Soloing red side I can see again how good the solo game really is

[DougGraves]

I play CoH mostly as a super battle simulator.  I love the combat, especially on big teams.  It is just so different from other games.

 

Solo is not the same.  I'm not interacting with other powers on the team.  There are only a few enemies at a time (at level 12 anyway).  It is not the same sort of fights.

 

But as I am soloing I am reading the mission text and clues - something I never do teaming.  And missions are not just moving from spawn to spawn but searching for the objective - since fighting is not the objective itself.

 

And I am using TO's and will look for DO's.  In a team at level 10 I would be leveling every mission, or 3 times in Atta or Frostfire.  But solo I might go through 3 or 4 missions for each level.  So taking the time to get enhancements makes sense - and they matter more.

 

I am really seeing the older core of the game.  Not the original, but with the improved content of red side where arcs are stories and missions are interesting.  I just got a mission to fight ghosts and I got ghost grenades and a ghost rifle temporary power.  So the mission will play a bit differently.

 

I guess when I tire of red side I will roll up a gold side character and try that again.  I think I only did gold side once and did not even get to 20.  It was a lot harder - so I'll need to pick my character carefully.

[Redlynne]

18 minutes ago, DougGraves said:

I guess when I tire of red side I will roll up a gold side character and try that again.  I think I only did gold side once and did not even get to 20.  It was a lot harder - so I'll need to pick my character carefully.

You may even want to pick your path through the gold side loyalties even more carefully ... 😎

[Snarky]

Solo Redside is better than Gold. Pure.  And Blueside?  Like it was written by somebody who was hungover. Did they even try to line stuff up?

 

Redside it all tied together. When they could not or did not want to fully explain stuff they took the time to write dialogue that justified it. Good stuff

[Lines]

I've noticed a little more life on redside this week. Could it be our time has come?

 

The heroes are doomed!

[Snarky]

No. Just an uptick. Redside was dead before the Snap. Dead still.  Come to think of it my main Redside is zombie.  
 

sometimes there is an outpouring of new Destined Ones from the Zig

 

i do miss the old Mercy. Endless stream of would be master criminals poring out of Fort Darwin. Good times

[alexanderk]

Just wanted to plug the solo play! Playing the game solo has been extremely enjoyable for me lately. Blue or red side. Cranking my notoriety as high as I can and actually taking the time to learn what different enemies do and how they behave is really fun. It also helps you learn your character so much better. It is way more engaging then just grinding group content for easy levels and barely paying attention. It's really rewarding to know exactly how strong your character is on their own. You really get to feel the difference that an enhancement here or there can make!

[DougGraves]

1 hour ago, alexanderk said:

It's really rewarding to know exactly how strong your character is on their own.

 

While I love teaming, it does give you a warped sense of your character.  My dark/dark tanker rarely has END problems but that is because there is usually a buffer with AM, speed boost, or another recovery buff.  When I exemplar down and am on a team without a buffer I find I run out of END in one fight.  It is tough figuring out what you can do and what the buffs and debuffs let you do

[RikOz]

I play almost entirely solo (I've completed precisely two TFs - Citadel on my SS/Rad brute, and Market Crash on my Fire/Fire blaster). With 75 alts at this point, I've naturally soloed my way through a lot of the same low-level missions/arcs with a multitude of different ATs and powersets, and it's been fun (and sometimes frustrating) discovering what is strong and what is weak against particular enemy groups. For example, I've learned to never again accept a Banished Pantheon arc on a psychic character, and that brute-force melee is pretty ineffective against CoT ghosts. I just completed a lengthy CoT arc on the aforementioned SS/Rad brute, and with all those ghosts he had to punch, and punch, and punch, and punch... GAH! When doing the Midnighter arc in Steel, I'm in the habit of setting my notoriety to -1 before entering the Lady Jane mission if I'm on a melee toon.

[siolfir]

2 hours ago, RikOz said:

I'm in the habit of setting my notoriety to -1 before entering the Lady Jane mission if I'm on a melee toon.

I always cleared the map before rescuing her because otherwise she ends up trying to clear it by herself.

 

Also, flip-flopping the psychic to fight the CoT ghosts and the melee to Banished Pantheon works really well.

[RikOz]

1 hour ago, siolfir said:

Also, flip-flopping the psychic to fight the CoT ghosts and the melee to Banished Pantheon works really well.

Indeed. It's also why I love my fire/fire blaster so much - fire solves everything (mostly) 😄