Villians how to fix redside

Haha, well (again) we're only in the 20-30 range red-side (Westin is a 40+ Contact, right?). So far, all of the mishes we've done have felt more lackey-ish than like that of an up-and-coming villain.

Although, I suppose, all villains start somewhere. I guess we're more "Henchman 21" (Venture Bros.) than what your typical comic-book villain may start as.

Not such a bad thing, since 21 is a total bad-***.

But we've barely scratched the surface of the content on either side, so my comments are just those of a CoH newb. That's why I made sure to point that out.

Yes!

No!

...er, let me clarify that last bit.

I would not mind PvP instances of Perez Park or whatever (or even a PvP open-world server). But no PvP, voluntary or otherwise, outside of designated, gated PvP zones, please.

"Longbow" has always weighed down on City of Villains like a cancer, and it's the manifestation of what I feel is a profound misunderstanding on the part of the development team. That was the decision to equate Arachnos with "evil" and make all villains implicitly aligned with them while equating Longbow with "good" and having all heroes implicitly aligned with them. You can see this in most PvP zones, where the fight is supposed to be good vs. evil but is, in fact, Arachnos vs. Longbow with players simply taking sides. I call this "a profound misunderstanding" because not all heroes want to associate with Longbow and not all villains want to associate with Arachnos, and not just in instances of "greater threat" co-op content.

Hero factions like the Legacy Chain and Wyvern and even the PPD fall by the wayside, because every time good has to oppose evil, it's always Longbow vs. Arachnos. Even in instances when factions like the 5th Council or the Circle of Thorns or Malta may be more appropriate, Arachnos are still "the big bads." Good and evil only ever exist through their representatives, and good and evil are only ever expressed by loyalty to one of those representatives. Granted, recent content has done a lot to move us away from this horrible status quo, but that honestly is how the game was originally envisioned - less good and evil, more Arachnos and Longbow. That's why people were and are sick of fighting Longbow all the damn time - because the original writers seem to have honestly though fighting Longbow is the same as fighting "heroes" when it actual practice it's like fighting the same one hero over and over again.

Giving the Legacy Chain and Wyvern a greater presence in the Isles and extending their level range up to 50 would help. Inventing new hero groups who AREN'T morally ambiguous and part of co-op content would help, too.

I suggested the same a while ago. In fact, I suggested having most enemy faction that aren't outwardly aggressive use this tech. One of the reasons for the "Destined One" thing is that the game at Launch didn't support the ability to NOT make Arachnos soldiers attack us on sight, so they needed an excuse for them to attack us on sight while we're still technically allied to Arachnos. Enter Recluse's "Darwinian" government, where beat cops are ENCOURAGED to attack us so as to weed out the weak. This produced the unfortunate consequence of having us be officially sanctioned to go protect an Arachnos base, yet having to fight through a platoon of Arachnos soldiers just to GET to the base. This... Never really made sense, and excuses for it just make it more awkward, and furthermore make Arachnos come off as more incompetent, when its own agents keep its own bases from being saved.

I'd suggest making ALL Arachnos soldiers actually stationed at Forts have yellow reticles so that we can move about in their forts more freely. I'd further suggest making the bulk of Arachnos soldiers in the field use yellow reticles, outside of a few ******** who just don't like player characters and will attack us on sight despite their orders. You know those guys that contemplate "Hey, if we stand here, we can harass people as they come off the ferry. Wanna?" They're sufficient jerks to leave aggressive, but I'd suggest making most Arachnos soldiers neutral until provoked.

One big reason Arachnos often comes off as incompetent is that their soldiers are incompetent ********, more concerned with harassing people than being professional soldiers. So while the Council builds bases and works tirelessly towards an objective, Arachnos is always locked in internal strife. They lose bases all the time and no-one gives a crap. In fact, I'm often PRAISED for having taken out Arachnos bases because "they deserved it" or because, meh... Who cares about random Arachnos bases? The whole organisation comes off as being so crippled by internal strife as to be ineffectual, so when the story plays them up as the big bads, it comes off as hollow. The game just doesn't build them up as scary. It builds them up as bumbling and incompetent.

Having most of their soldiers be professionals and stick to their given tasks, rather than spazzing out and attacking villains would be a great way to achieve this. It makes them feel a lot more organised. I'd extend this to the RIP and Cage Consortium guards, as well. They have no reason to attack us, after all, unless we cause trouble of some sort. I'd go a far as to give yellow reticles to every faction that makes sense to not attack player characters on sight villain-side.

Like I said, that's not necessary. Not all of Paragon City is heavily policed. In fact, Hazard Zones are called this specifically because they're zones where the city overtly CANNOT and DOES NOT police. Perez Park, Eden, Crey's Folly, all of these places are out of control. So why not have a few bad sections of City of Heroes where authorities DO try to police, but just don't have the resources to do so? Street Spawns would be primarily PPD cops and Longbow soldiers, as well as the occasional costumed hero boss, but because sections are so lawless, the city can't afford to send kill squads at the drop of a hat. If you, say, rob a bank, bomb a few buildings, unleash a demon and antagonise the aliens and then duck back into the abandoned warehouse district, then yeah, you'll be hunted down - you'd be the most wanted. But for smaller crimes, like knocking over science labs, kidnapping people and so forth... The city just can't spare the resources from protecting the other zones and rebuilding. There is only so much manpower to go around.

HAVING legitimate law enforcement isn't the same as having an EFFECTIVE legitimate law enforcement.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

You have numbers to back this up?


-Tries his hand a trolling the same way everyone else does.

That's the case in Mercy Beta, btw

The Devs actually did provide some numbers a ways back in a livestream, something like a 60-40 Hero-Villain split.

That said, I for one don't think that means villains need 'fixing'. Some folks simply never will play Villains, and that's perfectly fine and also up to them.
What would be more advisable is listening to those who do play villains and try and improve it for them (less lackey-ism, make the skybox less grungy, etc)

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

That's actually the one concept I feel is safe enough to assume just by default. I'm not questioning that there is a significant number of perfectly normal, good people who simply prefer playing villains, but saying "most people want to be heroes" is still something that holds true the majority of the time. No-one sees himself as evil, and most people need to identify with, sympathise with or at least LIKE the protagonist of the stories they experience, and heroes are simply easier to like as they are written to be liked most of the time.

Everything I've said up to this point consists of ways of altering red-side to help ease people who need to like the protagonist of a story, and have looked at ways to allow us to actually LIKE our own villains. To a large extent, the original writers of City of Villains seem to have expected us to hate the characters we create, so having a game which constantly humiliates and demeans them was the way to go. Clearly, we'd like to see bad things happen to the people we hate, right? Trouble is, not that many people like stories full of people they hate. As Spoony says, when heels fight, the audience has no-one to root for. Villain-side needs someone to root for.

So I hear, and it's incredibly encouraging. I hear it may be a bit... Unpleasant, though, but it depends on how gratuitous and malicious the evil is, as opposed to how self-serving it is to the villain. Truth be told, I need less opportunities for my villains to be evil and more opportunities for them to be badass

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

I'd love that, too. Also, if they used the yellow-conning system for Crey in non-hazard zones blueside.

And maybe the drones could be set not to shoot at yellow-conning NPCs. I worry about how anyone in Arachnos gets to work, what with being droned every time they venture near the transport system.

I wouldn't mind Villains getting flagged for doing villainous things like robbing banks, setting off bombs, or attacking civilians. Do these things enough and you can get attacked and sent to the local PPD jail where you have to escape, but your flag is clear again. This could be separate from missions from contacts where you can further your greater career.

The drones teleport them to their cubicles.

Actually, thinking about this... Why not just use regular ambushes. You knock over a bank, you get ambushed by PPD when you walk out. You release a sentient virus in the city, you get attacked by Longbow when you leave. It would be a good way to have villains in legitimate cities harassed for breaking the law while still allowing them to effectively get away scot free.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Im down with that too. The bigger the crime/criminal, the bigger the response. Pull off something Doom-level and expect to get hit by PPD or Longbow heavies.

I was trying to figure out how Villains roaming the streets of Paragon could have similar XP opportunities as Heroes do right now. Heroes are constantly given the opportunity to "clean up the streets" in every zone so what should Villains do? Are all existing critter groups in Paragon equally antagonistic to Villains as Heroes? I don't believe the Devs would look kindly upon the idea of attacking random citizens like in a GTO sandbox.

Police or minions from one of the several hero groups could have an increased presence around certain buildings like we see in Kings Row, Galaxy and Atlas. And I don't see a problem with having some official response meet you in the zone after you finished your mission, just not an army of them like in the Mayhem missions. After all you are a known Villain.

What fun is it if nobody tries to stop you.

I think we were led to believe this was what Going Rogue represented. Yet another misleading bait and switch, another unforgivable dropped ball. This was really too good of an opportunity not to take, one that would have brought people back in droves, I think, of their heroes could travel to the Isles and try their hand at cleaning up the streets there, and the villains could do their own thing, attempting to carry out their own schemes in Paragon City. Just re reading the blurbs about it, it was in fact what was advertised, and of course, never done. Shocker there. At least they're consistent.

The chances of that happening are close to zero - like minus 5 or so