CoH must have sucked

[Abraxus]

It didn't suck, because we didn't have the comparison that we have today.  It just was, what it was.  I would say though that as things were back in the early days, it definitely made the thought of starting new alts a less attractive alternative than it is now.  As the game matured, more QoL features started being added, more inherent things, Veteran Rewards, etc., that made creating a new alt much less of a daunting thing.

[Ulysses Dare]

11 minutes ago, Abraxus said:

It didn't suck, because we didn't have the comparison that we have today. 

So very much this. CoH predates World of Warcraft. At the time it came out Everquest and how it did things was the benchmark. Expectations about MMORPGs were very different back then.

Edited December 7, 2019 by Ulysses Dare

[EmmySky]

The reason I am okay with PLing my toons (AE or even just DFB) through to at least 20 or maybe even 30 is because between 2004 and 2010 I ran literally hundreds of combos to 20 or so.  I have done that low content to death (it used to take longer than an hour to get those 20 levels lol).  I do like to jump back into content in the 30s and HC has made it easy by having contacts that dont need intros, just walk up to them.  Its really easy now to do the content you want and skip the parts you don't want.

[Extor Prime]

Long story short it sucked for everyone except scrappers until you got Stamina (which was not inherent, you had to spend a power pick) and got your upper-tier abilities.

 

Jack did a great job making sure that almost nobody felt particularly super for the majority of their leveling process. 

[Abraxus]

6 minutes ago, Ulysses Dare said:

So very much this. CoH predates World of Warcraft. At the time it came out Everquest and how it did things was the benchmark. Expectations about MMORPGs were very different back then.

 

2 minutes ago, Extor Prime said:

Long story short it sucked for everyone except scrappers until you got Stamina (which was not inherent, you had to spend a power pick) and got your upper-tier abilities.

 

Jack did a great job making sure that almost nobody felt particularly super for the majority of their leveling process. 

I agree on both counts.  One has to bear in mind that, unlike the game prior to shutdown, the emphasis in game design now is no longer to drag things out in such a way to keep you playing, which also kept you paying.  Since subscription/profit is no longer the motive, the emphasis can be on having fun, rather than making money.

[Bopper]

I'm not sure if the title of the thread is intentionally click-baity or if the OP is suggesting the game in general "sucked" because of lack of powers while early leveling. Either way, the QoL changes are nice and appreciated, but the game never sucked just because it originally was more challenging. Real life friends who played and the friends made within the community helped make the game enjoyable and overcoming the early level challenges with friends were always the most memorable moments.

[SeraphimKensai]

My first character at launch was an Elec/Elec blaster that took about three weeks of serious play time to get to lvl 14. When I could finally fly it felt like such an achievement.

 

I eventually shelved the character as I swapped to playing an invuln tank and an emp defender which were my first and second lvl 40's, and subsequently lvl 50's once the level cap was raised.

[Call Me Awesome]

16 minutes ago, Extor Prime said:

Long story short it sucked for everyone except scrappers until you got Stamina (which was not inherent, you had to spend a power pick) and got your upper-tier abilities.

 

Jack did a great job making sure that almost nobody felt particularly super for the majority of their leveling process. 

Actually you needed THREE power pics to get Stamina.  It was an accepted tax at the time that you got Hurdle or Swift and Health by 18 so you could get Stamina at 20.  Offhand I can't think of a single powerset combination in any AT (other than a tri-form Keldian since pool powers didn't work in the forms) that didn't need Stamina in order to function.  Some were worse than others but everyone had to have it.  In my opinion making Fitness inherent is the single greatest QoL change the game ever had.

 

The worst changes?  The Global Defense Nerf of issue 5 that cut defenses and resistances by a huge margin.  It was followed by Enhancement Diversification (ED) where once you reached the equivalent of 3 SO's worth of enhancement in a power adding more was pointless.  Those two great nerfs reduced protection by at least half and cut damage by 40% or more.  It took more than 5 years before IO's appeared and we recovered some of the lost ability.  I still think those nerfs were the worst blunders the Dev team ever made.  Yes, it allowed IO's and set bonuses to build up high levels of effectiveness but that didn't happen for years afterwards.

 

One interesting thing, Inf was of limited use prior to IO's, by the time you hit the 30's you were making more inf than you were spending on SO's and there really wasn't anything else to spend it on other than passing it down to your alts... which was a fairly complex job at the time.  You needed a trusted friend to be the middleman and you could only trade 99,999 inf at a time so you spent several minutes transferring to your friend, then you switched to your alt and your friend spent several minutes transferring back to you.  After my first character got into the 40's I never had problems always having up to date enhancements on all characters.

[EmmySky]

20 minutes ago, Call Me Awesome said:

Offhand I can't think of a single powerset combination in any AT (other than a tri-form Keldian since pool powers didn't work in the forms) that didn't need Stamina in order to function.  Some were worse than others but everyone had to have it.  In my opinion making Fitness inherent is the single greatest QoL change the game ever had.

My regen scrapper didn't need fitness.  Prior to the def nerfs you talked about, prior to ED, prior to many regen nerfs, my scrapper didnt need fitness. 

 

It was glorious!  I felt like a whole new world had opened, I had choices rather than an expected path to follow all the other toons.  She had three whole choices to ponder!  She was the first toon I took combat jumping on because she had room in her build to fit it in since she didnt have to have hurdle, health and stamina.  

 

But aside from that rare (and very early game) experience, you are correct, I dont know of any other set that didnt need fitness.

[Riverdusk]

16 minutes ago, EmmySky said:

My regen scrapper didn't need fitness.  Prior to the def nerfs you talked about, prior to ED, prior to many regen nerfs, my scrapper didnt need fitness. 

 

It was glorious!  I felt like a whole new world had opened, I had choices rather than an expected path to follow all the other toons.  She had three whole choices to ponder!  She was the first toon I took combat jumping on because she had room in her build to fit it in since she didnt have to have hurdle, health and stamina.  

 

But aside from that rare (and very early game) experience, you are correct, I dont know of any other set that didnt need fitness.

Quite a few kinetics and empathy users I remember not taking it, instead relying on transference and recovery aura.   

[WanderingAries]

Nope, it made you realize just how much more fun it was playing in a team (shore up any weaknesses). You learned real quick to watch your distances, adjust your playstyle per mob type, and generally invest more into your alt. TBH, while I'm fine with the "extra powers", I think it "softens" your builds up a bit and in a way almost resembles the P2W model. The game as it is now more resembles a video game where you've activated part of Godmode or atleast the overall global item unlock. Bases used to have (more) meaning as did SGs and grouping. Now it's like we're all playing on the test server and the only thing we Don't have is insta-50. So now all I see seems to be PL groups because people want to top off their alts as fast as possible instead of "living" their alt's levels out. IDK, like I said, I don't mind that all the old paid stuff is free and the open bases does allow for creativity and player housing (solo groups), but it's not the same...and the OG times really didn't suck.

[Solarverse]

I don't never even pick them up. Of course I also always team and almost never solo, so then you have that.

[Tahliah]

Wait, COH "sucked" because you were a low level and didn't have all your powers yet?  Doesn't that mean all games suck?  I'm being a bit facetious here, but you get my point.  You don't start a game as the uber your toon; you have to build it.  Using former vet, now P2W, powers into your 20s doesn't mean the game sucks, or even, as others imply, that your toon sucks. 

 

The game has changed across the board and for all ATs.  I used to use Nem Staff and Blackwand as an assist on lowbies back on live, and I still do now on defenders and controllers in particular, but I do find it useful for KBing baddies back into the tank/brute/scrapper range if they are pestering me and my squishie pals.  It's useful. I use it.  Usefully. 

 

That said, what did we do before such mediocre helpers?  We managed very well, and we did it without inherent fitness and without travel powers at lvl 3.

 

That said, I already walked to school uphill both ways in the snow and barefoot.  I'm kind of liking be able to walk to school uphill only one way these days.  :P 

 

[MunkiLord]

On 12/6/2019 at 6:06 PM, DougGraves said:

I have been soloing a bit lately and noticed how I use my bonus powers like black wand into my 20's.  I cannot remember what it was like playing with just brawl and your powerset attacks but it must have been painfully slow.

 

I am generally opposed to making things easier, but I would not go back to playing without those extra attacks at lower levels.

It did suck a lot before vet powers.

[eknudson]

It was a different game, certainly. The early levels could be very tedious, trying to finish battles with attacks that didn't hit much of the time because TOs have always been nearly worthless and DOs were barely worth buying on limited budgets, lack of stamina, and limited travel. With few actual attack powers since 5 early picks were spent on fitness and travel and some remaining picks had to be spent on defensive powers. 

 

CoH to me, then, was much more about the journey. It was a challenge to get a character leveled but I enjoyed the missions, the teaming, and the challenge. Most of my characters that hit 50 were then mostly parked because there wasn't all that much to do at 50 (Raids, a few TFs, but it was limited). I didn't understand getting a fire/kin to powerlevel you to 50 back then but that wasn't the way I played the game.

[biostem]

2 hours ago, Call Me Awesome said:

Offhand I can't think of a single powerset combination in any AT (other than a tri-form Keldian since pool powers didn't work in the forms) that didn't need Stamina in order to function.

Regen.  It had quick recovery;  Not only was it better than stamina, but you could get it a whole heck of a lot sooner.

 

3 hours ago, Extor Prime said:

Jack did a great job making sure that almost nobody felt particularly super for the majority of their leveling process. 

IIRC, they based much of CoH on pen & paper games, (Champions?), and so seemed to have implemented the combat system in a turn-based-like fashion;  They probably didn't expect people to spam attacks as fast as possible, and instead expect 1 hero to trade blows with up to 3 minions until 1 side was defeated.

 

A lot of my earliest memories consist of firing off a ranged attack from max distance, retreating around a corner, and taking on 1 or 2 enemies as they came to me.  I remember using hover in lieu of knockback protection for many character's early careers, and trying to keep my TOs green.  I remember choosing character origins based upon which DO shops were the easiest to get to at level 12, and heavily slotting only acc and end reduction, until I got stamina.  I recall buying blue insp's a lot back then, too...

Edited December 8, 2019 by biostem

[Haijinx]

23 hours ago, Riverdusk said:

Don't forget no double xp either (except for the rare "Double xp weekend" events) and no travel power until level 14.  I do kind of miss the double xp weekends and crowds that would draw, and the fun of the marathon play sessions during those weekends.  Didn't help my sleep schedule though.

 

It is nice to have extra xp on demand now (for those characters I want it on), but at the same time it makes it less special.

 

 

And no inherent Stamina

[EmmySky]

I think, collectively, we can conclude that some parts sucked some small fraction of the time BUT we all fell in love with it enough that here we are, 15 years later, still loving it and still griping about the bits that did suck/still suck.

 

Three cheers for the suckage!  😛

[Abraxus]

As I have stated, I am SO happy just to be able to play the game again, that even the parts that I detested before (Orenbega, Malta, and tri-level cave anyone?), are an absolute pleasure to experience again!

 

Edited December 8, 2019 by Abraxus

[Call Me Awesome]

1 hour ago, biostem said:

Regen.  It had quick recovery;  Not only was it better than stamina, but you could get it a whole heck of a lot sooner..

You are correct, I'd forgotten about QR... and I shouldn't have since I had a BS/Regen scrapper back in the day.  Unfortunately he had to grow up after the IH nerf.

[biostem]

2 minutes ago, Call Me Awesome said:

You are correct, I'd forgotten about QR... and I shouldn't have since I had a BS/Regen scrapper back in the day.  Unfortunately he had to grow up after the IH nerf.

My namesake was a dm/regen scrapper, so after the nerf to instant healing, he had to rely more on dark's tohit debuff.  I can't recall if I ever picked up tough and weave on him, or if I just played at closer to base difficulty on missions...

[Call Me Awesome]

9 minutes ago, biostem said:

My namesake was a dm/regen scrapper, so after the nerf to instant healing, he had to rely more on dark's tohit debuff.  I can't recall if I ever picked up tough and weave on him, or if I just played at closer to base difficulty on missions...

I feel your pain, Gortak, my BS/Regen was level 25 when the nerf hit.  Parry was always a godsend for him though, all the way to 50.

[carnalchaos]

Like a few folks alluded to here it actually made the low level zones and content important.  I had a lot of fun on low level teams in Perez park and Kings Row and you spent real time in those zones.  You appreciated your travel power and looked forward to level 14 something fierce.  Pickup groups was a big part of the game an something I really love, trying to find a way to mesh your powers with how others are playing and benefit the team.  It was revolutionary versatility in a game or it was to me :).

 

Having said that putting in all that time to get to the mid twenties and discover the powers you were excited about sucked and had to start over was brutal.  It did force all of us onto the forums and to talk to one another more and probably was key to building such a tight knit community. 

 

[Haijinx]

5 hours ago, eknudson said:

It was a different game, certainly. The early levels could be very tedious, trying to finish battles with attacks that didn't hit much of the time because TOs have always been nearly worthless and DOs were barely worth buying on limited budgets, lack of stamina, and limited travel. With few actual attack powers since 5 early picks were spent on fitness and travel and some remaining picks had to be spent on defensive powers. 

 

CoH to me, then, was much more about the journey. It was a challenge to get a character leveled but I enjoyed the missions, the teaming, and the challenge. Most of my characters that hit 50 were then mostly parked because there wasn't all that much to do at 50 (Raids, a few TFs, but it was limited). I didn't understand getting a fire/kin to powerlevel you to 50 back then but that wasn't the way I played the game.

This is probably where I picked up the habit of never getting a travel power lol 

[Myrmidon]

The absolute worst was not being able to share completing missions. The 30s in Oranbega running the same mission 8 times was the stuff of nightmares.