First impressions of the "gray" alignments

You could certainly use groups like Wyvern and Vanguard. They're already either not trusted by some heroes or operate w/o their official consent. Even Longbow. Freymuth would be a perfect vigilante contact.

Rogues could work with groups out for themselves that aren't in lock-step with Recluse. Goldbrickers might indeed be nice. Sky Raiders certainly. Arachnos agents out for themselves (actually...it's probably the case that half the villain game is really just rogue anyway).

Maybe a Corolax contact.

Doc Quantum can be...something (though it seems like they are building him up for something already).

IMO, the 'Extreme' Alignments of Hero/Villain should be rarer than the grayer Rogues/Vigilantes.

The incentive to be a Hero/Villain should be a decent carrot, but not so great that they vastly outnumber the Fencesitters.

Give Rogues/Vigilantes A-Merits, but make their purchasables a bit more expensive (someone suggested 3 A-Merits for a recipe - sounds about right), and for the love of God give them more gray content and the ability to run their Factions Tips when Touring (etc. Vigilante Tips in Rogue Isles).

While we're wishing, I think Heroes/Villains should be able to 'tour' as well in some limited fashion. Say, Heroes can go to Rogue Isles and run Hero Tips missions, but cannot use BM, etc. When not in instanced missions, their presence will eventually trigger some sort of ambush or police force to drive them out (but not Flagged PvP). It should be something pretty overwhelming, so that Hero/Villains can't just feel like they can roam around freely in 'enemy territory'.

With like pretty much everything else in this game there are pros and cons to "going gray" versus "staying true" alignment wise. I simply maximize the pros and minimize the cons by having different alts spread across all the alignments. This way I have access to A-merits if I need them and I have other alts who can instantly play red or blue side if needed.

I don't see the "gray" alignments as strictly a bad or lesser option. I just work the system to get the best advantages regardless.

I have a few rogues and vigilantes, more for concept than utility - those are simply the alignments that fit the characters. I haven't done much if any content on the other side, and probably won't. I also have several "pure" heroes and villains, more than enough to fill all of my play time by running Tips for A-merits, if I chose. So for me at least, the bottleneck/limit is not in the inability of the "grays" to earn A-merits. I have other characters for that.

Being able to say "I've mitigated the weaknesses in the system by spending additional time playing additional characters and spreading the rewards thinner among my ineligible characters" is great from a "I'm glad you found a way to be content" perspective. As a defense for the weaknesses in the first place though, it's rather lacking.

While I'd agree that there are plenty of NPC groups already in the game that could count as already being of the vigilante persuasion, I don't think there's really any group that could be seen as entirely rogue.

I'd think that a rogue group would be just as willing to work with Longbow as it would with Arachnos. They'll do whatever job, as long as it pays. Neither side would fully trust them, of course. But they would be great to use as intermediaries between black and white.

Some rogue groups might also be interested in keeping both both black and white fighting against each other. Especially if, say, they enjoy the killing they make in selling weapons and equipment to both Arachnos and Longbow...

Oh hey, you know, this almost describes what the Crey corporation does. Only the countess Crey is a bit too much of a card carrying villain, and that whole "Paragon Protector" thing they got going. But they totally got the "selling weapons to both sides" thing going on.

Now that I think about it some more, the devs could totally make a rogue faction out of the combined hero and villain markets.

Right now, they're still pretending to be different, what that you still have the Black Market trucks in the Isles, and the Wentworths buildings in Paragon. They could both be replaced with something a bit more dashing, says I. There could be rogue-only contacts for them, with missions and arcs where the main concern is keeping those trade routes open and keeping both Longbow and Arachnos out of their affairs.

Maybe you could even have the occasional "rogue with a heart of gold" thing going on, where some Evil McNasty villain has absconded with a doomsday device for their own nefarious purposes. Of course you're just going after them because they stole it from the warehouse or failed/refused to pay you (because they're evil!), or something. Then after you defeat the bad guy, the Longbow come in and try to arrest you and take the doomsday weapon for safe keeping, and then you get to do your tricky magic to get away from them.

Or something like that.