nightroarer

Thank you for this thread. I've got a couple of missions on hold on my main soloer because of the simultaneous click requirement in the mission text. Now I'll go ahead and complete them.

One great thing about CoH is how it appeals to so many playstyles. One of the things that drew me to it originally and is true today is that I can solo or play with my family to my heart's content. I'm not much one for big groups, but CoH offers the flexibility to play how you want.

It probably won't happen for me. It's not about the quality of the storylines, etc., it's about good vs evil. I like to play good guys. I do have some villains for a change of pace, but the majority of my time is spent heroing. 🙂

Could always make a feline brute named Catty Whompus.

CoH is only that way if you choose to play it that way. There is not a power in my trays that does not get used. Some get used less often than others, but they allow for greater tactical options and variance in combat. Between CoH and CO, I'll take the CoH combat system any time. There are powers from CO that I wish CoH had, and vice versa (when I played CO). CO has the edge in variety of costume patterns and being able to select multiple colors on the costume parts. Between the two games, I think CoH is by far the most fun. Having access to both games right now, I have no motivation to play CO. It just can't hold my interest the way CoH does when it comes to gameplay and immersion.

I like the CoH combat system. Getting CoH back for the sheer fun of the gameplay--including combat--has been fantastic. The mechanics are not perfect, but they are better than the other major superhero games out there. DCUO could not hold my interest at all, and I hated the combat mechanics there. I played CO after CoH shut down, but it never lived up to its predecessor. There are elements of CO I wish we could add to CoH, but overall, CoH wins out. The great irony in that regard is that early last year, my wife, daughter, and I were running together in CO and my daughter said wistfully: "I miss City of Heroes." Two weeks later, we found out about Homecoming. Our superhero niche came home. 🙂

The only permadeath concept character I have right now is one of my few villains. His concept is "when my enemies go down, they don't get back up again."

And then you have oddballs like me who kind of ignore the official AT origins. For example, I never choose Science as an origin because I hate fighting Vahz. However, I have a number of characters who are scientists; I just select a fitting Origin up front based on their abilities (Natural or Tech if their abilities are not superpowered, Mutant if they are). The imagination is a wonderful thing. It often supercedes came design for me. CoH gives me a fantastic playground; I decide what I play in it. 🙂

I write fantasy and science fiction. My squigglies threaten to break the spell checker.

I think having so much content is a great boon, at least for those of use who like to play multiple characters (I refuse to say "alts." I have no alts, just lots and lots of mains). It can probably be a little overwhelming for new players or those who have not played in a long time. My wife and I have a new team that we turned off XP at level 4--so that we could do all the missions for all five original contacts in Atlas. We turned XP back on when we reached the final mission in each arc. I also have a character with whom I used the base portal to go to Echo Galaxy and level to 8 via street sweeping. I set up my own RP-style storylines so that it did not just feel like street sweeping. I also got all the Galaxy badges. I have characters that go through the old tutorial and run only the older missions, others that go through the new tutorial and focus on the newer missions, and characters that mix and match content. Stir in radio missions, tip missions, and AE custom story missions (not farms for me), and each character can have a fairly unique leveling experience. To me this keeps the game fresh and adds to the replayability of CoH.

You probably don't want to see my characters. I like old school costumes (spandex, capes, and colors for the win). 🙂 Okay, I have more variety than that, but they are still among my favorite costumes.

This is true; I use it in my searchs, and if I get a chance to write missions again, I will use it in my descriptions (I really wish I had saved my mission folder from my old PC). However, I'm not sure everyone who uses the AE or writes AE missions knows about SFMA. It is a great stopgap, but putting in a filter native to the search tool would be better.

I think what could help the AE most is a straightforward way to separate farm missions from story-focused missions in searches. I'm not interested in farms (and have nothing against those who are), but sifting through pages of farms to find the story missions can be tedious. As much as I would love to be able to access AE missions in the city (similar to the way Star Trek Online handled the Foundry), it has never bothered me to go to the AE building. I have never treated AE missions as simulations; they are regular missions to me. 🙂

Jester Notherguy

I experimented to see if taking a tip mission while in Echo Galaxy would set the mission there, but it set the mission in King's Row instead. Being able to run missions in Galaxy again would be fantastic. Well, as long as you have a SG base with the facilities and resources that Galaxy no longer has. As is, I did level a new character to 8 by street sweeping in Galaxy (set up my own RP missions to do so) just for fun. Yeah, I'm a dork.

One purpose, for me anyway, is to add variety to the missions my characters run. The more content, the better. 🙂

Or rewards that were specific to AE. No rewards probably would have made the AE dead out of the gate, because many players are rewards-oriented. Why waste development resources on a robust system that relatively few use? For myself, I could have gone without rewards, although it would have precluded leveling via AE story missions. I'm okay with AE the way it is.

This. I had a few characters head to the AE right after the tutorial and level exclusively via AE *story-focused* missions (never farms). Talk about slo-o-o-w leveling! But it was a lot of fun. Running story missions in the AE, often in combination with regular content, added variety to the leveling and story paths for different characters. For those of us with a lot of characters, this was a great boon to keeping the game fresh and entertaining.

From my perspective--as a story player and not a farmer--AE was one of the greatest things Paragon Studios added to the game. I had a blast creating my own missions and playing good story missions from some pretty solid authors. Sorting past the farms was annoying, but I could handle it to find content I enjoyed. I really wish I had remembered to save my Missions folder from my old PC. I have the custom critters and custom groups, but not the missions themselves. Agh!

This. It sometimes gets ignored in thread like these. For some players, no amount of "incentives" will draw them to redside simply because they prefer playing heroes. I'm one of those people. I have a few red/gold characters for a change of pace, but heroes are where it is at for me.

I don't +4 stuff, so it's not an issue for me. That shows the subjectivity involved in a lot of these discussions. Playstyle preferences can impact perceptions and outcomes in different ways. That doesn't mean I wouldn't like to see EM buffed to be more on par with other sets. I just don't see it as an unplayable mess. It's still fun, but can be more so.

I have a level 30 EM/Invuln tank (soloer) that I've had a blast on so far. Since I don't numbers crunch, I figure my ignorance of EM deficiency is bliss. 🙂

Never felt the need to go afk (especially for 10 seconds). I don't even pay attention to the crash. I just keep doing what I'm doing, and it seems to work out all right. 🙂

It depends on the player. I do not enjoy the mayhem missions. When I finish a contact, I just want to move on to new contacts, not be forced to go through the whole newspaper/mayhem process. To me, this requirement is an impediment to playing redside, not a benefit. Note, it is the mayhem mission specifically that bugs me. The newspaper missions can be nice side missions. I do police radio missions blueside occasionally as a change of pace or to finish out a level. I'd like to treat newspaper missions the same way.

Agreed. I do have some villain characters for a change of pace. But I much prefer playing heroes. It is not even a matter of quality of content, events, enticements, or what have you. I just like being a good guy. 🙂 For players who like playing heroes simply because they like heroes better than baddies, I don't think there is much you can do to get them to switch over. Diminishing the gameplay for hero players to try to push them redside would be a monumental mistake. It is entirely possible that the lack of population on redside is not strongly related to the quality of content, but just that more players prefer to play heroes in general. Note: I'm not knocking the idea of making improvements redside; adding content to any and all sides is a win-win in my book.