City of Heroes/Villains

Not a bad primer, D Kellis, although I'd qualify the 'there's nothing to do at 50'-

• Optimize your character. 50's when the Ultra-Rares ('purples') start dropping and are useable, and you can nearly double your character's effectiveness, possibly even more. Carefully purpled-out 'toons are capable of some utterly insane stunts (like soloing content meant for teams of eight >.>)
• High-Level Task-Forces/Strike Forces- there isn't a lot of end-game content, but the Statesman Task Force, Lord Recluse Strike Force, Lady Grey Task Force, and Imperious Task Force are tough enough to be a respectable challenge, and they're geared towards upper-level characters. Plus there's a new Task Force and Strike Force hitting with Issue 15, although I can't say much of anything about them, since I haven't tried either yet.
• A lot of the Mission Architect (player-created) content is geared towards high-level play, as was pointed out, and there's some pretty decent stuff out there.
• Hamidon Raids/Mothership Raids- They're not quite raids in the sense that other MMORP Gs use the term, but they're still a massive free-for-all against a huge, nasty enemy. Good times to try at least once or twice.
• Badge-Hunting. If your 'gotta catch 'em all!' fervour translates into an MMO setting, Matrix, you'll probably both love and loathe badging; love it because it presses your 'whee, many new shinies!' button, and loathe it because some many of those badges are a pain in the buttocks to get.

There's also the Shadow Shard Task Forces from 40+, but they're long and tedious and most people never want to do the first 40-45 one more than once.

Many people on Virtue see level 50 as the "this is what the character is supposed to be" marker in terms of roleplayed ability. This is both discouraged (or at least looked at askance) by those trying to come up with Rules For Roleplaying, as well as quite prevalent nonetheless.

The new task force and strike force in the upcoming issue release has garnered criticism for being "yet more high-level content". This is hot on the heels of complaints about "not enough high-level content". So it goes.

In any case, the level ranges I see most people quit the game over are 15-19, when the endurance really starts suffering; 33-40, when the experience curve slows noticeably; and 50, thanks to the "now what?" question. This obviously doesn't include the level 1-5 people who decided not to bother after trying out the game for an hour or so.

Basically, 15-19 and 30+ are the danger zones for getting bored of the game. Just a heads up.

Ah, alright, thanks.

Also: I won't be getting it on Steam. Korgmeister got it on Steam and he told me that Steam and City of Heroes don't integrate very well.

It varies. I can never play City Of Heroes while Steam is running, due to lag and rubberband issues. Others swear by the integration.

Couldn't tell you on the Steam thing, I've never bothered with it; but the fastest and surest way I've found to get the City of Heroes thing running is via the Play NC store; given that you're going to have to give them your credit card number anyway (assuming you aren't buying gamecards, at any rate), you may as well just buy the code directly from them.

If you're buying gamecards, feel free to ignore that bit of advice >.>

Another thing I'd add is that the Hollows is a lot nicer now than it used to be. The massive groups of high-level enemies are restricted to certain areas within the zone rather than being all-over; there's even a hospital there, I think, and some repeatable missions for those fancying a change from police band missions.

This means that Frostfire is even more of a horrific introduction to pain than he was before, however.

Also, if you are playing blueside, do the Faultline zone as soon as you're able. A fun well-designed superarc with a few clever tricks and some very nice rewards, like a merchant selling pseudo-Single Origin enhancements incredibly early.

Things to avoid discussing on the official forums, in no particular order:

• Defenders (specifically their roles; this is not confined to the "healer" thing; many take offense at "buffer", "debuffer", or the merest suggestion that they are in a support role)
• Stalkers
• Dominators
• PVP
• RP
• Epic Archetypes (Kheldians and Soldiers of Arachnos)
• The in-game economy, and all it involves
• Unlockable cosmetic options of any sort
• Badges
• Mission Architect
• The future of the game
• The past of the game
• Game difficulty
• The Invention system (partly because it ties in closely with the in-game economy)
• World Of Warcraft (or any other MMO)
• Forum moderation and moderators
• Perceived inequality of heroside and villainside content
• Postcounts
• Effectiveness vs. flashiness
• The numbers behind any part of the combat, but mostly tohit and accuracy

Some of these are Internet Backdraft types, while others bring in so many kneejerk reactions and counter-reactions that getting any sort of useful information is next to impossible without slow and careful questioning over a period of months.

You may hear that the City Of Heroes forums are "better" than the forums of other MMO games. This may be true, but this is a relative measurement; the forums are still not actually good.

Well, I'm not surprised that people hate Stalkers. I can imagine them getting the same reaction as Rogues in World Of Warcraft.

But why is RP not something to talk about on there?

Well, I guess it doesn't really matter, since I won't be going on its forums anyways. Never did it for any other game.

Actually, for Stalkers and Dominators, it's not because of PVP reasons, but more of game balance reasons. We have people going "why is this archetype so weak in PVE" and other people going "I don't know what you're talking about, my character is awesome" and yet other people going "learn to play" and so on and so forth. Any change the devs make to balance an exploit or make the class more appealing to more players will invariably completely negate someone's preferred playstyle.

RP is not a good discussion topic because it almost always turns into "what is RP?" and "you can't define RP" and "you're not even allowed to think about defining RP" and "my RP is better than yours" and so on and so forth.

Note also that discussions on unlockable powers and such can be quite civil. Discussions on unlockable cosmetic costume options that have absolutely no game mechanic effect are, in contrast, instant Serious Business Internet Backdraft.

edited 19th Jun '09 11:33:51 AM by dkellis

RP is a miserable pile of secrets, obviously.

Alright, I'm about to get City of Heroes from the NC Soft website.

Oh and Tech, I'll be using game cards. That's how I played World Of Warcraft and it'll be how I play City Of Heroes.

Hmm, it made me buy a month on top of the free one I get. I used the credit card... But subsequent months should be game cards.

Nnh.

Does anybody even go to Perez Park? I have two quests there and I don't know how to abandon quests and Steel Canyon is still too high of a level for me T_T

No, no one ever goes to Perez Park if they can help it.

God I hate that zone.

Well then how do I abandon quests in this game?

You need to talk to the contact who gave you the quest, he should give you a dialogue option to complete the mission (it's a debug feature really) and then just don't pick the next mish in the chain.

Ah, okay. Kinda stupid though, that I can only abandon once every three days.

Of course, it's even more stupid that the game doesn't even have a proper abandoning mechanic.

And nobody wants me in their AE teams T_T

How am I supposed to level up now, damnit?

edited 19th Jun '09 3:12:03 PM by Matrix

Yeah, and you don't want to know for how long we had to wait for what we got...

EDIT: Police band missions?

edited 19th Jun '09 3:13:04 PM by Arilou

Okay, I did an AE farming thingy. It was kinda boring, but.. holy shit.

I have a fuckton of influence and am now level 20.

edited 19th Jun '09 4:57:55 PM by Matrix

Aaaargh wtf.

Level 20 sucks ><

No freaking endurance!

See, this is why the Fitness Power Pool was mentioned, Matrix. The final power (Stamina) unlocks at level 20, and should take care of a lot of your endurance woes. Also, Perez park can be surprisingly cool, you just need a helping hand to get started.

*grumble grumble* I took Flight...

Er... you can have up to four separate power pools on the same toon, Matrix- so you can do both without any trouble.

Yeah but I have to level up to be able to take the Fitness powers.