History YMMV / CityOfHeroes

*** Sadly for NC Soft, it's also lead to them becoming HateSink for the fans, as they made it [[ItsPersonal very personal]] for those who loved the game, resulting in NC Soft taking such a hit to their reputation in America that most of their other games took insane hits to their player bases as many of those who were playing them were City of Heroes players, and decided to take their business elsewhere when COH was shut down. The company has never recovered, and they don't really know how to handle the failure, which in turn, somewhat ironically, doesn't help fans of the game, who want it resurrected. As such, it's left NC Soft with a lot of burnt bridges with American and UK players, and they have no idea what to do to fix it. Assuming they even want to.

*** Sadly for NC Soft, it's also lead to a massive {{Hatedom}} from the fans, as they made it [[ItsPersonal very personal]] for those who loved the game, resulting in NC Soft taking such a hit to their reputation in America that most of their other games took insane hits to their player bases as many of those who were playing them were City of Heroes players, and decided to take their business elsewhere when COH was shut down. The company has never recovered, and they don't really know how to handle the failure, which in turn, somewhat ironically, doesn't help fans of the game, who want it resurrected. As such, it's left NC Soft with a lot of burnt bridges with American and UK players, and they have no idea what to do to fix it. Assuming they even want to.

*** Sadly for NC Soft, it's also lead to massive FanBacklash from the fans, as they made it [[ItsPersonal very personal]] for those who loved the game, resulting in NC Soft taking such a hit to their reputation in America that most of their other games took insane hits to their player bases as many of those who were playing them were City of Heroes players, and decided to take their business elsewhere when COH was shut down. The company has never recovered, and they don't really know how to handle the failure, which in turn, somewhat ironically, doesn't help fans of the game, who want it resurrected. As such, it's left NC Soft with a lot of burnt bridges with American and UK players, and they have no idea what to do to fix it. Assuming they even want to.

*** Sadly for NC Soft, it's also lead to massive InternetBackdraft from the fans, as they made it [[ItsPersonal very personal]] for those who loved the game, resulting in NC Soft taking such a hit to their reputation in America that most of their other games took insane hits to their player bases as many of those who were playing them were City of Heroes players, and decided to take their business elsewhere when COH was shut down. The company has never recovered, and they don't really know how to handle the failure, which in turn, somewhat ironically, doesn't help fans of the game, who want it resurrected. As such, it's left NC Soft with a lot of burnt bridges with American and UK players, and they have no idea what to do to fix it. Assuming they even want to.

*** Sadly for NC Soft, it's also lead to a lot of InternetBackdraft from the fans, as they made it [[ItsPersonal very personal]] for those who loved the game, resulting in NC Soft taking such a hit to their reputation in America that most of their other games took insane hits to their player bases as many of those who were playing them were City of Heroes players, and decided to take their business elsewhere when COH was shut down. The company has never recovered, and they don't really know how to handle the failure, which in turn, somewhat ironically, doesn't help fans of the game, who want it resurrected. As such, it's left NC Soft with a lot of burnt bridges with American and UK players, and they have no idea what to do to fix it. Assuming they even want to.

** This was the collective player reaction villain-side when [[spoiler: Darrin Wade killed Statesman.]] Have fun dealing with a super pissed-off Lord Recluse, moron.

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: For younger gamers who never played ''City of Heroes/Villians'', and are more familiar with ''VideoGame/DCUniverseOnline'' and ''VideoGame/MarvelHeroes'' may look at ''City of Heroes'' and wonder what the big deal is. But it's hard to understate how big a part of internet culture ''City'' was in the mid to late 2000's. In its heyday, the game enjoyed a popularity (in culture if not an actual headcount) on par with ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft''!!

* GrowingTheBeard: Early in its life, the game was littered with poor design choices, uninteresting quests, and a lack of incentive (there was no economy, for one). But starting at around the release of ''City of Villains'' (a year after the game originally launched, coinciding with the release of Issue 8), the devs eventually proved themselves ready and willing to listen and communicate with the playerbase, and steadily made several quality-of-life enhancements along with adding genuinely interesting new content -- this is a large part of the reason the game survived as long as it did against so much competition. Many players agree that the turning point was when Cryptic Studios, the game's original developers, sold the rights to [=NCSoft=], who created a division called Paragon Studios to exclusively work on the game -- which coincided with the departure of the game's ScapegoatCreator, Jack "Statesman" Emmert. (Though, in the long run, people wonder just how well that ended for [=CoH=] and Paragon...)

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: For younger gamers who never played ''City of Heroes/Villians'', and are more familiar with ''DCUniverseOnline'' and ''MarvelHeroes'' may look at ''City of Heroes'' and wonder what the big deal is. But it's hard to understate how big a part of internet culture ''City'' was in the mid to late 2000's. In its heyday, the game enjoyed a popularity (in culture if not an actual headcount) on par with ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft''!!

* GoddamnedBats: [[ManaDrain Mu Mystics]]. Against Arachnos as a whole, many characters have to prioritize Mu enemies or lose their endurance quickly. [[ThatOneLevel A few missions pit you against nothing but Mu Mystics]].

*** It's especially noticeable because heroes never really fought the PPD - until recently, when a recent story arc featured a faction of villainous rogue PPD. Cue hero-players horrified at how overpowered the 'new' group was.

** Blue Steel is responsible for so many DeusExMachina rescues in ''VideoGame/CityOfVillains'' that fans hail him as a Super Super Hero. He has a fact list similar to "Chuck Norris" facts. Until recently, his shield-based power set was impossible to show in game, making him even more awesome.

-->"I can't believe how Carol behaved today at the -- Lord Nemesis is watching you, $CHARACTER_NAME. He will not let this transgression pass without punishment. We know who you are -- before the toner ran out and I had to get more."

* InternetBackdraft: *ahem* ''Never'' assume that healing is the main purpose of support sets, ''especially'' [[BerserkButton near the Defender board]], don't bring up [[TheGreatPlayerVersusPlayerDebate open PVP]], [[GameBreaker Mission Architect farming]], powerlevelling in general... and formerly Enhancement Diversification, but players seem to have finally accepted that as a necessary evil.
** And now the Incarnate system and Super Packs are causing a few disagreements.
** NC Soft's stocks and reputation plummeted after closing City of Heroes/Villains. This may have been due to taking away something that people loved and were paying well for, or firing the production studio so there could be no final farewell, or timing the cancellation to come out less than two weeks after a new issue and power-sets, or it may be more to do with giving no explanation, take your pick. Whatever the reason, the company suffered big time for thumbing their nose at their own customers.

* IronWoobie: Wretch.
* MagnificentBastard: You will be hard pressed not to come to this conclusion once you see just how complete Lord Recluse can plan out an entire society of super-villains and exploit the crap out of it. This is to say nothing of how many evil geniuses he simply puts to shame with his XanatosSpeedChess.

* NeverLiveItDown: City of Heroes is ''still'' remembered fondly by its playerbase, and NC Soft has never fully recovered from the blow it took to its image as a result of their shutdown of the game. The fact that their hope in seeing those players migrate to their other games didn't pan out pretty much ''at all'' has lead many to think they will never be forgiven for it by players of CoH. Given the vitriol they still get to this day, that theory may well be correct.

** In general, any signature or high-level character is canonically an archvillain/hero or elite boss, making them strictly better than the player's character. This is true no matter the character's significance to the story, how many times you have defeated them in the story, or even their health in the story. This gets truly irritating toward end-game for City of Villains, where players may have to team up to defeat the Vindicators, TeenTitans [[{{Expy}} expies]], making it the equivalent of LexLuthor summoning the LegionOfDoom together to defeat Beast Boy.

** Minds of Mayhem trial: An NPC ally will offer to revive any defeated players, at the cost of shortening the time limit to complete the trial by 30 seconds. Virtually every raid leader opens their instructions with "If Desdemonia offers to rez you, refuse".

** Some fans view the seemingly arbitrary cancellation and shutdown of the game by NC Soft as this.

** Behavioral Adjustment Facility trial: In the second phase of the trial, [[UnexpectedGameplayChange gameplay changes]] from traditional MMORPG to TowerDefense, with the players acting as the towers. (This was usually handled by just havign everyone summon their Lore Pets, putting them on aggro, and letting them go to town. Other summon powers and ground-targeted abilities were recommended)

* ItsPersonal: Fans of C.o.H. ''still' speak of NC Soft in absolutely scathing terms over the loss of the game.

* ItsPersonal: Fans of CoH ''still' speak of NC Soft in absolutely scathing terms over the loss of the game.

** Behavioral Adjustment Facility trial: In the second phase of the trial, [[UnexpectedGameplayChange gameplay changes]] from traditional MMORPG to TowerDefense, with the players acting as the towers.

** TPN Campus trial: During one phase of the trial, any time you're moving around outdoors you've got a chance to be one-shotted by the trial boss -- a boss that, in all his appearances in other content, is a C-list villain at best. As a bonus, if you're the only one outside (say, because you're running back from the hospital after being one-shotted), guess who said villain will target?

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: Nemesis is either a brilliant schemer with a hand in friggin' ''everything'', or an egotistical blowhard who keeps trying to take credit for other people's work.

* RootingForTheEmpire: The fight between the Loyalist Praetorians and the Resistance was supposed to be various shades of grey for the Going Rogue expansion, with logic being more or less "At what point is peace oppressive and and what point is a rebel cause anarchy"; But Emperor Cole and his Praetors with possible exception of [[TokenGoodTeammate Praetor White]] are so corrupt/insane that you really can't fault the rebels for anything they do even when blatant terrorism is on the menu.
** As Lord Recluse points out to Emperor Cole, he is an unapologetic CardCarryingVillain and even '''he''' is supported by the populace once they find out the sort of things Cole was doing. He literally marches into the city with his army of doom, stating he is there turn it into a Darwinian Society and is cheered on for it.
** Even prior to Praetoria this was the case for many. The Rogue Isles are a playground of scum and villainy, but there is zero pretense as to what they are. It is a [[SocialDarwinist Social Darwinist's]] utopia, dedicated to hedonism in which AssKickingEqualsAuthority. After looking at the conspiracies, corruption and in some cases stupidity that pops up in through-out Paragon law-making, [[StatusQuoIsGod to maintain the status-quo]], it is hard not to root for the society that is meant breed criminals as opposed to the one that accidentally does it due to a broken system.

* ThatOneBoss: Night Widows have high damage output and the very annoying ability to blind players (now reduced, thankfully), as well as very strong recharge debuffs. Mu Guardians heal their allies and heavily drain a player's endurance. Tarantula Mistresses and Queens combine blinding, strong recharge debuffs and very high damage output of the rarely resisted Psychic type.
** A much, ''much'' earlier example would be the Headmen Swordsmen in ''The Lost'' enemy group. They have [[{{BFS}} giant swords]] they pull out of [[{{Hammerspace}} nowhere]], possibly [[AssPull their asses]], that deal insane damage. Needless to say, Headman Swordsmen can be a pain for [[TheBerserker Scrappers]], who are melee-based and not that good in defense, as well as [[{{Ninja}} Stalkers]].
** The Arachnos Patrons. '''Especially''' to members of their own arch-type who serve under, and ultimately need to fight them.
*** Ghost Widow is a Dominator who has '''heavy''' [[PsychicBlockDefense resistance to control effects]]. - With control moves rendered pretty much useless all a Dominator can do is keep at a distance and peck away at her health.
*** Black Scorpion is a Brute who could [[MadeOfIron take a few hundred missiles to the face without being fazed]]. - Which makes a battle of brawn a very big uphill battle for another Brute.
*** Mako is a Stalker and well... The game devs put a safety measure on enemies to prevent them from one-shotting anyone less than five levels away from them.... Mako is the only boss in the game that '''[[OneHitKill does not]]''' have this feature! - So if you are a Stalker and will only get one shot off before he sees you...
*** Scirocco is a Corrupter who has long range [[ManaDrain endurance drain]] moves and personal knock-back armor. - Particularly devastating to Corrupters who need to ration their endurance.

* RootingForTheEmpire: The fight between the Loyalist Praetorians and the Resistance was supposed to be various shades of grey for the Going Rogue expansion, with logic being more or less "At what point is peace oppressive and and what point is a rebel cause anarchy; But Emperor Cole and his Praetors with possible exception of [[TokenGoodTeammate Praetor White]] are so corrupt/insane that you really can't fault the rebels for anything they do even when blatant terrorism is on the menu.

* RootingForTheEmpire: The fight between the Loyalist Praetorians and the Resistance was supposed to be various shades of grey for the Going Rogue expansion, with logic being more or less "At what point is peace oppressive and and what point is a rebel cause anarchy; But Emperor Cole and his Praetors with possible exception of [[TokenGoodTeamate: Praetor White]] are so corrupt/insane that you really can't fault the rebels for anything they do even when blatant terrorism is on the menu.