City of Heroes

I'm in a bit of a pickle.  The trouble is, CoX was my first MMO, which I started playing 3 years ago.  I was pretty much addicted to it for most of that time.  Recently of course I've gotten a bit bored with it - I still love the gameplay, but there's just nothing new to discover in the game any more, it's all old, I know it all pretty much back to front, and that in itself is a boring thing.

No great problem you might say, it's bound to happen eventually.

But the reason I'm a sad bunny is this.  I've been looking around for another "home" MMO, hoping to recapture the fun of what I understood from CoX to be the MMO experience.  I've tried WoW, LOTRO, PoTBS, EVE, TR, AO, EQ2, VG and AoC.  They all have good and bad aspects, and the good far outweighs the bad in every case - they're all great games in their own right, no doubt about it.  With some of them I've spent a good few weeks to a month or two, levelling up a character or two to the 20s or 30s.

But guess what?  I've spent most of my time in those games soloing. 

I hardly ever soloed in CoX.

That was what gripped me.  See, I went into CoX thinking "bah, I'm just going to solo, be a lone wolf superhero, I can't stand the thought of getting involved with other players, it's too scary and I'm pretty much a sociophobic geek".  But it all turned out so differently.  From my first experience gingerly joining a team doing Atta, which lasted for hours and hours, I was hooked on the teaming experience.  I tentatively started leading teams too, and became quite good at it, and would always form teams to do my own missions. 

For me, PUGs were the heart and soul of the experience - meeting different people every day, blasting villains in teams enjoying the old superhero banter.  Just totally enjoyable and addictive.

But in every other MMO I've tried - PUGs hardly exist.  None of those games have as easy a way of forming teams as CoX has, and they are few and far between.  Most group gameplay seems to revolve around Guilds.  But Guilds require too much time commitment (at least, if I'm to do them justice).  I did join a few SGs in CoX, and even formed one myself just so I could see what base buildilng was about, and it turned into a nice medium sized SG with lots of cool people that's still going, being run by someone else.

But hardly any PUG-ing action in the other MMOs I've tried, in comparison to CoX.  And even when you do get into a PUG, the feel of the combat in most other MMOs (with a few exceptions, like TR and AoC) is just a bit weedy.  There;s no pizzazz, no BAM, SPLAT, KERPOW, no feeling of weight in the animations, everything's floaty, the spell effects and sounds are more or less meaningless in relation to what they do, there's just no PUNCH to the combat.

And that all makes me a sad bunny.

CoX has spoiled me for the MMO experience.

No real conclusion, just thought I'd share - wonder if anybody else is in a similar position and can commiserate?

IMO I have a lot in common with your story. There was one you didn't try in your list and that is DDO. I rate CoX and DDO very high in several of the same categories. Fast/exciting combat model, DDO a little faster, CoX a little deeper. PUG's great in both, I rate DDO a little ahead here, it is all Instances and you pretty much have to be on a team after you level up a few. The built in voice chat and even better community adds to it. DDO's instances in general are better then CoX's. I play both and GW's still, stepson is trying to get me into WoW, too much downtime so far, which isn't a surprise it's a typical mmo.

CoX most definitely excels in the teamin aspect.  And, I'm not simply talking about PUP tools.  Simply that, the scaling of the missions and the synergies that teams can form without requiring a set formula is absolutely phenomenal.  People charge that CoX falls too much into the mmo formula by creating healing and crowd-control types but the truth is you can mix and match and totally do without any any archtype while still having huge amounts of fun. 

Originally posted by HorrorScope

IMO I have a lot in common with your story. There was one you didn't try in your list and that is DDO. I rate CoX and DDO very high in several of the same categories. Fast/exciting combat model, DDO a little faster, CoX a little deeper. PUG's great in both, I rate DDO a little ahead here, it is all Instances and you pretty much have to be on a team after you level up a few. The built in voice chat and even better community adds to it. DDO's instances in general are better then CoX's. I play both and GW's still, stepson is trying to get me into WoW, too much downtime so far, which isn't a surprise it's a typical mmo.

Actually I forgot about DDO, I did try that (I've also tried Neocron, which I forgot). 

I agree that DDO is a damn good game and pretty close to CoX in some ways.  I just found the feel of it somehow a bit claustrophobic.  The starting "hub" depressed me somehow. 

Maybe I should give it another chance.

Originally posted by therain93

CoX most definitely excels in the teamin aspect.  And, I'm not simply talking about PUP tools.  Simply that, the scaling of the missions and the synergies that teams can form without requiring a set formula is absolutely phenomenal.  People charge that CoX falls too much into the mmo formula by creating healing and crowd-control types but the truth is you can mix and match and totally do without any any archtype while still having huge amounts of fun. 

Yeah agreed, the scaling and the relativity of mobs to team level, and the way that can be easily adjusted to suit team composition, plus the sk/exemp system, is just pure genius.

Dammit these games are supposed to be social games.  Why do I as a casual player have to either play solo and only play with others in PUGs very occasionally or commit myself to a Guild early on???

If we use the criterion of "MMO is supposed to be a social game where the key feature is playing with other people", then, at least with respect to casual play fulfiling this criterion, CoX easily beats them all. 

Never mind all the other "classic" MMO features that CoX is supposed to be missing that make it "not a real MMO" (I've heard that pompously said sometimes).  The fact of the matter is that if you play CoX you are able to play with other human beings much faster, more easily, and more constantly, than any other MMO, without having to commit yourself to any particular group of people. 

IMHO for the casual player at least, CoX fulfils that primary criterion of being a social game better than any of the others I've tried.  They all miss that trick in comparison (barring commitment to a Guild).

I've actually come to the conclusion that maybe I should just stop forlornly trying other MMOs altogether in the hope of recapturing that casual social experience.  I mean, if I want a solo game, I might as well play dedicated solo games that have far more stuff to do for a solo player!!!

Might as well just have the occasional blast on CoX, and wait for CO, in the hope that it will have a somewhat similar ease of social use, but with a new world to play in.  (Or maybe give DDO another try, or hope that some other devleopers will pick up the ball of this fundamental point of making social gaming easy and attractive for the casual player.)

Originally posted by gurugeorge

Originally posted by HorrorScope

IMO I have a lot in common with your story. There was one you didn't try in your list and that is DDO. I rate CoX and DDO very high in several of the same categories. Fast/exciting combat model, DDO a little faster, CoX a little deeper. PUG's great in both, I rate DDO a little ahead here, it is all Instances and you pretty much have to be on a team after you level up a few. The built in voice chat and even better community adds to it. DDO's instances in general are better then CoX's. I play both and GW's still, stepson is trying to get me into WoW, too much downtime so far, which isn't a surprise it's a typical mmo.

 

Actually I forgot about DDO, I did try that (I've also tried Neocron, which I forgot). 

I agree that DDO is a damn good game and pretty close to CoX in some ways.  I just found the feel of it somehow a bit claustrophobic.  The starting "hub" depressed me somehow. 

Maybe I should give it another chance.

hmm i don't get how DDO felt claustrophobic, especially when compared to CoX. The map setup is very similar, (basically a large city, and its surrounding areas) but the instances in DDO  are larger and more varied. Plus DDO has more areas where you can roam and explore. When I read your initial post i was gonna recommend DDO, but now im not sure.

Originally posted by merv808

Originally posted by gurugeorge

Originally posted by HorrorScope

IMO I have a lot in common with your story. There was one you didn't try in your list and that is DDO. I rate CoX and DDO very high in several of the same categories. Fast/exciting combat model, DDO a little faster, CoX a little deeper. PUG's great in both, I rate DDO a little ahead here, it is all Instances and you pretty much have to be on a team after you level up a few. The built in voice chat and even better community adds to it. DDO's instances in general are better then CoX's. I play both and GW's still, stepson is trying to get me into WoW, too much downtime so far, which isn't a surprise it's a typical mmo.

 

Actually I forgot about DDO, I did try that (I've also tried Neocron, which I forgot). 

I agree that DDO is a damn good game and pretty close to CoX in some ways.  I just found the feel of it somehow a bit claustrophobic.  The starting "hub" depressed me somehow. 

Maybe I should give it another chance.

 

hmm i don't get how DDO felt claustrophobic, especially when compared to CoX. The map setup is very similar, (basically a large city, and its surrounding areas) but the instances in DDO  are larger and more varied. Plus DDO has more areas where you can roam and explore. When I read your initial post i was gonna recommend DDO, but now im not sure.

I dunno, it might just be something as simple and stupid as that there was no sky.  Maybe it was stupid of me to give it up after the first hub, or it might just be a psychological quirk of mine, but it just felt - well, like a hub with instances, whereas Paragon City felt more like a world with instances.

Originally posted by gurugeorge

Originally posted by merv808

Originally posted by gurugeorge

Originally posted by HorrorScope

IMO I have a lot in common with your story. There was one you didn't try in your list and that is DDO. I rate CoX and DDO very high in several of the same categories. Fast/exciting combat model, DDO a little faster, CoX a little deeper. PUG's great in both, I rate DDO a little ahead here, it is all Instances and you pretty much have to be on a team after you level up a few. The built in voice chat and even better community adds to it. DDO's instances in general are better then CoX's. I play both and GW's still, stepson is trying to get me into WoW, too much downtime so far, which isn't a surprise it's a typical mmo.

 

Actually I forgot about DDO, I did try that (I've also tried Neocron, which I forgot). 

I agree that DDO is a damn good game and pretty close to CoX in some ways.  I just found the feel of it somehow a bit claustrophobic.  The starting "hub" depressed me somehow. 

Maybe I should give it another chance.

 

hmm i don't get how DDO felt claustrophobic, especially when compared to CoX. The map setup is very similar, (basically a large city, and its surrounding areas) but the instances in DDO  are larger and more varied. Plus DDO has more areas where you can roam and explore. When I read your initial post i was gonna recommend DDO, but now im not sure.

 

I dunno, it might just be something as simple and stupid as that there was no sky.  Maybe it was stupid of me to give it up after the first hub, or it might just be a psychological quirk of mine, but it just felt - well, like a hub with instances, whereas Paragon City felt more like a world with instances.

no sky??? are we talking about the same game. There's a sky in DDO and you can see it right when you get off the boat.

Originally posted by merv808

Originally posted by gurugeorge

Originally posted by merv808

Originally posted by gurugeorge

Originally posted by HorrorScope

IMO I have a lot in common with your story. There was one you didn't try in your list and that is DDO. I rate CoX and DDO very high in several of the same categories. Fast/exciting combat model, DDO a little faster, CoX a little deeper. PUG's great in both, I rate DDO a little ahead here, it is all Instances and you pretty much have to be on a team after you level up a few. The built in voice chat and even better community adds to it. DDO's instances in general are better then CoX's. I play both and GW's still, stepson is trying to get me into WoW, too much downtime so far, which isn't a surprise it's a typical mmo.

 

Actually I forgot about DDO, I did try that (I've also tried Neocron, which I forgot). 

I agree that DDO is a damn good game and pretty close to CoX in some ways.  I just found the feel of it somehow a bit claustrophobic.  The starting "hub" depressed me somehow. 

Maybe I should give it another chance.

 

hmm i don't get how DDO felt claustrophobic, especially when compared to CoX. The map setup is very similar, (basically a large city, and its surrounding areas) but the instances in DDO  are larger and more