
I'm just frankly tired of hearing about such opinions spun in negative tones here.
Talk about beating dead horses...
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This could not have been said better imo. I was going to say something like this I prefer redside vastly over blueside. Seriously though people are aloud to have their own likes on side, the needs to spam negativity of either side is more then interweb childish.
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I enjoy both sides, I must be some kinda freak.
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Nowadays, I bounce between the two equally.
Be well, people of CoH.
I got bored playing Redside after about ten levels when it was painfully obvious that I was just a hero beating up villians under the lame pretense of "weakening the competition".
Ignoring the content helps. Most of my characters are murderous bastiches regardless of what "side" they're on.
Be well, people of CoH.
I love Redside only because of Dominators. It is the only arch i really enjoy play other than controllers (who don't have a combo I really like). If Trollers had Ice/Cold Domination, I would play them nonstop. However, since that hasn't happened yet, I love playing my Ice/Psy Dom over on redside. I too get lots of lagg over there, and would rather play on the less laggy blue side most of the time. However, redside also has an appeal to it that I like over blue (like mission design and better archetype design. I.E: everyone can solo).
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Ironically, the red side fights Arachnos far more than the blue side.
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I always wondered why the Devs did almost nothing to incorporate Arachnos into the blueside. If you don't do radio missions (or just avoid the obvious Arachnos ones), don't visit Faultline, don't PvP, and don't run the Statesman TF, you can easily take a hero from 1 to 50 and never see Arachnos once. For such a big villain faction, that is not good.
If only my villains could avoid Longbow that easily.
My last hero never bothered with Safeguards after Kings Row, they are so freakin' boring compared to Mayhems (which my villains will go out of the way for) and since the original contact system is still in place she never bothered with radio missions either and still got to 50.
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Has anyone ever used Super Speed in zones like Mercy, Port Oakes or Cap au Diable? heh.
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Yeah, all the time. Took me a couple of tries the first time to figure out the road network in the Oil Spill neighborhood, but all the roads are marked and on the rare occasions you do have to backtrack, it's not terribly far.
Now, superspeeding in either Skyway City or in Dark Astoria? That's hell on earth.
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Sick because they are so evil or sick because if this was Fallout 3 you would have murdered most of your contacts for giving you lip?
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For me, it's the latter. :P
And besides, they DO give you outs. You can let the time run out on certain missions, specifically to let the good guys win. You still get XP, merits, etc, and you get a different souvenir. I do it sometimes for Amanda Vines and the Freakshow teacher.
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Sick because they are so evil or sick because if this was Fallout 3 you would have murdered most of your contacts for giving you lip?
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How do you slip a live grenade in the pocket of someone in skin-tight latex, though?
Have you or someone you know been the victim of Nerd Rage?
Find answers, get help.
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Sick because they are so evil or sick because if this was Fallout 3 you would have murdered most of your contacts for giving you lip?
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How do you slip a live grenade in the pocket of someone in skin-tight latex, though?
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Very carefully.
I enjoy Redside more. I've played it so much at this point I feel awkward Blueside, like I don't belong. I spend more time in blue zones via mayhems than actually playing heroes.
Is Redside better? For me, yes. But on an absolute scale? Not really.
The OP pretty much nailed why I spend most of my time playing redside. Old contact blue side:
"Go there"
"Come back"
"go over there"
"go back to the first place"
"come back here"
and the content was no where NEAR good enough to warrant all of the useless travel.
AE and Radios help this a lot.
I play blueside only really because I love blasters...and my SG alternates between the 2 every week.
The truth is that both sides could use some serious revamping. I can only hope that some of that comes with Going Rogue. Redside is a bit TOO streamlined in the early levels and blueside is so far off streamlined its crazy at times.
Regardless of how daunting a task it is...the early blueside content needs to be reworked. Simply adding alternate zones doesn't fix the sludge that has been festering there for half a decade. Some of the stuff just doesn't make sense anymore. Like why are we still acting like we don't know about the Lost and their Rikti ties? Or about the Clockwork? Lots of old stuff needs fixing...
Redside would be wonderful with even just one extra starting contact and a bit more variety in early mission enemies(although I really don't dislike the snakes that much). An alternate zone to Port Oakes and perhaps an alternate epic story to the Marshall Brass stuff. Once you hit Sharkhead...its really much better from there.
Also...when COV launched, villains should have had some kind of alternate advancement minigame...where you can hatch your own plans to stake your claim in the Rogue Isles. Most villains want to own their own territory or take control over something. Having you always appear to be just a goto guy for every contact and never being presented with a choice as to how you pursue your career is the big failing of redside IMO.
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Also, as many have already stated, CoV is more like City of slightly immoral Vigilantes. CoV was, and kind of still is, a big let down for me. Some of the ATs are fun to play, some of the Story Arcs are great and very well written, but calling them Villains is just a lie. Also, Arachnos is lame and tying my character to Arachnos for my entire career, while still fighting them all the time...?, just doesn't do anything for me.
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For me, it's masterminds (obviously, given my sig).
The only hero-side AT I could even remotely get into was blasters. I got one to 50, started another, got bored of it, and went back to playing masterminds.
But yeah, CoV is really just kind of "City of Vaguely Irritable Lackeys". One of the thing that bugs me the most about it is how abusive so many of your contacts are of you. Even into the 30's and 40's, when you've gone head to head with all the "Big Name" heroes and beaten them, some peon still thinks that saying "you'd better watch out, I have friends in Arachnos!" is going to make me do anything other than laugh in their face? I fight/kill Arachnos people on a daily basis.
I've been working on a couple of really VILLAINOUS arcs in MA (not the "go kill puppies" sort, but actual villainy, where you're trying to take over the world, toppling countries, that sort of thing). There are a few maps that I really need to finish them properly, though, and they're not available. 
I just wish that the villain side let you be more than a glorified errand-boy/girl. "Go do this, before I kick your butt!"
Sigh. I wish I could kill half my CoV contacts. I want contacts who are giving me jobs because they want to ride MY coattails, not me riding theirs. Or contacts that are actually afraid of me. Hell, they're just some normal in a suit. I've been punched in the face by Statesman and Back Alley Brawler and laughed. Dubya tee eff.
Growf.
The Mastermind Project
Leveling every primary/secondary to 50!
50: Bot/FF, Bot/Dark, Ninja/Trap, Merc/Pain, Necro/Dark, Thug/Dark
Works in Progress: Thug/TA, Merc/Poison, Thug/Pain, Ninja/Pain, Thug/Storm
Blueside is full of redundant fluff and BS. All of the old TFs (pre-Striga) would be vastly improved just by cutting out 1/2 to 2/3 of the missions.
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All of the old TFs (pre-Striga) would be vastly improved just by cutting out 1/2 to 2/3 of the missions.
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As would many of the older story arcs. As it is there's way too many Defeat Alls and huge maps of not terribly interesting or challenging enemies - I almost fell asleep during my latest run through the 'Deliver Outbreak' map in McIntyre's arc.
The newer hero side content is often excellent - Faultline, the Hollows, the Midnighters - but the old stuff needs reworked.
the morality of anything you do in an mmo seems a bit detached. if you steal some medicine from orphans and sell it on the black market, so what? the world is exactly the same. nothing is better or worse for the wear. your only contact with the results of your actions (or really, your actions themselves) is in the form of some text in a box. "you're a terrible person!" that box may say, but you're only a terrible person to that one text box at that one moment. as soon as that box disappears, you're just as good or evil as you ever were.
then again, this is a very consequentialist point of view, so absolutists may beg to differ.