What didn't you like in CoH?

[gemini]

Students have lots of time but not so much money. Workers have more money but not so much time. Maybe that is why almost every surviving MMORPG is pay to win in one form or another. (I count the "must buy expansion packs to advance" approach of World of Warcraft and Lord of the Rings Online as pay to win as well. Your usage of the phrase may vary.)
I'll have a new appreciation of this when SoH launches. As a student in the days of CoH, I had plenty of time to play but my subscription lapsed a couple of times each year. Now, as an "adult" with a house, wife, and kid, my playing time will be a lot more casual. I'm hoping the sidekick system deployed in SoH will have some real utility for casual players and some advantages for the hardcore players that are mentoring us, to encourage use of the system.

Oh my god I've never been able to quite put it into words like you have sir. A lot of us from CoH have aged into this category.

It was grueling at the time, but I honestly can appreciate how slow progression was back then, some of my best memories of the game were of the long climb to max (at the time) level of 40. As others have mentioned, the end-game was a bit thin. Rather than the incarnate grind, why not more raids?

Something I hated the most was that the custom mission creator giving out XP. Because this lead to folks just running huge farm missions packed with mobs. (I was big into the task force scene when leveling or when I was on a max level character, and the custom mission farms was a huge blow to the population) -- I think it's been brought up before but if we ever get custom missions, they probably shouldn't give out XP (or here's a suggestion for WAAAAY down the road - let missions be submitted to be run/reviewed by the community and implement the good ones into the game as official missions)


Consultant also mentioned certain zones just being EMPTY - I wonder if it wasn't a case of zone bloat - there were simply a bunch of redundant zones with very little content. Was this a case of "Lets make lots of cool zones and flesh them out later" or was it "Well we made this, now what?" (I'M LOOKING AT YOU SHADOW SHARD, FAULTLINE AND A COUPLE OTHERS) -- heck I think the only time I ever went to Eden was to speed-clear the trial while prepping for the early Hamidon raids.

PS - I was one of those players always standing around a task force NPC, a lot of the time I was just AFKing in a place I knew there'd be other warm bodies - Atlas was, often, a little too crowded for me.

[Golden Ace]

good points gemini about the empty zones. I'm thinking too many zones of the same level, and not much to ever bring you back to those zones. atlas park had well atlas, and people would congregate there, also wentworths as well as a door to higher level zones.

myself I loved the shards. but lets be frank. there was almost nothing to do there. so much more could have been done. there was many a time that I was the only person in any of the shard zones. that's where I practiced my singing voice in broadcast.

[Blaze Rocker]

Yes. Empty or near-empty zones were a problem. Early on there were ample zones that would get you to max level through ample contacts. Then Paragon added more and more zones and players just chose the ones that offered the majority of what they needed and the zones that didn't were either skipped or rarely traveled outside of missions.

I would much rather have zone expansion than too many zones. However, if just adding new zones to the game to expand content is actually in the plan then I recommend having as few dead-end or limited content zones as possible. Boomtown (Baumton) was a prime example of that. No contacts, no stores, no services and no real reason to go there outside of a directed mission unless you were hunting badges or looking to fight Babbage.

[Solarverse]

1:When they nerfed Placate and Assassin Strike without buffing the other powers/abilities.

2: Knock Backs

3: Energy Blasters NEVER got the buff they deserved.

As a Tank, I never wanted knock backs. Unless an Energy Blaster or PB REALLY knew how to utilize Knock Backs, they were a nightmare. Nothing worse than gathering a mob into a corner, then some Energy Blaster scattered the mob all over God's creation. Made Tanking and AoE's difficult for the rest of the team.

When Stalkers were first created, they were a living nightmare for players in PvP. Players could not see them, and had no idea how to fight against them. Placate was nerfed to help with that...even though Stalker players tried teaching heroes how to fight back. Placate was nerfed, which only put you in a pseudo Stealth, and made you completely visible to all other players. Even though the Devs said it was working as intended, they nerfed it anyway. Shortly after nerfing it, players started stacking +Perception abilities and actually started using debuffs...which was exactly what we told them to do BEFORE the nerf. Had they listened, they would have never had to nerf it to begin with. The nerf stayed, and playing a Stalker was never the same again.

Energy Blasters were the red headed step child of the Blaster class since day 1 of the game. Countless times, players asked for a Damage buff, and to have their Knock Backs changed to Knock Downs...or at very least have a toggle that switches back and forth from KB's and KD's. After all those years, even though the Devs said they would eventually fix them, no change ever came.

On a plus note...Energy Blasters was the only primary powerset to never be nerfed.

[Golden Ace]

or at very least have a toggle that switches back and forth from KB's and KD's.

This please! this would be awesome. Give Devastators a nice toggle that allows them to switch between knock back to knock down.

[A1fighter]

I didn't like that i never got to play it....So these threads always come up, & I have nothing to add. Like the virgin at the lunch table when the conversation of girls pops up.

[olepi]

"Something I hated the most was that the custom mission creator giving out XP. Because this lead to folks just running huge farm missions packed with mobs. "

I liked the way the Ryzom Ring did it. You could create a custom mission, publish it to the world so everybody could play it, but it gave out no rewards.

The creator had to give rewards out from his personal inventory. I usually handed out XP crystals, that could be used to boost XP. I created missions with multiple solutions (kill the bad guys, or make a deal with them, etc) and would hand out different rewards based on how they completed it. The creator (or Dungeon Master) would be present in the mission, invisible, and watch people play the mission. That was some of the most fun I've ever had in an MMO.

[Itlandm]

I am not opposed to people getting XP in custom missions, but the problem in CoH was that there was no ceiling on it. There would have needed to be a ceiling on XP per minute that was at least no higher than the average of developer-made missions, preferably a little lower. That would have prevented the Mission Architect Babies who got to level 50 in three hours. (Some say one hour, but that may have been an exaggeration. Anyway, it was bad enough.) It would then have prevented the endless chain of nerf, nerf and more nerf to things Mission Architect. It would have kept people from using it as an exploit, while still letting people level up from it.
Or you might get real XP only from player-made missions that had been certified by the devs and locked from being modified, like you only got certain other rewards from them. So close! The other missions might give in-MA XP, that would level up your character only while inside the MA, but return you to your starting level when you walked out (and then leveling you back up when you walked back in).
So many ways to not get this totally wrong, but you would have needed a time machine to see how people abused the system. Luckily we have that now. Hindsight is amazing.

[Blaze Rocker]

Yes!

Mission Architect giving real experience points was a mess for people that actually liked to play the game as it was intended. Going from level 1 to level 50 in a day, while doing it from the comfort of an entertainment center, is not being a real hero or villain. Please notice the two key words here: Entertainment Center
You got tickets for playing games with, around and against costumed individuals. This was two, maybe three steps removed from Chuck E. Cheese and should never have been what it was.

I don't mind a separate awards system like tickets that can be exchanged for in-game items like salvage, certain enhancements, costume recipes or costume pieces themselves, inspirations, influence (money) and XP boosters. That's all well and good. I just can't walk into an arcade and shoot hoops on the Pop-A-Shot for two hours and then walk away and consider myself good enough to play in the NBA. That just doesn't happen in the real world and it shouldn't happen in SoH or any game like CoH. Lets keep the mission creator system mostly for entertainment and training purposes only.

Now. If you devs are hungry for content at this early stage then devoting resources to providing us with a mission creator can be beneficial at this point. You provide donators with the mission creator and you can see where they go with the world you currently have. Submitted story arcs can then be reviewed and can potentially become official SoH story arcs. Letting the players make the story arcs means less workload for you and your time can be devoted to other things.
Now, I'm not really keeping track of things in development so if this is already in the works then I apologize for being late to notice it.

[Sinistar]

Yes!

Mission Architect giving real experience points was a mess for people that actually liked to play the game as it was intended. Going from level 1 to level 50 in a day, while doing it from the comfort of an entertainment center, is not being a real hero or villain. Please notice the two key words here: Entertainment Center
You got tickets for playing games with, around and against costumed individuals. This was two, maybe three steps removed from Chuck E. Cheese and should never have been what it was.

I don't mind a separate awards system like tickets that can be exchanged for in-game items like salvage, certain enhancements, costume recipes or costume pieces themselves, inspirations, influence (money) and XP boosters. That's all well and good. I just can't walk into an arcade and shoot hoops on the Pop-A-Shot for two hours and then walk away and consider myself good enough to play in the NBA. That just doesn't happen in the real world and it shouldn't happen in SoH or any game like CoH. Lets keep the mission creator system mostly for entertainment and training purposes only.

Now. If you devs are hungry for content at this early stage then devoting resources to providing us with a mission creator can be beneficial at this point. You provide donators with the mission creator and you can see where they go with the world you currently have. Submitted story arcs can then be reviewed and can potentially become official SoH story arcs. Letting the players make the story arcs means less workload for you and your time can be devoted to other things.
Now, I'm not really keeping track of things in development so if this is already in the works then I apologize for being late to notice it.

Well for me after making dozens of 50's on multiple accounts, the Architect became a great way to mass produce some other's that I wanted. One account would use SS/FIRE farmer and power level the new toon on the other one. Every 5 levels it would emerge and run radio/newspaper for the mayhem safeguard missions and bank those for later. At about level 30 they'd tear through the mayhem/safeguards and accumulate the badges from them, then they would bank the remaining mayhem safeguards as they would continue. At about level 20 my main would open Ouroborus for them to enter and get the map badge from there and thus be exposed to time travel and gain the ouro portal power.

Once at L50, the triple build system becomes their friend. Build #3 is the L25 build to maintain good power and defense at lower levels, Build #2 is the L35 build, and Build #1 was the main L50 build. They would then use Ouroborus to run favorite missions or badge related missions and would obtain badges needed for the accolades to boost them further. After that it was time to go incarnate, by which point build #1 was fully armed and operational

Use the Architect to rapid level to 50, slot up multiple builds, then Ouroborus your favorite missions and badge missions. This became a great way for me to still play without having to grind up through the same missions ad nausea.

[Itlandm]

There were two obvious problems with MA babies, that I can think of.

The immediate problem was that you got a bunch of 50es who did not know from personal experience how to play their power sets. This is entirely their problem if they solo, I'd say. But in a team it becomes a problem if the tank only knows how to play a blaster, or even if a fire tank only knows hot to play a stone tank, and so on. (The way we used to see if a character was a MA baby was the lack of non-MA badges.)

The next problem was that in order to stop the production of MA babies, the developers found it necessary to nerf and nerf again various aspects of MA.

I would not have been opposed to some mechanism where you could quick-level an archetype and powerset you already had slow-leveled on another server. But that is not going to be a thing on the Ship for quite a while at least, as there seems to be only one server (ship) planned for a long time to come.

In Dark Age of Camelot, we eventually got a mechanism where you could start on level 20 with any class if you had a level 50 of any type. This was a bit of a compromise, as you would still have plenty of levels to get used to your build so you wouldn't go into the endgame without combat experience. Better level 20 babies than level 50 babies.

[Kelvinkole]

I did not extensively play with the mission architect, but I sat in many many many farms throughout my days. Looking back, and I think this is the key discussion point regarding the mission architect, the rather easy ability to power level characters in CoX was probably a bad thing. It was nice for those that wanted to get a new character, or a bunch of characters, to max level asap but may have been detrimental to the game in a few ways:

1. You have a lot of people in the game not playing the game. It was a daily occurrence for me and my group to have 6-7 people sitting in a team doing nothing while someone ran the farm. We were rarely the only team standing outside that mission door for respawns, so there was a good bit of low level characters not playing the low level content. I imagine this made finding a full team for people playing the lower level content a lot harder.

2. As someone else said, you end up with some high level players who didn't know how to play their character.

3. Not so much a consequence of power leveling, but if standing around at mission doors for hours was better than playing the game maybe something was wrong with the pace of natural progression, made worse by point 1 above.

Some sort of mechanism to govern the rate of experience gain might be worthwhile, but also a way to boost new characters into the meat of the game (level 20-30, assuming the eventual level cap is 50) to encourage replay. Guild Wars 2 had experience scrolls that were account bound and could be used by any character on the account to gain a free level, and some were a straight boost to level 20 or 25. This type of random item drop that you can save and use later always seemed like a good idea to me.

[Ronnieman]

I'm sure it has been said several times, but unfortunately, I don't have time to read through the entire thread today. My issue was being able to solo with a controller. I was never comfortable running a team, so I was limited on what I could do when I couldn't find a team.

[GladDog]

Controllers will do more damage in SoH than they did in CoH, although the exact details have not been worked out. They have mentioned sidearms (all characters get them) and there is a probability that Controllers will get 1-2 damage powers in their primary sets. This should make it easier to solo with them.

[Itlandm]

That was interesting, GladDog! In CoH, controllers (and to a lesser degree defenders) specifically suffered from a scaling problem: Their primary effects scaled quite nicely, while damage lagged more and more behind until it became a bit of a joke. This was somewhat better for power sets with pets though. Controllers would have been an obvious market for damage-dealing pay-to-win pets like Champions Online has.