I know it'll never happen, but it's fun to think and talk about: a third faction for characters that don't fit neatly into hero or villain. This would encompass anything from anti-heroes to morally grey to just neutral characters. I like making these types of characters but always end up having to just pick the one they're closer to even though it's not quite right. The tech mentor could be Slade/Deathstroke, but I'd love to see Jason/Red Hood purely out of bias and love of the character and how perfect it would be for a character I want to make (hopefully they increase character slots sometime, I'm just about maxed out). Constantine would be great for the magic mentor if not for the fact that he's already got a role, so instead Black Adam would probably be good. Meta is a bit harder, but the best, and funniest, one I've thought of for it is Bizarro. No idea what their safehouses would be. IDK what could be their equivalent to the police stations/night clubs and to the Watchtower/HOD.
The question is, if they can do it? The core of the game has Villains and Heroes. Adding another faction might be impossible? But need a green name to confirmed. I'd like it nonetheless, if it wouldn't break anything in the game.
If they did it and if they gave us a faction token and if bizzaro was a me tor option i’d buy the token an swap in a heart beat just because. My wallet is open, come get my $ plz lol I’d also prefer if this happened that bizzaro randomly checked in on me ya know. See how im doing. Said some completly stupid s*** while i was mid-raid, popped into my base on occasion for a drink an to beat on my sparring target....... one can dream hahaha
The Core of the game USED to be Heroes vs Villains. Good Guys and Bad Guys fighting it out on the streets of Gotham and Metropolis sounded good, but Villains were always hopelessly outnumbered. I think another faction is possible-- you'd just need some new voice-overs and a leveling chain that put together a mix of hero and villain instances. Guy Gardner could work as a meta mentor. Etrigan for Magic maybe? You could have Amanda Waller take the place of Calculator or Oracle. All this is fun to talk about, but really the Devs probably have too much other stuff going on to really consider it. Plus, it doesn't fit in with their general strategy of pushing all the players together in end-game content (which is where I think most players want to be anyway).
Something like a third faction seems like something that should be put in place before launch, and trying to put one in after the game has been running for this long could be more of a headache than it's worth. But even setting that aside, having played a game where there WERE three factions available for players to use I can say that the neutral faction doesn't always get the attention folks might think and more often than not ends up on the short end of the stick. SWG had Imperial, Rebel and Neutral factions throughout, but the Neutral faction got left out of the Galactic Civil War aspect of the game most of the time. They couldn't use Rebel or Imperial items (including starships) and a lot of content that might have been focused on Neutral players was accessible by players of all factions (content at Jabba's Palace and Nym's Stronghold). We've already had players in this game complaining that the content seems to be more heavily favored towards heroic actions (even if the motivations in the actions are different, but that's a detail some folks overlook) with just two factions to work with. I can't see anything getting better in those regards by adding another faction to the mix.
This might help in that regard... as we could have more missions that are of a questionable moral nature... and take the burden of forcing villains into doing good deeds all of the time.
But the "why" that provides the reason for villains to be doing basically the same things as heroes is generally provided in the comm messages we get from Calculator/whatever villain is the focus of that piece of content. Could the aftermath or result of those actions be better expressed or shown? Absolutely, that's something that's been hit-or-miss when it comes to content. But we're generally in a "the good guys win" type of universe, so there's only so far they can go with "the bad guys win" scenarios. On the other hand, if any episodes follow a storyline that builds on what happened in the previous episode, that might give the devs the chance to show the results of what the bad guys are up to.
I could see this being a reality in the game's future, actually. But, I think it ought to be an option you can choose after selecting a hero or villain morality, something that could be unlocked during quests; an RPG heavy element. It would be pretty lit.
COX (City of Heroes/Villains) managed to implement additional Vigilante/Rogue factions to the game after Launch and even had special story arcs for them. Even had a way of slowly taking a Hero turning them into a Vigilante and then finally a full blown Villain (if one chose to go that far) or an instant switch. Redemption arcs would be a interesting new addition and would definitely add some flavor to the game. I know City of Heroes is the gold standard for Superhero MMORPGS and a different kind of animal gameplay wise but it wouldn't be impossible.
Officially, not great. But unofficially, damn well. I haven't played since I started playing this but there are a lot of users and they also have a dedicated fanbase making new content for certain servers. So yeah it's pretty good overall. I just can't really see myself going back except for maybe once in a while.
