FFFF

Yeah this is one of those times that further explanation doesn't help, actually hurts the narrative. I remember the explanation of Midichlorians as being the reason the Force works in the Phantom Menace and I hated it.

Welcome. The game was designed to be casual friendly - play a few minutes or a few hours. There's no prize for going fast, so the pace you play at is just fine. You'll have questions and the vets here and in game are pretty helpful. Just ask away.

The game play is not what’s difficult. It’s all the stuff that’s not apparently obvious or somewhat poorly documented. I had my kiddo start to play, and there’s a number of things which seem intuitive but aren’t necessarily obvious. Things like having to slide an enhancement into a slot or that origin is flavor text and really doesn’t affect character performance. I had a new player ask me if teleport powers were common because while he had fly, people were zipping around with assemble the team, Ouro portals, base teleportation. There is a lot of mechanical depth in this game which isn’t explained very well. Let alone whole complex subsystems like Inventions, the Morality systems, Incarnates, AE, and power differences in PvP. It seems simple to us but many of us have been used to these things for years. Other games also have similar issues. I saw a video from Day9, a fairly known old school pro gamer and streamer, and he found retail WoW overwhelming.

I like this game. Even though there is a lot of competition for my free time, this game still occupies a good percentage of that. If I think about it, the reasons I keep coming back comes down to these reasons: 1. Costumes / Concepts - the costume creator have held up pretty well. There are other games with great character customization, but the COH costume creation process is still very solid. I like that you can span the look from Silver Age heroes, fantasy characters to MCU-style heroes and villains. There are very few games in which you can get an idea of a character in your head, a name, a look and then you can largely recreate that character in game. I don't think I'm alone in this, and the idealization of a concept seems to be important to many of us. I wish the current devs lean into this a bit. Some of the other servers have definitely brought some incredible capabilities: customizable henchmen/pets, asynchronous costume pieces, etc. But overall, I'm largely satisfied with what we have on Homecoming. 2. Teaming - the absolute best and worst situations I've encountered in gaming have happened during a COH team-up. I've had the horrible PUG team-up. I've also had transcendent experiences that led me to make new friends, and inspired me to sort of copycat characters I've been impressed with. Some of the best team-ups were combinations that I felt wouldn't work and yet they did, amazingly so. Some teams synergized so well that enemies melted before us and no one could remember any hit point bar dipping below full. COH was the first MMO that implemented the sidekicking system, and later exemplaring. This was a MMO innovation that was copied by other games. I hope one day the HC devs can finish the Looking for Team system that would allow players to join teams mid-TF or mid-mission. I think teaming shows off COH at its absolute best (and sometimes, its absolute worst haha). 3. Casual Dad Mode - I'm seeing World of Warcraft and even Diablo 4 start appealing to the casual gaming demographic. Dungeons can be soloed and the leveling up is relatively fast. For as much complexity as there is in City of Heroes (looking at you Incarnate system), the game has always been casual friendly. Start the game, choose a mission and play for 10-20 minutes or so. I like that I can play for 2 hours or just 5 minutes if I choose, and still feel I can get things done in-game. Anyways, it's great to have this game to come back to.

This is what I would like to see as well. A group of supers led by a charismatic leader (Magneto is a great example) who use their superpowers to commit acts of terrorism. Their ethos justifies these acts due to perceived persecution and discrimination against their kind. The COH/COV equivalent of Dr. Doom is Lord Recluse. A super scientist/arcane dabbler who uses gadgets, his formidable intellect and henchmen to thwart heroes. Religious-themed supers are the Luddites and the Legacy Chain. You can argue that the descendants of Mu, the Banished Pantheon and the Coralax fit into this group too. One type of enemy group I’d like to see are supers sponsored by nation states other than Paragon or the Rogue Isles. In Marvel, you have UK, Canada, Far East-bases heroes for example.

This is just supposition from my part since only the original devs would have the actual reasoning. However, I think it's probably related to spreading out the wealth a bit. There are some recipes that are valuable for higher level characters that drop at lower levels (Steadfast Res/Def, Kismet +ToHit, Reticle Increase Perception, etc.). Also before Attuned IOs, levels of IOs used to matter a lot more. I remember trying to get IOs at specific levels so they would still be valid when exempting down.

I think the arc had a lot of potential. I really liked the build up. Hero Corps, the Shivan attack in Galaxy City, and lost colleagues. I also liked the ‘beat up’ look on the contact. I was expecting a love story of sorts. The contact looking desperately for a lost loved one, and finally having enough to find out what really happened. But of course, instead of a climatic battle, you just get dialogue. What a stinker of an ending, especially with all the hints of a big reveal and final battle.

I've leveled an Axe/Ice Brute and Axe/Ice Scrapper into the upper 40s (I'm currently afflicted with altitis so it's been a while since I've gotten back to them). They both level up fine? I run at +1/2x and I didn't see much issue. Maybe because I treat them as scrappers rather than tanks? I didn't kit them with IOs until level 32 by the way. YMWV perhaps?

I’m aware you can set them below your character name. What I mean is having it displayed more prominently.

I would love if the Master of badges were title options.

Yeah, for vets who sort of min-max, this is a different, albeit easy game. Just out of curiosity, I just picked up Colleen Nelson as a contact and ran through a few missions. I'm running at +1/x0 and the difficulty is trivial (as it would be for most veteran players). This is NOT the newer player experience. My character has significant range defenses, probably much more influence than your typical new player and is kitted out with decent IOs. Hard to balance a game which has such a wide range of experiences. FYI, this is on Beam Gal, my Beam/Ninja Blaster.

This isn’t my experience at all. I’m leveling up a couple of blasters solo and I don’t find any of the upgraded mobs particularly challenging. Even with SOs, hover blasting works fine. So does old school pulling or even build-up + aim to insta-kill that pesky lieutenant. A lot of blaster builds can even stack holds/stuns to disable a boss. This doesn’t even factor in soft controls like knock back. I’ve played blasters since retail release so there’s an experience factor that probably colors my perspective. if you’re new, happy to provide any tips or build advice. I mean this sincerely without any sarcasm. I’m pretty sure there are things you could do slightly differently to make your gameplay experience less frustrating.

Easiest fight with Frostfire was with a Traps/AR defender. Laughably easy. Acid mortar makes short work of them. And FFG is great protection at that level range. I had the fight set at +0, but I suspect +1 wouldn't be much more of an issue.

I do all the Stirga arcs in the 20s. The arcs offer great merit rewards and I think the stories of the Council/Fifth Column taking over an island that's closer to Crotoa is kind of neat.

It’s too bad the Homecoming team won’t consider it because the OP’s concept is totally possible on Thunderspy. They changed Beam Rifle to Beam Blast and allowed for alternate animations for blasts coming out of hands or eyes. I’d love to see that change here.

I haven’t watched the whole video yet but I’ll give it a whirl later. One piece of feedback that I’ll give is that you should minimize or temporarily remove some of the game interface. You can remove the chat panes because I notice that all local chat is repeated there twice. I think your videos will get better over time so keep at it.

Yeah that would be infuriating. People can join and play anything they want but if you’re trying one of the advanced modes, you would think you’d join only if you achieved competency in that TF, at the very least run it a few times in normal mode. I won’t join many advanced mode TFs because I wouldn’t feel I was familiar enough with them. I don’t like wasting the time of seven other players, but that’s just me. I guess selfishness of some players seem to suggest that this is acceptable.

Could labels be added to each server? Excelsior (Large teams, PvP) Everlasting (RP here) Indomitable (Cozy community) Don’t take the labels above as gospel; they’re just suggestions. Maybe enable several tags instead of a single label. Something like this may inform player choice better.

Interesting. I wrote up a guide that was very similar to this but with a focus on leveling a new character from 0 influence. The guide ends at level 20, and was mostly to make a point that you don’t need to farm. It’s nice to see a journal that goes all the way to end build. Here’s my guide.

I have some power sets combinations I want to try but can’t associate it with a name and a costume I’m satisfied with. For example, I’d like to try an Energy Melee/Bio Armor character but for the life of me, I can’t think of a concept that marries those two powers elegantly enough for me. The aesthetics of pink pom-poms with bio armor makes it kind of hard…at least for me. Most of my easiest to apply concepts also seem to combine some of the worst (“weakest”) power sets together. When I accidentally end up with a meta build combination I’m actually surprised. “Oh so this is how powerful characters are? Huh.”

So I've never done Laura's flashback mission until this thread. Minor spoiler for those who haven't done it.

I'll propose that squatting players get -1000 repel/knockback resistance after 30 seconds. Imagine punting them a la Hellion Golf using repel or power push (or for that matter using Energy Torrent to remove a whole group.

How about two? Doubled up Silver Mantis and the Alec Parsons hostage in the Save Alec Parsons mission from Provost Marchand. And yes, they both attack you at the same time. Fun.

Oh mine are incompetent. They'd honestly be hostages that you would save from the CoT or Banished Pantheon and have to walk back to the entrance on a huge map. Most of them fly but for some strange reason they'll be stuck on the tiniest ledge so you'd have to backtrack often. They'd also aggro everything along the way so be prepared to fight off each and every ambush.