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

Maybe you had it easy, but I've done the Silver Mantis TF exactly twice due to its needless restriction.

I would really love to know where you got that from.

Except that CoV is a complete game. There's plenty of content and there's enough to get from level 1 to level 50. The issue here is purely that it has less dedicated content than heroside, largely due to the nature of how co-op arcs are written, and the fact that Cryptic tried to avoid the bloat that CoH had but ultimately also lost some of the good fat, as it were.

I think what Je_Saist meant to say was; "Marketing CoV as a stand-alone was a huge mistake." Most would agree with this statement. CoV Never should have been treated as a stand-alone, we wouldn't be having these problems with CoV content if they designed the content so that you could complete it two ways... as a villain or a hero. And then branch out to more heroic and villainous content from there.

I find it humorous how cryptic manages to make the same mistake twice.

Hopefully Paragon Studios has learned from their experiences and this will change come CoH2.

I'm not sure that's true to be honest. I'm still not 100% sure how GR will work but IF it allows me to take a 50 level hero and go Vigilante enabling me to cross over and through Time Travel, etc start earning COV badges then I plan to do so. When, if, that occurs you know every COH badger alive will be clamoring to get to the Isles and add to their badge count. At the same time 50 level badge hounds from COV will be headed to Paragon to do the same. I see this helping both sides since players that NEVER played COV will be showing up there and the same is true of red siders that never played COH. I think that's one reason we now have badges for earning 500 and 1000 badges.. once GR happens and people cross over those two will be a lot easier, as a lot cheaper since you don't need to spend a fortune earning Crafting badges, to obtain.

But you're conflating marketing with design here.

CoV was marketed as a stand-alone product because it was. You could buy it and play without already owning CoH. This was a good thing, because it meant more new customers. (I could be wrong here, but while expansions tend to be hyped, I certainly don't cheer over new EQ expansions, for instance, since it's an additional cost on top of the initial purchase. They don't pull me in.) The only expansion element of CoV was SG bases.

And quite the contrary, allowing both heroes and villains to play CoV would only make things worse. Instead of being a second faction with its own legitimate population with its own legitimate concerns, villains would be extremely marginalized. You might eliminate the folks who are biased towards one side of the game over the other (devs hate villains, etc.) but you'd still have folks like me pointing out that villainside was sorely lacking and under-developed.

Correct. Newer content, blue-side is generally on-par with the redside content though.

Silver Mantis was an SF that did NOT have a universally addressable contact. The ease with which one could find a mission comp is irrelevant.

Okay, the PTF was one of the longest taskforces in the game. Made so because, at the time, the devs didn't have the technology to split it up and make both available from the same contact. People have been yelling about the poor design of the TF almost since inception.

Simply because they chose to address it NOW has no bearing on the choice of blue vs red.

Devs hate villains!

Seriously, the villains are ALWAYS going to have less overall content. Fewer zones, more compact content, and FEWER PLAYERS.

This is not to say that villains are second class citizens. But the devs are trying to balance release of new/reworked stuff between both sides. Expecting some massive addition to CoV at this point, while ignoring CoH is...ridiculous.

IMNSHO, your line of thinking is not justified.

YUP!

Simply because you and others feel this may be the case doesn't mean it IS.

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Yes, yes and I don't know.

Yes, your thinking is unjustified. The simple fact is that more people play blueside than red. Therefore, there should be more content produced for blue.

Yes, you're letting it bug you when it shouldn't. See the previous item and keep in mind: it's only a game.

Beats me. I can only answer for myself.

So, what do you say about the people who stop playing BECAUSE there's not as much content for City of Villains?

I may be completely wrong on this but I believe if you "swing" either way you will not have acess to the "potentially superior perks of being purely aligned". Once you swing your cherry is broken and there is no going back to "pure"....but again I may have misunderstood and we will find out later.

back to the topic at hand...

I agree with Zamuel. Simply put, there are two co-op TF's, outside of those there are a grand total of 6 TF's red side while there are 15 available blue side. I understand there is way more filler on blue side as far as regular missions go and that red side will likely never catch up in that regard. The TF disparity, or even lack of trials, is what bothers me.

I think in the future there should be an effort made to bridge the gap as far as Trials and TF's are concerned. I think people that dismiss red side as irrelevant after GR are missing the point. If red side becomes irrelevant I will likely become an ex-player.

Side-switching is irrelevant. CoV is a valid part of the game. Pure villains are valid characters. They should not be ignored "because they can just switch sides if they want more content," they should be given a level 30-35 TF. Or they will find out where you live and come over and kidnap your puppy.

This. Very much this.

I don't want the same old goody-two-shoes content that I've already done on my heroes ten times over (if not more). I want more ways to do bad things. That's kind of why I rolled a villain in the first place.

Everyone is going to stop sooner or later. FACT.

Everyone who stops is going to rationalize their doing so in some fashion (legitimate or otherwise). FACT.

If it is due to the fact that they've burned through all the content redside multiple times, don't want to go blue for a while, don't want to go grey for a while, and don't wish to step into AE, that is their choice (technically, it's three choices). FACT.

The current crop of devs are trying to keep releases of new content releases balanced so that both (soon "all") sides get something. OPINION, but fairly well supported by historical data.

No matter what, the devs CANNOT release new content at the speed that players can devour it. FACT. Simply inputting the data takes longer than it does to play some of these arcs. Never mind the programming that needs to happen to insert a contact or append an existing contact to offer the content. Never mind testing.

I'm not saying the devs couldn't possibly TRY to do more to put out new content than they already are. I'm just saying that they are NOT going to keep up with players ability to consume it. Then the same tired old "I've done everything! I'm bored! FEED ME!" argument pops up again.

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you're bad at this. keep tearing at that straw man.

PS: typing FACT in all caps really doesn't add any credibility to you. at all. stop doing it.

You're objecting to a formatting choice? Please troll elsewhere.

Asking "Well what if people quit for *INSERT REASON*?" is mostly pointless.

As I pointed out, the devs could devote several issues to nothing but content. People are still going to tear through it in short order then resume their bellyaching about wanting "more content".

Sure, maybe if you've been here 6+ years, it's all old to you. What you're missing is the fact that it took exactly how long to burn your way through it all?

And, again, there's the population disparity between the sides. I'm glad the devs are taking the effort to fix and/or release content more or less equally for both sides. If they went simply off a population comparison, redside would see new/reworked stuff every second or third issue.

Now, having tried and failed to get a rise out of me, how about you actually try to refute the things I've said instead of simply being lazy and dismissing them?

I await with baited breath...

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Speak for yourself. The only troll I see here is you.

You quoted yourself in your own sig for cryin' out loud >.<

Not quite sure what the problem is here.

I responded to conjecture from another poster. Then I got yelled at because someone didn't like how I formatted the response. Not because the response was necessarily wrong.

As to quoting myself in my own sig. Yeah? So? Saves me from having to type it again and again.

Now I invite you to actually argue the points I made instead of simply being dismissive with nothing supporting you.

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OH I see what you mean. Yeah once GR hits and everyone starts crossing back and forth the lines will definately blur. I don't see any in game way around that but personally, for RP purposes, when taxibot Sara hits the Rogue Isles she will basically be UNDERCOVER. If she "kidnaps" someone she will make it appear she is but actually guide them to safety (in short actually rescue them for both the group that has them now and the one that wants them). If she robs a bank... Hey that was all a set up to keep her cover going. None of those PPD cops got hurt they were all in on it and .. of course the money all got tunred back to the bank. I mean come on if your going to make Recluse and his mob THINK you've gone bad you have to act the part or you just get shot at.. a lot. LOL

I would love to see more content Villain side, not that it isn't possible to level to 50 without seeing all there is now but COH has a ton more. And trying to earn Merits on COV is no where near as easy as on COH. Not counting the CoOps (ITF and LGTF) the best a Villain can hope for is 6 that offer up Reward Merits. Heck just doing the 6 required for TF Commander equals that and those offer more merits (granted most are longer than the ones on COV). Adding in 2 additional ones in Striga (Moonfire and Hess), 4 in the Shard, The Katey Hannon, 3 Trials (again not count respecs since Villains do get those as well) that adds up to 9 more opportunities for a Hero to team up and get Merits than a Villain does.

I realize that with only 7 zones even trying to add another 9 more SF/Trials would be insane especially since 4 zones already host an SF now. You'd have SF/Trial contacts stacked beside on another. I doubt they will add anymore zones Redside so maybe the best Villains can hope for is more CoOp zones where they can team with heroes and earn reward merits and XP, etc. Of course that never actually balances the scale since it adds ANOTHER way for heroes to get more merits as well but at least it would help. The trend seems to be CoOp anyways since the last two new zones we got were that way.... well one revamped zone (the RWZ) and one new (Cimerora). I've seen a number of suggestion for this including Faultline, Croatoa, Boomtown, and even The Hollows or Perez Park but it would take some REAL crative writing to explain how a zone that for 6 years has been considered a part of Paragon City to suddenly allow Villains to show up and HELP. The RWZ was easy.. The Rikti want to take over and enslave the whole planet. Good or Bad guy you realize that that is NOT a good thing and do what you can to stop it. The others? Well its already been argued how do you justify villains suddenly showing up in Croatoa to HELP a small college town on the outskirts of the city keep from being dragged into the Spirit world? Faultline, as was mentioned, does have an Arachnos presence but they aren't there to protect them dam from breaking and the same Villain groups that roam the zone operate freely in Recluse's domain. I'm sure he's perfectly happy that they are there causing trouble and helping divert attention from his plans there so why would he suddenly authorize villains to go and help out? With the rise of the 5th column I suppose Boomtown has some possibilities Villains already have Barracuda's SF which pits you against Reichman just like kahn's TF does hero side so there is a common enemy that both Red abd Blue agree needs to be taken down. But like the RWZ we would be talking a major revamp of the zone to make that possible.

Let's say we run off the Council from the zone completely. 5th Column establishes a huge base, not unlike the Council one on Striga, and plan to use it as a jumping off point to invade both Paragon City and the Rogue Isles. Now we have the HUGE question of what level range to make this zone when we do all this. Presently heroes can enter at 12 and the villains found there are Trolls, Outcast, Clockwork, Coucil and now 5th Column. Dp we keep it at that level and just let those same groups wander outside the Column base? Obviously the Column couldn't care less about the other groups aside from the Council deeming them to be weak and inferior. Or do we increase it's level and the have to decide which Villain groups will replace the ones there now? Also aside form spawning during Synapse TFs IF the level increases and the Clockwork disappear where do we put Babbage? /e eyes roll and mind boggles

Of course there has been talk for years about a Moon base zone, more wishful thinking than anything else since it still hasn't occurred and it started back before Faultline got revamped , The RWZ became CoOp and Cimmerora came into existance. But it WOULD be another zone where Villains and Heroes could coexist and even battle a new alien villain or just give us another place to battle Rikti.

There is no easy answer but then I don't get paid to come up with ideas .. if I did i'd be a Dev and be designing the game not playing it LOL Hopefully they will continue to find new ways to keep the game fun.

you see you keep tearing at that straw man. you refuse to acknowledge that the other side might have some sort of point by going on and on about WELL U WILL JUST BURN THROUGH CONTENT AND WHINE SO-- ect even though no one but you is talking about it.

congrats you won the single man debate

but good try on that troll thing. keep postin', bro.

What do you say about the people who stopped playing because of the changes to PvP?
What do you say about the people who stopped playing because of the AE nerfs?
What do you say about the people who stopped playing because they were told power customization was too hard?

Face it, EVERY significant change will cause someone to quit.
And every aspect that doesn't get changed fast enough to suit someone will cause them to quit.

I don't doubt for an instant that some people quit because redside doesn't have enough content.
But people quit for a thousand other reasons, too.
Which 'reason for quitting' would you like the devs to address right now?

*FACEPALM*

No. I did no such thing. I merely stated, a counterpoint, that people are going to burn through content however quickly it is given and quit with the "not enough" argument anyhow.

Yes, there is a content disparity between red and blue side.

Do I think that the devs should simply ignore blue (or grey) for a while and focus solely on red side content?

No.

You obviously missed the post I replied to initially.

Again, I'm not saying produce no content for red. Ever. I'm simply saying the devs aren't ever going to be able to produce it fast enough. Maybe, if their budget doubled or something, they could afford devote a team to doing nothing but turning out content. In which case, give red side some extra consideration for a while to even it up.

What I'm saying is that the devs can't afford to be locked into some fallacious line of thinking that they can retain everyone by simply churning out more content. Or adding new systems. Or *INSERT HERE*.

Should they listen to these people? Sure. Should they throw everything else over just to implement what these people want? No.

So keep trying. You keep labeling a "strawman". Sorry, but simply attaching an epithet doesn't mean you're correct.

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