City of Heroes

Ya, they punked me. ET  is a joke now. 2 slow attacks do me no good in RV, especially with the previous damage nerf appearing even more pronounced. The extra almost 2 seconds and stun nerf makes it too easy for even squishy vills to self heal or phase or whatever. When I think of the time, and the hundreds of millions of inf spent just to compete, and then actually lvling a farmer (so far to 43) to feed my wp tank for the hundreds of millions more I needed to do him up right. 93 wasted lvls, and all this after they promised way back when, "no more nerfs". Bastards. I haven't logged back in since I logged in to test it in RV,  and banter in broadcast in PI about it an hour after I posted here, and haven't even had the desire to.

I only played the free trial an its a cool game, hell i love it just for the character customization! i love that. i wish more mmo's would do that. i havent played a game where i could customize how my toon looked on a decent scale since UO. iv missed it since then an CoH/V blows it away. I just dont want to pay a sub fee for it cuz im playin other games and waiting on WAR.. but i still think mmo's should do large scale customizing like that. i hate seeing people who are the same class looking just like me. armor dye only goes so far.. ya know? lol (but thank god they have that atleast in WAR, i HATED that you couldent dye stuff in games like wow)

Originally posted by gorguk

I only played the free trial an its a cool game, hell i love it just for the character customization! i love that. i wish more mmo's would do that. i havent played a game where i could customize how my toon looked on a decent scale since UO. iv missed it since then an CoH/V blows it away. I just dont want to pay a sub fee for it cuz im playin other games and waiting on WAR.. but i still think mmo's should do large scale customizing like that. i hate seeing people who are the same class looking just like me. armor dye only goes so far.. ya know? lol (but thank god they have that atleast in WAR, i HATED that you couldent dye stuff in games like wow)

I agree, character customization is #1 in mmos, but nerfs suck.

Well I would classify it as a mission based story driven MMO lacking in mission quality and story.  Either make a game sandbox and attract to the niche crowd, or make it rich in story with quality missions ala WoW.  If they would have added more sandbox elements, removed levels and made it 100% skill based, added real world player housing, focused more on super bases and labs, and fleshed out the economy to be more player driven it would be attracting a good bit of players.

At the same time if it would have just made it level based with minimal customization, end game gear grind, levels, in depth missions, in depth story, and meaningless pvp then it could attract more as well.

Right now it's just kind of in the middle and it gives everyone who leans on any side of any fence a reason to cancel their sub at least once a month. 

Well anyone that says IO's aren't any good til 50 obviously either (1) hasn't played since Issue 9 or (2) didn't bother with them.  Besides earning the various badges for crafting them, some of the set bonuses are quite nice at lower levels. 

Not to mention certain IO's are actually better at a lower level than at 50.  Example:  some IO's give a flat bonus to something, such as 5% chance to build up each time that power is used.  Now if you exemplar down to more than 3 levels below the level of that IO... it doesn't work.  So if I had all 50 IO's some would stop working if I exemplared lower than 47.

Missions are heavily story based.  I think some people don't bother to read why they are doing what they are doing.  Plus if you think it's repetative, go play EQ1 and camp raster for the monk epic.   You don't like cave missions, then don't pick them.  Cimerora, RWZ, Flashback missions were all added in the last 3 patches.  Would take a long time to work through all of them before they started getting "repetative".

Originally posted by DrowNoble

Well anyone that says IO's aren't any good til 50 obviously either (1) hasn't played since Issue 9 or (2) didn't bother with them.  Besides earning the various badges for crafting them, some of the set bonuses are quite nice at lower levels. 

Not to mention certain IO's are actually better at a lower level than at 50.  Example:  some IO's give a flat bonus to something, such as 5% chance to build up each time that power is used.  Now if you exemplar down to more than 3 levels below the level of that IO... it doesn't work.  So if I had all 50 IO's some would stop working if I exemplared lower than 47.

Missions are heavily story based.  I think some people don't bother to read why they are doing what they are doing.  Plus if you think it's repetative, go play EQ1 and camp raster for the monk epic.   You don't like cave missions, then don't pick them.  Cimerora, RWZ, Flashback missions were all added in the last 3 patches.  Would take a long time to work through all of them before they started getting "repetative".

Drow, u on NCsoft's fanboi payroll? For someone who hates to repeat himself you certainly don't take the time to read what other people say. Doesn't surprise me, ur just like all the other mindless fanbis in any other game. Pathetic. I said they're not really worth it til 50 unless they are unique imo, its not like most players don't agree, all ya gotta do is look at their personal info or ask em. I lvl to 50 in less than a month because I recruit teams and play normally +4-6 my lvl til this last toon( blaster) and with xp smoothing its actually gotten too fast to 50. So lvls fly by and I respec ( got 2 vet respecs) and sell my SOs when they get red in the 40s. Since i/os don't out do Sos til almost 30, money spent on them prior to that will give less benefit on their primary unless unique. Also since I left at issue 10 and have been back for months, apparently its not "obvious" I haven't played since issue 9 and yes I tried them after some suggested to, but why spend the time or money?  I've gotten I/os at 40 before since thats when they start to outdo 50 SOs, but I usually just buy the 40 and 45 SOs since their cheaper and faster to get and I respec to get money back for them at 47. Doesn't matter if its cost effective or even if lower non-unique i/os benefit a bit more, I only want 50 i/os on my toon whan I get to 50 and have only but so many respecs to use, if I frankenslot on the way up I'm gonna end up just slotting over most eventually or paying money for a respec token or doing the respec TF when I don't want to. 

Oh, and yes, most people don't bother to read "why" they're doing what their doing because you're doing the same thing you always do, putting a different spin on it changes nothing. They're also not playing to bone up on meaningless story trivia, they're there to log in, play and log out. I played  EQ1back when a Wurmslayer was considered a top flight weapon, and I was the only shadowknight on Vallon Zek that I saw actually use one (with a shield) at my lvl. That game was repetitive if you were camping for a specific drop, or stayed in the same spot, but for the most part had many maps and dungeons, all of which were persistant, and  whose story held some interest because the enemies you fought and where you fought them were so varied. Fighting Orcs in crushbone, with pks lurking about and butchering almost the whole zone at times, was different from fighting drow in Mistmoore with player corpses strewn all over the floor from mistmoores troops or fighting Kromzek giants in Velious or various monsters in Unrest, where it was a battle to even get thru the zone entrance sometimes because of trains. That game was frustrating tho because it was really targeted for the hardcore player, at least on my server, I mean it might take you an hour just to get somewhere, and the ability to lose xp and/or a lvl and the powers that came with it , and of course the PKs and the ultraslow grind at 35, so I quit it more than 6 years ago, because I prefer casual play, in then out, have fun and done, and thanks to sk'ing/mentoring, doesn't matter if you outlvl or are outlvld by your online peers, you can still always team. With coh, the combat experience and dynamics are essentially the same at every lvl, making the story behind it meaningless, I mean it doesn't matter if I'm rescuing Wanda Sims from the cot or Carnival, or if the freaks have some alloy or some machine, if I know how to fight them. With any group, they have their skills to overcome and you build the team to do that, its fun, but it is repetitive. Btw, how do you NOT choose a cave mish, I think all of Paragon would like to know, if its an arc, do you just quit, does it say cave in most cases? or maybe autocomplete every 3 days? I mean how do you know what map the next mission is gonna be on before you pick it on a radio? Also, a flashback mission by definition is rehashing the old missions which are no different than most of the other mishes given at higher levels, I've done RWZ mishes til my eyes bled including the TF and they are super repetative, couldn't care less about Cimerora, by the time that came along I was only interested in pvp. You see Drow, most players in coh are casual and just like to play, if they can get some extra stuff they'll do what they have to to get it, but the story is essentially irrelevant which is why you never really hear people talk about the "stories", just what arc will get them what they want. Badge hunting has its moments, but only for accolades imo, I mean wtfrig to I care about getting a badge that doesn't benefit in any real way? To show off? To who exactly? 

For me Coh is a casual, action driven game attuned to teaming, apparently you are a hardcore player that actually cares why you are going to go stomp some vill and have some belief in the rationale for doing so , perhaps you see coh as more of a virtual world than a game and therefore can't understand that most people see the reasons for doing anything in it as universal:  xp,inf and/or fun.  So instead of getting your stockings all bunged up wondering why everyone else is so crazy for saying its repetitive, maybe you need to assess why you you can't enjoy it for what you like it for and have your opinion, and let us enjoy it for what we like it for and have ours.

As a long-time CoX player (perma subscribed since release) this is an interesting thread for me. I've enjoyed the game all this time although I shift around alts a lot and have only one L50 character!

I guess the question I have is less "what are the problems" with CoX as the same information comes out - no loot and repetitveness - and this has been addressed to a great degree.

The question is perhaps... what do you enjoy in the MMO you do play?

One thing of note is the fact that people bemoan the number of instances in the game. Why? Why not "street-sweep" and enjoy the scenery? Each city zone is actually pretty damn large and you could easily level to 50 if that was the type of game you want to play.

Is the problem that all the quest/mission givers direct you to instances rather than to the outside world? Is it a lack of handholding in that regard?

I must admit, I'm one of those who finds the "repetitive" criticism a bit baffling.  In terms of variety of graphics, tilesets, etc., and quest stories (which I do read and think are good) CoX is no more repetitive than any other game, and in fact it's less repetitive in some ways, because combat with one combination of powersets can feel completely different against the same mobs from another combination of powersets.

I think what gives the feeling that CoX is more repetitive that other MMOs is partly the psychological thing of it being set in the city rather than the country, but mostly the map layouts - (not the graphics/tilesets but the actual layouts) there are like 4 or 5 standard "office" layouts, 4 or 5 standard "mine" layouts, etc., etc.  Once you've had few heroes to 50 and have numerous alts (like most hardcore CoX-ers :) ) you get to know all those layouts, so the missions go by rote, you're almost on automatic pilot, because you know:

"Ah yes, there;'s the L-shaped corridor that goes to the left, after going through that there will be some mobs just around the corner, then there's that corridor that goes into the little room with that has stairs going down at the end of it" etc., etc., etc., etc.

It's this that gives the game a repetitive feeling.  If Cryptic would just introduce about an equal number of layout types for each tileset as they already have, and jumble them all up again, it would, I am sure, give the game an added burst of longevity.