FFFF

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.

I think rage is somewhat overpowered at low levels (not in a bad way). With my brutes, I can one-shot a lot of lieutenants with essentially unslotted attacks. Eventually, around level 10, you stop being able to do that since bad guy hit points scale to assume you have enhancements in your attacks. Rage is also a mechanic you can control whereas crits from scrappers are random. Moving from mob to mob at low levels don't really hurt you as a player whereas at high levels, you may want to be a bit more considerate depending on mob type. With that said, these are minor advantages I'm talking about. Scrappers work great for new players. It's like arguing whether apples are pears are sweeter.

Brute being the most popular is unsurprising. It's arguably the most new player friendly of the ATs and the farmer AT of choice. Defenders and stalkers being relatively unpopular is a bit of surprise. Though upon recollection, you rarely see the blue shield nowadays. I think I might have seen a stalker on a team perhaps four months ago. Stalkers are definitely around, but they seem to be helmed by soloists.

You now need 10 exploration badges to unlock it.

I had no idea that there were non-English speaking folks on HC. I don't think the HC servers/clients support any sort of localization, so this must be tough for them.

As a level 2 blaster, I accidentally zoned into Steel Canyon and was insta-killed by nearby Outcasts. Ending up in the Steel Canyon hospital, i wasn’t good enough to run back to the tram or the tunnel back to Atlas before being killed again and sent back. I just ended up deleting the character and recreating it so I could be in Atlas. If that wasn’t bad enough, I accidentally wandered into Independence Port at level 9 on the recreated character and essentially fell into the same loop. Fortunately, I managed to make it to Skyway just to be instantly put down by a Troll boss. The trek from the Skyway hospital to the tram wasn’t nearly that bad.

I don't think there's a difference in mob density. As @Lunar Ronin mentioned, the red side mobs are more difficult. CoV came out a year after CoH and the devs definitely learned a lot. The missions are honestly richer. The stories are better (yes, even though you are often times an evil minion of someone more powerful). Even the contacts are more flavorful. Compare Doc Buzzsaw or Television with a contact like Steven Sheridan or Cadao Kestrel. CoV, if I'm not mistaken, introduced elements like ambushes, cut scenes and more varied mission objectives. You also have less free 13 lawyers from the Devouring Earth or find 11 relics in Oranbega type missions. I think CoV's unpopularity simply boils down to the fact that most players (me included) like playing the good guys in a superhero MMO. Mercy Island is rather depressing compared with Atlas Park which is not only buzzing with player activity, but gives off an uplifting feeling.

I’m not sure why you’re so snippy. I made it clear that the majority of my PUG experiences are quiet but competent. I’m surprised there seems to quite an abundance of stories of bad experiences. Without fail, there is a weekly story here about some failing. If you have something to add to this conversation great. If you’re trying to snidely insult me then yeah, that’s evident. Good day to you.

I think both ATs are end game viable but brutes, if built well, can more easily play a pseudo tank role owing to higher resistance caps and hit points. I like defense sets for scrappers and resistance sets for brutes in general. I have not played regen on brutes since I’ve started on HC so I’m ignorant as to what they can do in end game content. Regen on Sentinels is actually pretty good, while the consensus opinion is that it is underwhelming on scrappers (though IOs can probably patch many of the perceived shortcomings)

I think all these are somewhat excusable if you’re talking about a player base that’s a mix of old and new players. Some of us have probably played certain task forces upwards of a 100+ times. How can people still be this bad with that much repetition?

I've had my share of bad pick-up groups recently though the majority of my teaming experiences have mostly been quiet competence, teammates who join and fulfill expectations but are relatively quiet. There are some of us that have well over a decade plus of experience, and let's be honest, this game isn't that tough. There's really nothing that require twitch reflexes, buffs/debuffs are very powerful and encounters are rare where you require players to act in a specific sequence or apply anything more than the simplest of strategies (e.g., "don't go on the stairs until we clear around it). And yet we are regaled continually of stories of incompetence, bad team play, and sometimes bad behavior bordering on griefing. This would make sense if this was 2004 and the player base had only a couple of months under their collective playing experience, but this is 20 years later. Yes, there are "AE babies", characters that are manned by players who rush to level 50, but I think those are rarer than what most people believe. I think this is an overwhelming veteran playing base, and the state of play from our random pick-up group doesn't seem to match what I think should be better overall play. I wonder a little if the bad play could be a result of part-time play. The vast majority of us have careers, families, activities, outside of this game and dip in only here or there. Maybe, it's truly rust. I know that I'm competent on just about anything pre-incarnate but I'm not knowledgeable about iTrials or how to speed past certain obstacles. The other reason could be that some of us just don't care that much about our quality of play. I know there's more than a few that may enjoy an adult beverage or two while playing and that could obviously affect judgment, reflexes or even behavior. Others may just be tired of the pace of traditional team (which begs the question of why join one in the first place) and may try to solo in the context of a team. Thoughts?

I don't think Fire/Fire is as bad as many of us remember it. Back in the old days it was the epitome of a debt machine. With that said I think this would be terrible combination for me because how methodically I typically play. With Fire/Fire you just have to go for it and trust the best offense is the best defense.

+0/x1 default all the way until level 25-32 depending on AT. Then I'll bump to +1 or +2 but still keep it at x1. I value story arc completion and reward merits as much as the additional xp. At around late 20s/30s though, leveling slows a bit so bumping up difficulty still allows for a decent leveling speed while completing arcs.

That’s actually a great follow-up: how many of you have kids that play or even play with you?

I realize that the folks that lurk here probably skew older than even the current player base. I'm assuming that I'll get different answers on Discord or on /r/cityofheroes. According to this thread, we skew to around 50 years old and are mostly males. I'm curious if the NCSoft licensing agreement and/or the updates in Issue 7 lured in any new players, players who are experiencing City of Heroes for the first time in 2024 (or late 2023). If you're new, I'd love to know what drew you in.

So you just don't want to avail yourself of the mechanisms in the game that allows you to have plenty of influence? Even if you don't want to play the market, how difficult is it to get merits (which you do for just doing story arcs / TFs), converting them to Enhancement Converters, listing the batch for 10 inf each and selling them for 65-70k a pop? 100 merits = 300 enhancement converter = 18M influence (assuming the bottom price of 60k per each enhancement). Just running through the full Hollows arcs can net you 85 merits. 18M is more than enough to fund a character on SOs for the rest of your hero career.

No boosters, no PL either. I find the leveling process in Homecoming really fast, even with me running 95% solo, and mostly doing missions. It probably has to do with early access to SOs, inherent fitness and the converter economy which eliminates early level scarcity. I can get to level 20 or so within 4-5 hours of play. 50 takes me about a month playing part-time. I just don't die as much and athletic run + jump jet pretty much cuts down travel time a lot.

I just delete the characters I don't like or don't play anymore. *shrugs* I've deleted a level 33 just recently. And also, I'm clearly a filthy casual. I have five level 50s in total.

I've been looking for a new favorite scrapper, and somehow it's been a bit elusive. Back during Live service, I had four or five that I really enjoyed: Spines/Regen, Fire/Shield, Kat/SR, Dual Blades/WP and others. Back then, brutes were considered inferior tanks; I built up an Electric/Shield brute which was okay. I've dabbled with just about all the power sets that were available prior to issue 20. The stuff I wasn't familiar with I've started to play around with. On Homecoming, I've played: Staff/SR - stopped playing at level 40 due to feeling staff was inadequate. I still like the character but it took too long to kill ("arrest") stuff. This is even after a sizeable investment in IOs (about 200+M worth) Savage Melee/Rad - just couldn't get into the Savage Melee mechanics. Radiation armor feels better on tanks and brutes in my opinion owing to higher resistance caps. I have three other radiation armor characters. MA/Invuln - still playing. Both MA and Invulnerability were two sets I didn't play much on Live. The character is "okay". Not great, not bad. I'll still probably keep playing because I like the character concept. Another combination that I think may be better on a brute or tank due to lower resistance caps. Still the scrapper crit ATO on Cobra Strike is pretty nice. I've also played a lot of brute combinations, and they all feel pretty nice. Battle Axe/Frozen Armor in particular is a bit of a standout on a brute but actually may be better as a scrapper. I also have an Energy Aura brute, and again it feels like it may have been better as a scrapper. What scrapper combination do you recommend that you think works better as a scrapper than either a brute or tank? What combination feels "crunchy"? One of the things I enjoyed about scrappers are the large damage numbers that can be inflicted on hard targets like bosses, elite bosses. Among my current characters, staff has almost no ability to do that while MA can generate some nice numbers. I'm trying to recapture my earlier love this AT.

I'm making a small plug for a Guide I published recently on leveling from 1 to 20. It's up-to-date with the Page 7 changes that dropped yesterday. As you're a returnee, you're probably familiar with many of these steps already, but I think it will be helpful to you to see how someone else plays, sets up their characters, earn influence and generally progress through the game. You do not have to play this way at all. Farming is still well and alive, and many players skip through parts of the content they don't like either through trials like DFB or joining radio mission teams. I think the others covered your questions about incarnates, SGs, etc.

I have updated the above guide to reflect the changes to the new character experience that dropped in Issue 27, Page 7. The biggest effect may be in how to quickly earn influence via the Atlas Park exploration badge collection method. The method still works but you will need to collect the badge Rookie (near Ms Liberty) and Silent Sentinel (which is now in Echo: Atlas Park) is no longer needed. The collection of 8 exploration badges also no longer award the Passport accolade and the Long Distance Teleporter. You will have to collect any additional two exploration badges to unlock these (easily obtainable). The list of badges required for Atlas Park Tourist and 5 Reward Merits: Hero Corps Insider Undefeated Patriot Top Dog Freedom Edge of Chaos Observant Rookie

Go talk to Ms. Liberty. You might have to get to level 2, but I got the Rookie badge when I went up to train. I don't think you have that one.