RE-revamp blue side.

So now that the VIP players have finally gotten a chance to see City of Heroes Freedom on the live servers, we can judge for ourselves whether or not it's really all that. In my opinion, it totally is. I was planning on letting my sub lapse in October, but I must say, the new content and features have made me reconsider.

Now onto the point of this post. One of the problems I had with blue side pre-Freedom was that it was just too boring. Constant "Go talk to this guy" and "Go kill 5 of these guys" with hardly any real missions at all. Now, post-freedom, and early blue side content is finally getting the attention it deserves. Brand-spanking new contacts along with new story-arcs are definitely a plus.

Now, as I'm playing through this new content, I'm thinking to myself "Wow, I might actually consider making more heroes now!" Before Freedom hit, I would always start prospective hero characters in Praetoria; I hated blue side that much.

So I'm having a blast with my new Beam Rifle/Time defender (Loving Beam Rifle by the way, great job Paragon Studios!) and I'm around level 14, doing some solo missions. Around this time I completed a safeguard mission and my detective wanted to give me a new contact. Well, new is rather subjective, as these were the old contacts that have always existed in the game, but I figured "What the heck, might as well."

I hop right on over to my new contact and introduce myself. The contact in question is one Dr. Trevor Seaborn. When I click Ask about available missions, I am immediately reminded of exactly why I hated blue side so much in the first place.

"You should go talk to LT. David Wincott in the Hollows. He could use your help."

Ah, those words that make me cringe every time I read them in-game. Oh the frustrating moments I've had trekking all the way to the hollows just to complete a stupid mission. Even with Long Range Teleport, I still have to make the return trip all the way back to Seaborn's idiot self. After I finally make it back to the good doctor, I am greeted with yet another blast from the not-so-pleasant past.

"Hey, did you ever hear of Hero Corps? They've got this awesome service to increase your difficulty!"

If I recall correctly, Twinshot already introduced me to Hero Corps and their difficulty services. I don't need to be reminded a second time thank you very much. But I guess Mr. Seaborn want to make sure I know exactly what Hero Corps is. I think you can see where I'm getting at here.

My plea is this: re-revamp blue side. I'm not talking a total revamp; I'm simply requesting that somebody go through the clutter of age-old hero missions and remove/alter the ones that really aren't needed. We already have several contacts now that introduce themselves via pop-up windows. Would it really be that hard to add a pop-window for Lt. Wincott or Faultline? Must I really walk all the way to Skyway city to learn about Bloody Bay? Why do I have to trek from the far north of independence port all the way down to the south just to play fed-ex for some lazy contact?

I really like what's been done with Atlas Park; it breathes new life into content that was really starting to show it's age. Now if we can just bring some of the older contacts up to the standards of today, we can finally redeem blue side from its curse-of-aging. It would make this would-be hero very happy.

I'm hoping that this is something they're already intending to do over time.

I really hope they don't- OH NEW SHINY!

Yeah, that pretty much illustrates my jaded outlook on the Devs attention span for stuff that's actually good, useful and good for the future of the game, rather than the 'new big thing'.

Revamps, especially after seven years, are critical. Blueside more-so than Redside suffers badly from overdosing on badly written, bad mechanic contacts who are about as fun as getting smacked in the face with a bottle. At least with that encounter you might get a cool scar to show off to people and make up outrageous stories to go with...

Redside suffers from it a little, mostly 'Hey, go see the PvP contacts!' Uh...why? I have no inclination of PvPing. Nor would anyone in their right mind (Disclaimer: Once upon a time I liked PvP. It wasn't perfect, but neither is anything. And then came a little thing called I13...)

So, yeah. In case anyone somehow wasn't clear on my stance on this;

REVAMP > NEW 'SHINY'!

Quote:

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.

Quote:

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

I hope it's not the terribad treatment they gave redside.

They have already said they are working on another zone for revamp. They said it is one that is not mentioned very often on the forums, so my guess is FF or Bricks.

For your frustration with Wincott, for future reference, you have a button on your Contact list that opens the Contact Finder. It doesn't show all the contacts in the game, just the ones that are newer and level approriate (Unfortunately it also doesn't remove contacts you are finished with very fast.) If you haven't met one of the contacts on the Finder, you can teleport to him. (This part doesn't work if you get a pop up saying the contact wants to meet you, like with Montague. The Finder considers that pop up as "meeting" that contact.)

David Wincott does appear in it, and you can use it to teleport to him. That saves you steps that direction. A QOL improvement that was also added to the Hollows. The small shed that is there at the fences near Wincott? It will teleport you any zone. One last thing, if you go talk to Wincott at any point before talking to one of the contacts like Seaborn, you will not get sent to talk to Wincott. With the new teleport stuff, at some point just tp to Wincott, then tp back to Atlas and go on your way, never seeing him again unless you want to.

Edit: Once thing to remember about the Atlas revamp. They worked on it for the last year. So getting the other stuff redone will not be fast.

I'm going to have to agree they need to revamp the way missions send you around so much. I don't mind being given 3-4 rikti hunts in crey's back to back. People complain but then kill 4 times that many in a mission lol. I DO mind being sent to something 5+ minutes travel time away every other mission.

Just re-map the doors for alot of missions to be in zone leading to a truck, sub, helicopters, etc. Or use more "talk to me again to start" type missions. The occassional trek ain't bad. having it be constant sucks.


Also, in addition to making missions not "omg run around all of paragon repeatedly", extend the merits reward to the entire time. There are reasons people don't run normal missions much anymore. The time vs fun and time vs reward is badly crippled in comparison to other things.

I can never remember who gives out the mission (It might be Maxwell Christopher) but there's a higher-level mission to investigate the Family or somesuch nonsense.

The 'investigation' involves clicking around 40 glowies, all of which are required for mission complete.

It was clearly 'filler' content and nothing more. It's stuff like that that needs a drastic overhaul.

Some 35-39 content updates would be nice. And some 40-44, and 45-50. I sometimes just cannot face heading into the RWZ because I want to avoid the excessive travelling and 20 missions in an arc of fighting nothing but Devouring Earth Sentries (instead of hordes of Rikti...). And Cimeroran 'content' involves me travelling between Primal and the Past anyway.

Part of the problem going forward is that they want to focus on new. But sometimes changing the old is something new. Like Faultline. The Hollows. I always felt that contacts should be updated. Mind you, there are some good arcs there, just not many. They give merits, and it's different than radios, hero tips and so on. One thing they need to do, is make the missions in the same zone like the signature arc, or at least keep the travel to a minimum. Also, the defeat X-number of enemies, 1 or 2 max, if that.