Something's been bugging me about New Posi and Silver Mantis

Redside has much less content than blueside yet it is generally better designed. General consensus is that older hero content needs to be revamped while villains need more content overall. I17 brought us a much needed revamp of the Positron Task Force. However, villains didn't get a new SF, they merely got Silver Mantis moved out to the zones and it wasn't that hard to find someone with a Mission Computer before this. My worry is that blueside will start getting improvements while the already unpopular redside will continue to lag behind in content.

Now, I'm not ignoring the new clone arcs. They were well done and I think the one for villains was better than the one for heroes. However, it still leaves villains with a lesser amount of content in the end.

I guess my question would be, is my thinking unjustified? Am I letting it bug me when it really shouldn't? Or do others feel like this?

---

Ah yes... It's the old "devs hate villains" line.

---

Rabbits & Hares:Blue (Mind/Emp Controller)Maroon (Rad/Thermal Corruptor)and one of each AT all at 50
MA Arcs: Apples of Contention - 3184; Zen & Relaxation - 35392; Tears of Leviathan - 121733 | All posts are rated "R" for "R-r-rrrrr, baby!"|Now, and this is very important... do you want a hug? COH Faces @Blue Rabbit

I think you're reading too much into it Zam. The PLAYERS clammoured for a revamp of Posi. There is no big conspiracy to make blueside better and ignore red.

And, as for new content, see: Going Rogue, which caters to both sides. Which is likely the direction future development is heading.

---

Craft your inventions in AE!!

Play "Crafter's Cafe" - Arc #487283. A 1 mission, NON-COMBAT AE arc with workable invention tables!

I think Going Rogue is basically going to make the issue of sides moot. If you meta-game, you could simply swing to Rogue or Vigilante just to play red and blue content, then settle on Villain or Hero for the potentially superior perks of being purely aligned.

---

---

Umber's Hall of Heroes & Villains

I disagree that CoV is better designed than CoH. I feel there are three major design flaws which hold redside back:

1. Zone design is clumsy, frustrating to navigate and just plain unattractive.
2. The story restricts player creativity and relegates characters to minor roles in the overall world story.
3. Players do not feel "villainous enough" and the flipside is that most people don't seem to want to play villains.

Regardless of whether my perceptions are correct, it does seem that fewer people play CoV than CoH, which means devoting resources to it results in lesser returns. I realize this is a vicious circle, but how can this be solved without a wholesale redesign? However, the only people who can say definitively that fewer people play CoV than CoH are the Devs.

I think the only way to fully capitalize on the "hero v. villain" dynamic is to allow full-on integration of the two sides so that heroes and villains are in constant contact. I don't know how to implement that without some form of PvP which the majority of players dislike, but again we're talking about a complete redesign of the game. This is something CoH 2 could address, but that's years away from reality.

All to say I have no answers to a thorny conundrum. Apparently I just want to hear myself talk.

---

The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction

well zam, villains are going to have less content no matter what, the game came out later and lacked the filler that a lot of hero zones were. Plus, as much as i try to get more people to play redside, the bulk of the population plays blue more, it becomes a self fulfilling problem really, unless people actually put some population behind red, red is going to appear lower priority. that said, the posi was simply unfun in its old incarnation, a fix was needed. hopefully there will be some new redside stuff as well, but for the non tf content(people shoudl remember that alot of dedicated soloists and small teamers never do tf's, i did my first one 4 years into the game) the story-arc stuff was evenly distributed and so far the reception has been very positive for the redside version of it, so there is that. but is it "devs hate villains" again? no, villians just need some more people to freaking play them.

---

Very shortly, there will be no "villain game" and no "villain content". A lack of content redside is going to be a lack of content, period. If sufficient numbers of people go vigilante, investing in redside will start looking like a better use of time and resources.

---

@SPTrashcan
Avatar by Toxic_Shia
Why MA ratings should be changed from stars to "like" or "dislike"
A better algorithm for ordering MA arcs

---

I think... I think a lot of the posters in this thread have a perception problem... and I think you highlight it Tokyo.

Many CoV players treat CoV as a stand-alone game, as parallel entity that should be equal to CoH in every aspect, ranging from amount of content, the access of that content, and the execution of that content. My opinion is that this perception was driven by the early years of CoV, which was introduced and sold as a completely standalone game, even though it wasn't. It shared the same subscription with CoH, and due to the nature of the engine, all of the physically stored game content.

The Paragon Studio Developers have admitted that CoV was a mistake, and have termed the release an "Expandalone". From what we've seen the developers have gone out of their way to emphasize that Going Rogue is an Expansion.

Which brings up a question. What would have been the result if Jack Emmert and the other Cryptic Executives had promoted, and then sold CoV as an expansion. What would have happened if they had just said straight up:

• You need City of Heroes to play it
• If you want to, you can play as a Villain.
• It's not the main game. It's an extra experience.

What if their marketing... had matched what was the reality? I suspect that a lot of this "Devs hate Villains" talk wouldn't be around. However, the marketing, the perception, the "what players were told" never has matched what City of Villains is. It's an expansion to CoH. It's an extra experience, and is not the main game or the main focus.

I think that might among the reasons why NCSoft's marketing staff is reticent now. Collectively, Cryptic blew it on CoV. Yes, Cryptic still delivered the Moon when they had promised Mars, and that's still quite an achievement. I don't think NCSoft wants to create expectations of the game that will continue to haunt the developers down the line.

Another good case in point is Architect Entertainment. Because it is possible to go from 1 to 50 in the AE system, it is technically an "alternate leveling path" and was noted as such. A substantial amount of the player base got it into their heads that "alternate leveling path" meant "equal to and/or superior to" and promptly started figuring out the best ways to maximize EXP gain with the least amount of work put into the game... then flooding the forums with whiny posts when the devs stepped in to force AE back into it's intended function.

All it took was one little line from marketing that wasn't explicitly clear about what AE was for, and... things went wrong.

Okay, I realize that there is a fair point that a large amount of this behavior falls on that portion of the player base itself being intentionally obtuse or ignorant, sort of like the reaction you'd get from an environmentalist being told that Al Gore knows as much about the environment as Jeremy Clarkson knows about fashion (for reference, if you didn't get this, Jeremy Clarkson is routinely voted by GQ to be one of the worst dressed men in Britain.) There's a bit of willful suspension of reality in acceptance of what one wants to see.

The point is that CoV never has been an equal to CoH... and likely... never will be. Assuming that the Going Rogue staff is tasked to work on a "new" game engine for a new client, the oft-rumored CoH2, we'll likely see a more even split between villainous and heroic content as such a "new" game would likely be built from the ground up with the Going Rogue factions in mind, rather than adding those factions in an expansion.

---

I share zamuel's concern, however I'd like to point out that the Devs have stated that the Posi TF was always intended to be 2 parts.

As for the Dev's hate villains thing that discussion has been going on for a long time and I've actually kept a decent record....

Issue 6 and 7 were not purely CoV content.

Issue 6- added 3 zones to heroes and 1 new enemy faction
Bloody Bay, Sirens Call, and Warburg where heroes could fight Arachnos enemies for the first time.

Issue 7- added 2 new Zones
Recluse's Victory and Grandville. It should be noted that Grandville contains a large portion of the Villain content.

Issue 8- was mostly Hero content as I don't think Vet rewards can really be marketed as Content. Yes Vet rewards are nice but are they really content?

Issue 9- was mostly even

Issue 10- while the content released is available to both sides the mission text is heavily slanted towards the mindset of a hero. The power players in I10 (Rikti and Nemesis) have almost no presence on the red side and often times the content runs counter to already existing things on the Red Side.

Some examples which may contain SPOILERS
Towards the end of Levantera's arc we learn the Rikti are actually Humanoids modified by an alien race. Many Villains already knew this from working with Timothy Raymond who's a 30-34 contact (in other words before we can even enter the RWZ there's a good chance Villains will know the truth about Rikti.)

In the Welcome to Vanguard mission we're told to rescue Longbow PoWs. Now I don't know about you but my Villain would never do such a thing no matter how much is at stake because of all the trouble Longbow caused him. But we're told "I don't care about your past with them your saving those PoWs" This is basically a slap in the face to Red Side players.

Additionally in Serpent Drummers Arc one of the missions is to be a bodyguard for the Traditionalist Peace Treaty. Excuse me but I was a retainer for Ambassador Kuhr'Rekt last I checked he was a Restructurist. Which reminds me if the Traditionalists are negotiating with Vanguard(which is a UN supported organization, and last I checked the UN acknowledges Recluse as the ruler of the Rogue Isles) and Recluse is secretly negotiating with the Restructurists why are the Isles being bombed?

End I10 SPOILERS

its things like this that make people say that I10 wasn't really for villains. It was designed for Heroes and villains were allowed to play along.

Issue 11- is probably the most even issue, although my main gets little use from Flashback since I've done most of the story arcs anyway. My only issue with Ouroboros is the Lazarus TF. There is very little reason given for a villain to want to overthrow the 5th. Yes there is content but very little of it gives villains consideration.

Issue12- is slightly worse than 11 was IMO. Although I do enjoy the content, and it is good content, very little motivation is given for why a villain would care about Cimerora. However Darrin Wade’s arc is very good and I wish more contacts were written the way Darrin was. I‘ve leveled a VEAT to 30, and the arcs aren’t that interesting.

Issue 13- is a bit disappointing Villains were given 3 new arcs the two from Arlia are alright and it is nice to have something to do in Cimerora that doesn’t involve saving people I care nothing about. The other one Dead Mans Deck was certainly fun although I think with different zones involved and an altered ending it could easily be a hero arc.
Heros were given 5 new arcs. 2 from Daedalus, and 3 from Mercedes Sheldon. As I haven’t run these yet I can't say anything about the quality.

Issue 14- Mission Architect-completely even here.

Issue 15- there’s very little for me to complain about here. However I think overall the Hero TF might be easier and I believe it has a better Merit reward for no really justifiable reason.

Issue 16- Power Customization- even for both sides.

Issue 17- I believe this issue is fairly even, although I haven’t finished the Villain arcs, and didn’t get the chance to run the Hero ones.

---

---

The Abrams is one of the most effective war machines on the planet. - R. Lee Ermy.

Q: How do you wreck an Abrams?

A: You crash into another one.

More and more, content is content, less and less limited in how it can be experienced. CoH and CoV have never, in practical terms, been two games. The lines that were drawn to make them appear that way are being erased one by one, and with them the rationalizations for viewing some types of content as distinct from others. It is already true that by rolling two characters you have full access to all the content in the game; come July, you won't even need to switch characters.

That said: having more diverse content is better. A lack of villainous content is not a content exclusion issue, but a content diversity issue - it's not that people are mechanically barred from playing heroic content, it's that some don't want to. I expect GR, in addition to further tearing down content exclusion, will also supply a significant amount of content diversity, being built as it is around settings and characters that are neither saintly nor irredeemable.

Teal Deer: There's a difference between content you didn't get and content you don't like.

---

@SPTrashcan
Avatar by Toxic_Shia
Why MA ratings should be changed from stars to "like" or "dislike"
A better algorithm for ordering MA arcs

---

Never play another NcSoft game, If you feel pride for our game, then it as well, I Superratz am Proud of all of you Coh people, Love, Friendship will last for a lifetime.

Global:@Greenflame Ratz
Main Toons:Super Ratz, Burning B Radical, Green Flame Avenger, Tunnel Ratz, Alex Magnus

If the RWZ wasn't Co-op the game would have lost a third of it's playerbase.
When i10 came out many Villain only players were incredibly frustrated with the games direction. If RWZ were Hero only I odubt they would have stuck around.

---

---

@Golden Girl

City of Heroes comics and artwork

---

That's a valid point Primal, But I think if we removed all the filler from Blue Side there would still be 2 complete and different paths from 1 to 50 whereas Villains always had the one.Not counting TF's which are a potential 3rd

---

What you should take is not that heroes got a revamp while villains didn't. It's that as content in general gets better, the more playable isles become less of a draw, and the only things that make it unique are its lackeyism and zones that are nearly indistinguishable from a monitor being off.

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=219896

With GR there will be no gameplay advantage to villains and population with drop further, other than loads of vigilantes coming over.

---

A game is not supposed to be some kind of... place where people enjoy themselves!

1. Take Viridian's arc.

2. Change objective of defeating one of The Center's lieutenants to defeating all of them.

3. Wrap it in Strike Force packaging.

4. Profit.

---

Speeding Through New DA Repeatables || Spreadsheet o' Enhancements || Zombie Skins: better skins for these forums || Guide to Guides

---

@SPTrashcan
Avatar by Toxic_Shia
Why MA ratings should be changed from stars to "like" or "dislike"
A better algorithm for ordering MA arcs

---

A game is not supposed to be some kind of... place where people enjoy themselves!

Interesting thought: some folks are hypothesizing that possibly CoV will gain 'population' from the ability to switch sides from Hero to Villain. In other words, a large number of players would roll up Hero ATs and take them to the dark side and play over in CoV zones. I have no data to back this up, but my perception has always been the other way around - that more players have been vocal on the forums displaying excitement at the thought of bringing Villaian ATs (notably Brutes, but also Corruptors and Masterminds) to Paragon City.

If that ends up being true, you'd end up with even more of the player base spending time in CoH zones, further reducing any incentive for the developers to spend lots of time on CoV zones.

Of course, there are folks dying to take a Scrapper or Defender (etc...) villain-side too. Who knows....just have to see how that plays out.

---

---

A game is not supposed to be some kind of... place where people enjoy themselves!

i dont know where poeple are coming up with the "redside will die with GR" thing, yes heroside might have a few more players, but i like villainside and i think all the redside zones are better looking than heroside and i dislike 90% of hero content. i do think that redside needs a little more content (co-op, whatever, more is better than nothing), but i definitly enjoy redside content over hero content. the 5 heros that i currently have are only because they have powersets unavailable to redside (such as ice melee, ill control, and scrapper version of spines which i would like on a brute) and once GR is out they will drop the hero tag and become full villains and/or rogues.as a full time redside player, i do agree with Zam that stuff on redside feels neglected 2/3 of the time

---