Differences between blue and red

I didn't know where to post this and this seemed as good a place as any to get comments.

As you may or may not know, I'm new to the game... almost 2 months now. As you may also know, the Valentine's event has started and this relates to the way heroes and villains work together and view each other.

I have a stalker on the red side and she was standing around Pocket D because I was looking for an invite to a hero team to retrieve Aphrodite's Girdle. I'm not a heavy RP kind of a persons, but I do like to keep my characters "In Character". This stalker has a particular mind set. She believes in stealth, she also will only do what is necessary to achieve her objective. for instance, if the mission is to "Defeat Sithias and his guards" She's not going to battle every snake in the cave until she gets to Sithias. She's going to sneak past all the other snakes and take out the objective. Anything else is energy wasted needlessly and destruction just for destruction's sake.

She also couldn't give a fig if someone on her team dies unless that death will somehow keep her from reaching the objective. So she's not likely to go to the aide of another unless that also serves some purpose.

Now I get my invite, there are 7 heroes and my stalker on the team.

As far as she was concerned, she was there because the goody, goody, do gooders needed her, not because she needed them in any way.

What do you think happened?

Let me give you a hint, it ended in a lot of rude tells from several of the other players and me adding them to my global ignore.

Am I just supposed to abandon who the character is because she is working with heroes?

Anyway, the objective was to break the seal on the case and retrieve the girdle, that is why she was there. So, she did not fight anything she did not need to. She worked here way past everything to the door that needed the key. When the key was found, admittedly by the rest of the group, She opened the door and proceeded to the target. Strangely there was nothing but a few cannons to take out before she went to work on that seal. Objective reached.

On the other end of the coin, when I was doing the villain mission where I needed the hero, she needed that hero (and she only invited the hero, no one else) In this case she needed that hero to get to the end to destroy the cauldron or whatever it was. In this case, she stuck with the hero, protecting her and, though she did not appreciate doing so, battled everything to get her there.

I fail to se where the qeustion lies, and I read it twice?

"Am I just supposed to abandon who the character is because she is working with heroes?"

The real question is "If I insist on roleplaying, such that my actions compromise team tactics, will it lead to trouble?". The answer is "yes".

I recommend the OP recognises that this is not a roleplaying game [1] but a game where some people roleplay, and saves it for missions with other roleplayers.

[1] Yes, I know, MMORPG. But it ain't one just because it says it is one.

Playstyle differences are an everyday fact of life in online gaming. You might join an ITF and wonder why everyone is blitzing certain points and moving on as opposed to another team that cleared every living thing from each map before moving on. It's the way some people play and in your case it seems there was a disconnect between yourself and that team.

I wasn't on your team so I don't know how the mission panned out and what tells were sent - and quite honestly I don't care to know because it really isn't too important. You played a character in a fashion that wasn't clicking with the rest of the group for one reason or another. Not every team you meet up with will mesh well with your playstyle and vice versa. The polite thing to do is explain a difference in style when you see it's impeding your team or your fun - then let it go. If it isn't working just politely say so, thank the team for their mission, and drop out gracefully. If they berate you for some reason that you cannot fix then you should ... do the same thing, let them know their style isn't working for you, say thanks, and drop the team. Granted, if you're the main healer, the tank, etc.. you might give them the courtesy of a mission complete before doing so for the sake of karma.

Just remember a lot of the frustration and, at times anger, that people feel is because things aren't working out as intended and they want to fix the problem. Some do it better than others but the one thing to keep in mind is that every character you team with is someone sitting behind a monitor like you are and they deserve respect. Treat them as such and no matter how bad the team is doing you will always have fun.

Even if it leads to debt.

News Flash: Person acting like a jerk gets treated like one.

Even in RP, no one wants to be nice to the jerk. Just like reality.

In comic book fiction, jerk villains forced to cooperate with heroes are usually batted around and wind up back in jail. Is that the type of villain you really want to RP?

Smart comic book villains cooperate with the heroes and show how valuable they are in order to find the right time to backstab them and turn the situation to their advantage and make a clean getaway. They don't stupidly telegraph to the hero team that they have no real desire to cooperate by being a PITA the entire time.

You want to role-play a villain without ticking everyone off? Cooperate. Make in-character snide comments once in a while. And when the mission is done, say, "Check you pockets, boys, cause I got all your stuff!" and click leave team.

Red is for the strong and tough. Redside content and arcs are more difficult than blueside content.

Marcone Consigliere, snakes, more frequent Paragon Protector Elites, etc.

I applaud your commitment to RP, but I also recall a whole thread where you, OP, bemoaned the fact that teams you were on just rushed through to the end to grab the goodies and didn't take any time to read the clues, etc.

How is that different from what you did to this team of heroes?

Also, I read your playstyle for your Stalker and the first thought that occurs to me is "Man, it's ginna take him forever to level that Stalker - and he's gonna be poor the entire slog thru the levels!" In most games of this type, the levelling speed depends at least in part on the assumption that you do defeat other things besides the main mission objective - bypassing all those other snales in the cave with Slithis means lots of "wasted opportunity" for the XP & drops those snakes give you.

That's your choice, of course, but you should be aware that you are deliberately slowing yourself way down based on your RP choices. You can just as easily choose to wreak carnage by sneaking up behind them and stabbing them in the back, but you are choosing another path. But don't come back later and tell us that your Stalker is "too slow" and "takes forever to level" and "is dirt poor".

You should also be aware (and since you are new, I'm betting you didn't know) that there are some badges that are only available to the opposing faction during one of these events. For example, the CoT Hordelings are something Heroes cannot defeat at any time other than this event. If you had any heroes on your team looking for that badge, you just messed that up for them - and since it was a full team of 8, there would have potentially been lots of Hordelings for them to get.

Here's the thing:

When you play a game that involves teaming, you need to be a team player.

This doesn't mean that you can't role play. What it does mean is that if you plan to team, you should find ways to role play that do not interfere with being a team player.

I've only played MMORPGs for about a year, but I have a long history of playing pen-and-paper role playing games. Unlike online games, where role playing is really optional, pen-and-paper games almost always involve heavy role playing. Most of the players of those games understand the importance of team play. They will create characters that are motivated to work well with others so that they can freely role play without having to disrupt the team dynamic. However, occasionally, I've come across a player that plays their character in such a way as to cause problems for other players, even to the point of derailing the whole game. The excuse is always "I'm just role playing my character!" The problem with this excuse is that there's no good reason to create a character whose personality, when properly role played, is going to be disruptive to the game. Why deliberately design a character that's going to cause problems?

Solo play is a valid option in CoX. You can certainly make characters that don't work well with others, but you might want to reserve them for solo play. When teaming with others, break out characters who could plausibly be team players when called upon.

Role playing is great--it doesn't have to be an obstacle to team play unless you insist on making it so.

What you're doing is called Ghosting the mission. I have a few ghosts, as do many people. What you do is ask, "Are we ghosting?" or "Want me to ghost?" Or sometimes if you get to the mission early, announce to the team, "Scouting, dont' follow me." But make sure not to aggro anything.

However, if you're deciding your RP toon is discourteous, don't expect everyone to embrace that.

Also, tactics tip, a good ghost always has recall friend. To get the hero to the box, all you needed to do was ghost there and tp him in.

I feel the best ghost is an ill/ controller because of the sup invis and PA can distract when you need to take care of a glowy in a populated area.

Treat other how you want to be treated, k?

Ok, lets try it this way. You are allowed to play the game in any way that you wish (assuming you're not exploiting or cheating in some way of course) that provides you with an enjoyable playing experience *except* when the way you enjoy playing conflicts with the way others enjoy playing.

You can chose to RP your character any way you want (within the user agreement) right up until the point where your RP clashes with others. If a majority of a team don't appreciate how you're playing your character, your options are to either change how your character is playing to fit in or to not play on that team. Just because your playstyle is influenced by a character concept does not give you any higher priority than others who want to play a different way. It doesn't matter if you're a villain and they're heroes. You're all players, and you all deserve to enjoy playing the game.

I can understand your desire to roleplay, and support your right to do so. However, I find that a lone roleplayer in a party of people not roleplaying tends to be disruptive in a few ways. I've been on teams with a lone roleplayer that was at times funny and other times creepy. Some people make assumptions about how their roleplaying is perceived, and oftentimes they may not be aware that they are disruptive to the team.

My suggestion: if you want to roleplay, do so when you are alone or on a team of roleplayers. If you are the one roleplayer on a team, I suggest you dial it way down until you have left the team.

<QR>

IMPO, Cowboys & Indians shouldn't be worth this much trouble.

If somebody gets all bent out of shape over your RP, just move on. No need to have it detonate into full-blown Armageddon.

On one hand, I second what many have voiced; regardless of hero/villain or blue/red, stealthing to the end and completing the mission without the team agreeing on it being the plan is generally considered to be a rude way of you taking away the rest of the team's oppurtunity to play the game.

On the other hand, you wanted to roleplay as a villain who is only working with heroes because she has to. And you were successful. People are treating you like a villain for your actions. You've successfully roleplayed a character that people aren't going to like, and it sounds like you weren't happy with the result. What is it exactly you're complaining about?

I suggest you use the channel search feature (right click in chat window and click channel search) to find a few Role play global channels, you will probably find team mate more accepting to your styles of play than randon pugs (Pick Up Groups) that way.

I'd echo that if all you said was 'staying' in character then you didnt explain as well as you should of.

Also note that turning off XP doesnt stop you from (unknowingly) leeching, as you get more inf, plus normal drops.

Plus what storm said

You're playing a character who's a jerk, you roleplayed as a jerk, and now a whole bunch of people think you're a jerk. Why are you surprised by this series of events?

Ghosting: the essential difficulty here is that ordinarily people rely on the visibility of parts of the map to know what's clear and what's not, and what's still to be explored. If that assumption is going to be broken, the whole team should know what's going on - hence the "shall we ghost" questions. In particular, if someone runs off and gets killed (as I appreciate didn't happen, but it does sometimes) without consulting with the group, that's actively hindering the team - they're no further into the mission, and the useful information on the map has been lost.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hube02 I guess that's where I made my mistake. I was under the impression that it had something to do with RPing.

It's a common confusion, but originally "RPG", of computer games, meant "stats and levels and character advancement, and probably some vaguely sub-D&D mechanics". Out of illusion, truth; a lot of people do roleplay in MMO"RPG"s, and single-player CRPGs often feel the need to have some sort of moral choice pseudo-roleplaying element - but what City of X is about is killing things, taking their stuff, and becoming game-mechanically stronger. If it was a tabletop game, it would be a tactical skirmish wargame.

That fits a neat analogy. Some people like to roleplay in wargames; I'm running a Silent Death campaign where some faction players write little fiction pieces about their battles, name their pilots, and all the rest of it. But some don't, and they are just as much playing Silent Death; the roleplaying element is optional. Now if two of these players are allied and one of them does something game-mechanically silly for roleplaying reasons, the other one is likely to be annoyed. That's the situation your teammates were in.