ineffablebob

I'd totally forgotten about the armor toggle thing. Not an issue for my defender, but if I were running a melee character, I'd not worry about trying to recreate that. There's a lot of other changes - more dangerous minion attacks, for instance - that you can't avoid which makes running without defenses much harder than it was back then. As for the IO system, I'm treating the whole thing as if it doesn't exist. No salvage or recipe selling, no Auction House usage at all. Influence shortage is a thing, as it was in 2004! Although even with only enhancement sales, I'm doing better on influence than I expected. Probably the low level DO/SO drops are worth more.

Hey, this looks familiar... This time, though, there was room to run around. So I popped a bunch of inspirations and went after them, managing to take down our friend Mr Ting. But the damage output from that Outcast boss was just too much, as the inspirations ran out and all the fire damage - including from his imps - threatened to overwhelm me. So, back outside, a little street sweeping, level up (18) and then back inside to smack him down. Then the very next mission from that contact was all +1 Tsoo, including the boss. Fought through a bunch of minions and Ancestor Spirits, nearly dying, but once I saw the boss was +1 it was time to give up. They can have that warehouse for now, I'll be back at level 19. Took Speed Boost when I trained to 18. Even though it's useless to me soloing, I expect I'll join a team at some point! Meanwhile, in other news... It's so hard to social distance when you're a hero! Fortunately the disease lasts for only one mission - which might be a change, I seem to remember it lasting longer - so I headed right into the lab. There were a lot of +1 Vahz, but they pull pretty well, and I made heavy use of the "hit the embalmed then run away while they explode" shortcut. I had my closest call yet against Patient Zero, though. Even-level boss, fought him with one accuracy and two defense inspirations...and he hit me like they weren't even there, had me one damage tick from death. Ran all the way to the elevator for a rest! Went back, same inspirations, this time he only hit me once and he went down. Disease cured! Now my contact wants me to go burn the bodies, but the Doctor may be down there, think I'll hang on to that one for a level or two. Not that I plan to fight him, but I'd like to minimize the chance of getting hammered if I accidentally aggro the big guy.

Got Classic hero 2004 to 16 fighting a lot of Clockwork. She now has "Health" and went by the Skyway store to slot in a heal DO. Then I took Kong Bao's first mission - defeat a Circle of Thorns boss - and darn near died. An even-level Ruin Mage is a mage hassle for a solo teen defender! I ended up using 8 of my 10 inspirations, including a pre-emptive Break Free, and it was still a close call. After that, I figured it was a good time to do something simpler: It's easy to end up with a mission slate like this, hunts all over the place, since every contact wants to give you hunt missions. I tend to collect them and then spend a few minutes clearing them all out at once. I've also noticed that the L15-20 contacts suddenly are very interested in getting things done quickly - I've gotten several timed missions. And then, there was this: Yep, that's two orange bosses right out of an elevator. No chance to kite or pull, and one of them is a Tsoo sorceror with Hurricane. Run away! Had to leave the mission, street sweep a little to level up to 17, upgrade to L20 DOs (ran out of influence, but I got most of them), and then go back. Two yellow bosses is dangerous but doable - used up almost a full slate of inspirations again and spent some time being bounced around by the Hurricane, but eventually prevailed.

I'm on Everlasting. I believe @Greycatand @cranebumprolled Re-Enactors too, but not sure which shard. By the way, anyone who wants to do a Classic Re-Enactor team up, by all means hit me up in-game! @ineffablebob there too.

Ah, my memory failed me, didn't realize that was issue 1! OK, no costume changes at all - hope you like your look for 40 levels!

I love that! The City of Heroes Launch Re-Enactment Society. Capes were not available until issue 2! Yes, I know, it's hard to imagine no capes in a superhero game, but that's what we had to work with at launch! (The blueside contact is the City Rep in Atlas, FYI.) Some general costume stuff: the only place to update your costume is the ICON in Steel Canyon, since the one in Atlas and the trainer costume options were added later. And they only accept influence, no costume change tokens! There were actually a lot fewer costume options of all kinds at launch, but I am no expert and don't have the patience to go back through the patch notes to see what was available back then. I just went with a pretty simple outfit for Classic Hero 2004 and figure I'd gone with the spirit of the thing, if not the letter.

@Rathulfr is correct, there were similar inspirations before the change to Break Free and its ilk, which you had to use prior to the status effect hitting you. I even used mine before attacking the Madness Mage, as one did - although I actually lost out there since the protection doesn't last as long as it used to. Still made it through! I honestly don't remember about the resist inspirations. I've been using them as they drop, but they're not my favorites. As for combining, you are correct and I have not been doing any of that. Ideally, I'd have at least two each of heal, endurance, defense, and mez inspirations at all times. Of course, the game never drops what you want, so I'm constantly using one or two inspirations that I have too many of and hoping that the drops fill in the gaps.

Lady Oracle has been saved! Getting to the mission would have been a real pain before Super Jump, as it was located in the middle of Perez Park, so I'm glad she waited to get captured until Classic Hero 2004 was L14! She didn't used to fight with you, but you also didn't have to lead her out of the cave, so I think the changes there are largely a wash. Although fighting two different Madness Mages - the named boss and the hostage guard - was a non-trivial exercise. Fortunately I had two break free inspirations that I'd been hoarding. Even so, both mages managed to get in big hits when the protection ran out, they put me to sleep, then ran up and exploded. Survived, but it was close! Also completed the Clockwork captive arc by rescuing Lou's family. Fighting all those Clockwork really makes you manage your Endurance usage! Even though I've got an advantage over the old days with Stamina (again, offset somewhat by leaving Sprint on), it's still easy to end up tired after a few drain hits. I do all right as long as I stick with single target attacks, because I've slotted an End Redux in each of those, but it only takes a couple of Ball Lightning tosses to really drain the blue bar. Picked up the Marauder badge for dealing 100000 damage along the way. Which wouldn't have happened in the real original game, since badges didn't show up until Issue 2, but it's a nice little progress marker. Level 15 obtained! Starting to get the next round of contacts. Surely they'll give me nice easy places to go to start off with... ...maybe not.

You are correct, though it won't be an issue until people start getting their toons up into SO range. And really longer than that, because it was a pretty rare build that had a bunch of stuff 6-slotted prior to getting into the 30s when you start getting those 3-slot levels. Assuming I push this all the way through to level 40, we'll just have to live with the differences during the 30s! Amazing how much more you want to beat up random Hellions and Skulls, isn't it? With no 2XP and fewer missions, it can really fill in the gaps. Yeah it is! I did something very similar with the Hellions when Classic Hero 2004 was doing a hunt around level 8. Believe it or not, the Skulls actually used to be even worse, when the Bone Daddies had Shadow Maul that would outright kill a full-health even-level character if it hit. I've been thinking about this, too. I've decided that I'll allow myself to team up, but only if I'm leading the team and I'll advertise it as a light role-playing group so I can stick to my restrictions. So far I haven't actually done it, but I might consider forming a Synapse task force once I get a couple more levels. Have to do it before I outlevel it, after all!

Yep, understandable! I did indeed wait until I was near a level, but it wasn't about the inspirations in particular. I was thinking more along the lines of simply having a level on the mobs inside! But now that you've brought it up, I'm gonna try to avoid using the buffs...although if a level-up happens mid-fight, I probably won't run away or anything.

You know, I hadn't thought of that. It totally slipped my mind that level-up inspirations were added post-launch! In the case of the gang fight mission, it didn't matter since I had to run halfway through the cave to find the other boss anyway, and they'd expired by then. But I'm sure I've taken advantage of the inspirations in other cases. I shall have to pause on level-up in the future!

Mobility! The last level was a bit of a challenge, though. Working on the Clockwork Captive arc, and I get sent to Boomtown for a mission! That is a non-trivial exercise at L13, but I went up there anyway, running from southern Steel past a whole lot of orange and red and purple Outcasts on the north side, and into Boomtown. The door was in the middle of the zone, luckily - if it had been far north I'd likely have gone hunting until I hit 14. But as it was, I got up there, finished up the mission...and got sent all the way to the City Rep in Atlas Park. It's easy to forget just how long it took to get around back in the day, until you're running miles to talk to a bureaucrat! And then the next mission was way south in Skyway, so more running. But finishing that mission got me to 14, so no more Sprinting across entire zones for Classic Hero 2004!

Classic Hero 2004 got the Stop Gang Fight mission in King's Row, and it was tough! There's two bosses, one Skull and one Hellion, together at the end. Siphon Speed saved her! The Hellion was slowed enough that I led the Skull away and got him, then was able to run and rest, then come back for the Hellion. It's been a long time since I've had to use these kind of tactics on a lowbie character, since I never turn on the "solo bosses" option until I feel they're ready. But the vague memories are coming back to the surface now! I'm pretty sure it was Issue 3, based on what's on the wiki. Then in Issue 16 it was changed to the version we have today.

Oh man, when the game first launched I had an IBM laptop with an unsupported graphics chipset. Sometimes you'd zone into a mission and everything would be greyscale and all the objects would be translucent. Made finding glowies pretty easy, though 🙂

Classic Hero 2004 completed her first story arc today! This is the arc that ends with you being sent to Perez Park to beat up 20 Skulls and 20 Hellions, then go into a cave and beat up a bunch more. I saved it until I was getting close to a level, so that I could level up while inside the cave, and I'm glad I did since the Hellion boss (Battalion) was +1. Even level bosses are tough enough for her, much less a +1! Also I had the EMP Glove temp power from an earlier hunt mission, which helped keep the damage going. Of course, I missed a couple mobs and had to run back through the cave to find them, as is tradition. A job well done! Puts her at 13, getting close to that travel power. Got a couple contacts in Skyway that should get it done.

Hey, to each their own. I'm not gonna do it, but no reason you can't! I might feel differently if you could somehow use Galaxy City as it was back in the day, as a alternate starting zone with contacts and missions. I know, right? It's really strange to think back to the days when Invuln was the weird set because it actually could be used by a Tank *or* a Scrapper!

Thanks @Knock!for the list! Put a link to it in the OP.

Ah, now that you mention him, I remember the Envoy of Shadows! Used to run the arc and get to the last mission, then it would sit there for ages until I found a night when I gathered enough SG mates to beat him up. Thanks for the info! Also thanks for the additional restriction details, which I'll add to the OP. I'd thought of the first two but didn't write them down. The thought of pointing out the lack of PvP zones never crossed my mind, though!

Afraid so. Slows things down, but that's how it was back then. If you wanted higher levels in a mission, you had to find someone else who was higher level and run theirs! Nope, didn't exist. You have to take 3 - it wasn't possible to take only Health and Stamina. You needed either Swift or Hurdle before Health would unlock, and then Stamina. Technically I suppose a 4th dummy power should be taken to account for the other of Swift/Hurdle, but I'm not going to sweat that one. Three dead power choices is enough! That's a good point, I hadn't thought about it. No respecs, then! Of course, once you get to 40 you're freed of the time eddy and can do whatever.

Correct, and no police scanners either. Getting missions is actually slightly easier than it used to be, because originally the contact wouldn't give you their cell phone until you'd almost filled up their influence bar. Not gonna sweat that particular detail, though. You may get some introductions that don't make sense - Classic Hero 2004 was directed to Mercedes Sheldon, for instance, and there was certainly no Midnighter Club in 2004! Those you'll just have to ignore.

Also, another edit to the original post: Forgot to mention that the first time! It's unlikely you'll see AVs before L40 - not sure there were any outside Task Forces in the original game - but there's plenty of bosses! Just be happy the Bone Daddies don't have Shadow Maul any more....

Almost. You had to take either Hurdle or Swift first (usually at L8), then you could get Health at 14 (but often pushed to 16 since you got your travel power at 14), and finally Stamina at L20. So that's where the 8, 16, 20 levels came from for taking the extra pool powers that you never use. I've edited the original post to clarify, thanks for pointing it out!

Yeah, stuff like this is kinda unavoidable. Or at least, not avoidable with the amount of work I'm willing to do! The experience won't ever be exactly the same, but we can get close. And at the correct character level, too. No exemplar back in 2004!

Yep, that was the intent - wasn't as clear as I meant to be, so thanks for clarifying. Classic Hero 2004 took Combat Jumping at 6, and will be taking Super Jump at 14. Although as a Kin, she can get by with Siphon Speed as long as there's a safe enemy nearby...but still, I'd rather have the real travel power! Plus, I'm gonna need those pre-reqs to take Acrobatics at 22! Knockback protection is huge for a squishy that can't use IOs.

I've been waxing nostalgic lately (a hazard of being old), and the idea popped into my head of playing a character like we did back at CoH launch. Your character has been trapped in a time eddy forcing them to live as if it's 2004. City of Heroes has just launched, you have 5 archetypes to choose from and a very limited choice of powersets, contacts are thin on the ground, and the level cap is 40! The goal is to get your character to 40 under the restrictions listed here, at which point you've broken free of the time eddy and can proceed normally. Now obviously we can't do everything exactly as it was back then, but we can come close. Create a hero (no villains yet) using one of the original powersets. (See Knock's post below for the list!) Take nothing from P2W, don't use your origin power (i.e. Apprentice Charm for magic). Do the Outbreak tutorial, and talk only to your origin contact and those introduced directly by them. No scanners, no Twinshot or Shauna Stockwell, and most definitely no AE or Death From Below! Once you get a mission, you have to complete it - no autocomplete or abandon (unless you get something that shouldn't exist in 2004, like a Perez Park hunt before L7). And you can only have 3 missions, so get ready to do those street hunts to clear out space! Oh, and set your difficulty at +0/x1, with both solo bosses and AVs enabled. There were no downgrades to Lts or EBs back in the day! Enhancements are a bit tougher given the recent changes, but I've settled on only placing an enhancement if I have 2 slots in the power, and then leaving one empty - approximating training enhancement level. (Or you can sell the DOs and buy training enhancements from a base quartermaster, thus using all your slots - thanks for the tip on that @Jacke!) No IOs, obviously. Once you hit 12, you can slot DOs as normal, and SOs at 22. For 35 and 40 SOs, you have to unlock the seller for your origin in Founder's Falls or Brickstown. For pool powers, they didn't open until level 6, and you had to take one of the first two powers before you could take the third (at L14). So you'll almost certainly want to take a power from the travel pool of your choice at 6 (i.e. Combat Jumping, Hasten) and then get the travel power at 14. Also, we have inherent Fitness which didn't exist back then, so run with Sprint always on to offset some of the endurance gain from Stamina. Take pool powers you never use (I'm using Presence powers) where you'd have taken Fitness before - probably at 8 for Swift/Hurdle, 16 for Health, and 20 for Stamina - and only slot those Fitness powers after those levels. The city itself has changed a lot since 2004, too! Striga, Peregrine Island, Croatoa, the Hollows, the entire Rogue Isles - none of those exist. Faultline did exist, but it's changed so much that I recommend just not using it unless you're forced for a hunt mission - certainly don't take any contacts there. There are no PvP zones, so no going to Bloody Bay to get Shivans or Warburg for nukes! Getting around is more difficult - you can zone only at physical crossings or by monorail. You have to use the monorail as it originally was: Yellow Line (Atlas, KR, Steel South, Skyway North) and Green Line (Steel North, Talos, Indy North, Brickstown – no Founder's Falls and Skyway South, those were added Issue 9). And no shortcuts through an SG base, because there are no bases! There's lot of other minor things that have changed, not least of which is the powers themselves. It's a lot easier being an Invulnerability tank these days, for instance! Also, I'm restricting myself from the Positron and Yin TFs since they're so different from the originals. There's plenty of missions changes, too - the Fortune Teller didn't used to be so helpful! So everything isn't exactly as it was, but as I said before, we can come close. So far I've been running solo, but teaming is certainly an option - I'll probably not allow myself to team with anyone more than a level or two higher, just to keep the experience closer to the early days. My first foray into this challenge is named Classic Hero 2004, a Kinetics/Electric defender. Because I'm a masochist, I'm also running her deathless (in the Iron Eagles SG on Everlasting). Made it to 12, though not without a few hiccups. The removal of hazard zone restrictions means I was given some Perez Park missions before L7, which I had to abandon and get again later. And it was pretty rough doing CoT hunts in King's Row and Perez Park! Anyway, I'll post some updates here, and if anyone else wants to try it out, I encourage you to share the experience! There are quite a few folks already working on their own "City of Heroes Launch Re-enactor" toons, mostly on the Everlasting shard, and we even have a supergroup: "We Have No Issues". (Credit to @Doc_Scorpionfor the re-enactment label, and @Greycatfor setting up the SG!) To make it easier to find one another, I have created a global channel named "Launch Re-enactors". Anyone interested welcome to join! Should make finding SG invites easier, at the very least. /chanjoin "Launch Re-enactors"