Subjective feedback, which side is better for tip missions?

Based on people's experiences running tips, what is your take on which side is better? My experience is mostly limited to running tips to get the 7 day alignment badges, but considering whether to make my Blaster remain a villain and my Widow remain a hero. Consider particularly for L50.

I'm looking for feedback on things like:
travel time to missions
frequency of zone changes
mission story, objectives
repetitiveness of tips (does H or V have more tips?)
common mission maps (does one side have more CoT caves, for example)
etc., but basically how you feel about H or V side tips.

Well, it's just my opinion of course, but . . .

I've taken one character full circle from Hero to Villain and back to Hero again (because he's a gadget user and I wanted the black scorpion gadgets)

Frankly, both sides seemed about the same to me play-wise. I didn't find one side standing out as "better" than the other.

About the only real complaint I have with both sides is that I'd like to see a much wider set of NPCs that show up. I'm getting bloody tired of Mangle, System Shock (I think that's her name - the elec/elec brute), and that fire-blaster guy.

Depends on what you want those tip mishes for. If you want to farm A-merits, currently I'd say blueside is way better than redside. Two reasons for that: the current morality mish you get at lvl 50 is much quicker for heroes than villains, and heroes can get tips really quickly in Dark Astoria. I still haven't found such a place redside, where there is a full-sized spawn of lvl 20 or so mobs around each corner. With my claws/SR scrapper, I do 5 tip mishes and the morality mish within half an hour that way.

Tips drop at random, neither side is "better". Many people try to get their tip drops in Talos and Shark, but investigating the tip in that zone is no guarantee that the tip mission will be in that zone, so travel time is also random based on mission location.

I have found hero side tended to give me my mission in talos quite frequently when I investigated them, while villain side often sends me to GV when I investigate it in Sharks, not a big deal really. (although I do dislike the mission that send me to PO all the time, I often dismiss it).

i19 will make zone changes hero side even easier with all the trams being connected, while the ferry redside is cake.

I have done so many lvl 50 tips on both sides that I don't really read the stories anymore. Over time, they will all seem repetitive.

Overall I find them to be a great way to get those io's that just won't drop for you or are more than you're willing to spend on the market, but I have already grown weary of tip only mission teams and have returned to a happy mix of farms, tips, and tf/sf.

No question in my mind, blue side tips are better. Here's what I do hero-wise:

0 - Log into Dark Astoria
1 - Defeat the large spawns of BP until you get 3 tips (maybe 2 if I get impatient)
1.5 - drop missions I know I hate (seeya Sister Jocasta, maybe someone else will save you)
2 - Head to Brickstown
3 - Select missions, which invariably are in the same zone, unless the door is a boat, sending me to IP. I save IP missions for the end.
4 - remaining 2 tips should drop from missions, if not, hunt mobs in Bricks.
5 - after doing 5 tips, head to DA and log off

I have not found tips for vills as straightforward. Sharks has decent mob spawns (great if there's a miner strike and you can avoid and/or survive Ghost of Scrapyard aggro) but still not as consistently large and close together as in DA.

I also haven't found a vill zone that I can depend on missions being consistently in the same zone. Eventually something sends me to PO, which is sort of a nuisance for travel from say, Grandville. Please note I'm not saying it's a big hindrance, it's simply a step that doesn't crop up as much as Bricks missions. Even missions in Granville require a little more travel time due to the 3-dimensionality of where the doors can be.

I know many people have success fighting huge MOBs in places like Dark Astoria to gain Tips. But it's always been quicker for me (red or blueside) to just streetsweep for near-even (+/-3) leveled bosses. Bosses drop Tips much more often than LTs or minions. I've hunted for Tips well over 50 times and it never takes me more than a couple of minutes to get one. Oftentimes a Tip will drop from the very first boss I kill.

This seems like an easier way than relying on Dark Astoria, especially since Villains don't have an equivalent for DA to hunt like that.

Why go all the way to Brickstown? I just go from DA to Talos and set the tip missions there. Rarely do I have to go anywhere else.

My experiences mirrors most of the other posters. Mostly them seem very similar except the final mish hero side is consistently faster, and I get sent to other zones less blueside. After I get 3 tips I like to investigate them in Atlas, since it's tiny, and I often invite a lowbie along for the ride that way. Where ever you choose to investigate them, blue seems a tad more efficient. Not much difference, but enough to be noticeable.

Thanks all for the feedback.

My initial experience was redside, everything spawned in Gville except the occasional mission in PO (I assumed at first it was always the 5th tip mission, since that happened the first 2-3 times I did them). I do lag in the Villain morality mission (new Praetorian map, I assume).

I did try a blueside Bricks run, and I liked it. Bricks also has plenty of Council and Freak groups, too, so I don't think I'll even go into a hazard like DA to get bigger groups. I'll try Atlas as well and see how that works out.

Having just completed full circle @ L50 from Redside to Blueside and back again, I preferred the Villain/Rogue alignment missions; the Hero/Vigilante Morality missions and the Blueside logistics for travel and convenience of having mish doors in whatever zone you happen to be in when getting the Tips.

I have played both sides, doing tip missions extensively to determine the answer to this question. In my opinion, neither side has any real advantage, once you learn which tips to dismiss.

Some things I've noticed:

1. Bosses have a MUCH higher drop rate on tips. I would estimate a 25-50% chance. Sure, you can kill mobs of minions, but bosses are much easier to obtain tips.
2. The zone you are standing in when you "investigate" a tip determines where the mission will be.
3. Some zones don't have mission doors for certain missions, so it defaults to another zone.


How can you take advantage of #1? On Hero side, go to Terra Volta to get your tips. Almost every group has at least one boss. Many have two. On villain side, I like to go to the island in south-east Sharkhead. There are enough hoarfrost demons and sky skiffs to get tips very quickly.

To take advantage of #2, stand in the zone that gives you the most missions. On Hero side, I found Talos to be the best place to "investigate" tips. If you get a mission that sends you to those little islands in the north, abandon the mission and re-investigate the tip until you get one closer. On villain side, Grandville is fine, but others may have their preferences.

For #3, this is where you start to recognize which tips to dismiss as soon as you get the tip. I don't like doing escort missions, missions outside of Talos/Grandville (except the two in Independence Port, those are good), or other annoying/long missions. Once you farm tips fast based on observation 1, dropping a bad tip saves you more time than it costs to farm a new tip.