So about the DFB

[rookery.]

*WARNING* *OPINION ONLY**AM NOT INSISTING PEOPLE PLAY LIKE ME**HAVE A PAMCAKE*

 

So there was a LOT of requests for DFB over the weekend. So much so it seemed at times that was all people were asking for, yes I know, observer bias. So I thought I might mention there are a lot of alternatives at lower levels.

 

• Your Origin initial quest giver inside City Hall, i.e. Azuria if you are magic in the M.A.G.I.
  
• Matthew Hanaby just to the left of city hall steps if you are standing under Atlas Statue. His story arc is quite good.
  
• The TwinShot missions are pretty good, would love to run through them with a group. Dr. Graves on Villain side are good too. Get to meet Sirocco, he's so dreamy.
  
• The David Wincott missions in The Hollows, eventually lead to taking on Frostfire who was one of the first bad dudes you fought way back when.
  
• Radio Mishes and then bank and mayhem mishes.
  
• Perez Park street cleaning. Those Skuls and Hellions aren't gonna clean themselves.
  
• Perez Park Hydra (tater men) cleaning. The ORIGINAL xp farm, like week one of go live in 2004, there were calls to join up and kill tater men in Perez park lake. It was all the rage. :)

[*]

<----I don't even know.

 

I am sure there are others.

 

Anyways just wanted to remind folks or to let new folks who are playing there is more to COH than DFB.

 

NOTE* This is not meant for folks who know all this and want to get to 50 endgame. HAPPY GAMING ALL!

 

[_NOPE_]

[Erydanus]

I think it's fair to point this out! In the first week of the game being up a lot of people were doing conventional teams going into the actual sewers to grind levels.

 

In the second and third weeks the info about Death from Below got out and the mix shifted. At the same time there were a lot of actually new players who genuinely thought that was the expected path to play through. That of course is not great. I totally appreciate many people want to kick start their leveling process and get a big handful of powers available and I think it's great there's a way to do that.  I just want new players to know it's an option!

 

Those Hollows missions are MERIT LOADED guys. Doing the full set of 4 arcs yields about 95 merits. That's not a mistake they painted a big ole dollar sign on them to induce players to do them.

 

[Zolgar]

You forgot the AE farms. :p

[jubakumbi]

Totally get the point of the the thread, personally agree.

Done my share of DFB over the last couple weeks, but also done lots of other things, DFB gets boring.

 

Thing is, you cannot really change the lemmings.

Sure, posts like this will spark a few to look around, I agree, but it a little like yelling into a hurricane.

 

Even way back when, much less now in the MMO world, the idea of racing to max level to 'get to the good stuff' and to be seen as 'worthy' was already deeply ingrained.

 

Some play for the content, others play to be with friends, still others play just to level and get the dopamine hit on dings.

 

The people involved can decide to change how they play and choose to not be swayed by peer pressure and the race to 50, or they can remain lemmings.

It is a personal choice, but one that, IME, is really tough for most, because peer pressure is a killer for most people.

Extroverts want to be around everyone else and Introverts just want to quietly get a group and not rock the boat.

 

Again, no different than any other MMO I have encountered.

 

It's kind of like watching someone devour delious, hand made food like it's a race, over savorying it - to some, food is just fuel, in any form, to others it is art to be slowly, lovingly consumed.

 

How many McDs vs Fine Cuisine places to go are there again? :)

[ed_anger]

Honestly, what is there to do at 50 anyway? Run the same few task forces over and over? I haven't played since 2008 so really have no idea if they added a lot of endgame content.

 

And yeah, zero reason to powerlevel through the nicely-written content on your first couple characters, if you're on your 4th alt I get it.

[rookery.]

And I almost forgot, the Praetorian starting area.

 

Crap that's kinda two to four -ish arcs depending if you are going loyalist or resistance or betraying to loyalist or resistance. I have only done one arc so don't know how much they differ.

 

I get it, I had numerous 50's by game end and with a select few folks could get leveled up really quickly. Having access to millios of INF and someone who could make IO's at any level made leveling really really easy.

 

Also, I didn't forget AE FARM. But logging into a mish with a full group at max level for a run of multi ambushes of easy mobs seems horribly dull. Worse than runnign DFB over and over. However, there are some AE mishes that I would like to try now that things seem to be settled? (yes no maybe?)

[Erydanus]

Honestly, what is there to do at 50 anyway? Run the same few task forces over and over? I haven't played since 2008 so really have no idea if they added a lot of endgame content.

 

And yeah, zero reason to powerlevel through the nicely-written content on your first couple characters, if you're on your 4th alt I get it.

That's just it, a lot of people are in the mindset of "get to max level and actually start playing."

 

COH is an anomaly in that it really is about the getting to 50; the stuff at 50 with the Incarnate system is a heck of a lot newer.

[Generator]

Those Hollows missions are MERIT LOADED guys. Doing the full set of 4 arcs yields about 95 merits. That's not a mistake they painted a big ole dollar sign on them to induce players to do them.

 

See, I don't think people know how much they've upped the Merit Rewards on some story arcs.  A quick look on ParagonWiki tells me that those same 4 arcs (Wincott up through Talshak) yielded 39 Merits back in the day.  That's a significant increase!  And if I hadn't happened on this post, I wouldn't know.

[Myrmidon]

Then, there is my alternative of not joining a single one of these until after I reach 50.

[jubakumbi]

In terms of the current gamers playing online games, this is an odd time for CoH to return.

IMO, in many ways, the game is simply not built for the 'current' muli-player gamer.

 

Thus, a ton of people, both that have and have not played CoX, perhaps, IMO, think they should play this game the same way those other games (with not much real content other than cosmetics) - running to max level then 'hanging out' to show off the cosmetics they 'earned', since the 'new carrot' is fashion in many games.

 

CoX did not have much in the way of fashion carrots, and what was there has been given to all.

 

So now, these players rush to 50, just to hang out with 50s, with fashion we can make at level 1.

Fine by me, they take up fewer map server instances. :)

 

Addtionally, IMO, people assume this game is like others in that you have a 'main' that needs all the time, when this game is built for making many characters, all of which can get to 50 pretty easily.

Because of this assumtion and the difficulty other games have around changing thing later, many players assume decisions here are set in stone when that is not the case, IMO.

 

IMO, the _real game_ for long term players is the joy of building new ideas, coupled with 'breaking the game' with specific fun, mathematically supreme characters.

 

Right now, IMO, we have a bunch of people showing up thinking this is like some old MMO where they need to run to 50 to 'catch up' with the 'old timers' and then expecting new content added...yeah...

[Prototelis]

People aren't having fun the same way I do. Better call the police.

[brian9824]

In terms of the current gamers playing online games, this is an odd time for CoH to return.

IMO, in many ways, the game is simply not built for the 'current' muli-player gamer.

 

Thus, a ton of people, both that have and have not played CoX, perhaps, IMO, think they should play this game the same way those other games (with not much real content other than cosmetics) - running to max level then 'hanging out' to show off the cosmetics they 'earned', since the 'new carrot' is fashion in many games.

 

CoX did not have much in the way of fashion carrots, and what was there has been given to all.

 

So now, these players rush to 50, just to hang out with 50s, with fashion we can make at level 1.

Fine by me, they take up fewer map server instances. :)

 

Addtionally, IMO, people assume this game is like others in that you have a 'main' that needs all the time, when this game is built for making many characters, all of which can get to 50 pretty easily.

Because of this assumtion and the difficulty other games have around changing thing later, many players assume decisions here are set in stone when that is not the case, IMO.

 

IMO, the _real game_ for long term players is the joy of building new ideas, coupled with 'breaking the game' with specific fun, mathematically supreme characters.

 

Right now, IMO, we have a bunch of people showing up thinking this is like some old MMO where they need to run to 50 to 'catch up' with the 'old timers' and then expecting new content added...yeah...

 

You also have to remember there really isnt anything you can't do at 50 that you can do at lower levels with the way exemplaring works.  Not to mention you also get xp and drops towards your incarnate powers if your doing it at 50. 

[_NOPE_]

People aren't having fun the same way I do. Better call the police.

 

The OP wasn't saying to "call the police", they were gently letting new players know that there's more than just DFB out there. Just because YOU already know that, doesn't mean that everybody does.

[jubakumbi]

You also have to remember there really isnt anything you can't do at 50 that you can do at lower levels with the way exemplaring works.  Not to mention you also get xp and drops towards your incarnate powers if your doing it at 50.

 

Very true, but how many people rushing to 50 then level-down and play other content?

 

Lets be clear - I don't care either way. :)

 

This is all just modern human/gamer behaviour.

 

I applaud trying to get people informed as to all the fun things in the game., but people will be people. :)

[khy]

Yes, the majority of the game is about levelling. And that's fine. The thing is, the early levels are super, super boring and suck tremendously because you're missing 80% of your powers, and almost all the best and most enjoyable powers are the ones that come later on.

 

I do rush through levels, but only early ones. Once I hit ~24-26 I slow down because at that point I've got most of the fun stuff and I can enjoy the levelling experience more leisurely.

 

That said, DFB is amazing for so many reasons. The fact that it's such good XP at such a low level is incredible. I've joined a DFB on a freshly made level 1, and exited at level 8. Sure, I could have done contact missions and gotten 1 level every 2 or so missions, but it's a lot slower of a grind. If I make a mastermind, doing DFB three times is enough to get my mid-tier minions which is a major milestone.

 

Then there's the fact that we get a whopping 5 SOs doing it; early on when you're stuck with the measly 8-10% boost from training enhancements, the sudden 33-40% boost from a SO is tremendous. There's no other good reliable sources for that many SOs early on.

 

And those temp powers are pretty great too - the accuracy one is a flat 12% tohit, while the recovery one is super helpful early on before you have SOs in stamina. Just getting them early on can make a drastic difference once you're off doing other things.

[Mjolnerd]

I understand the sentiment, really, I do. And for new players, or players who weren't playing late in the game's life, when the DFB was introduced, I think this is (mostly, see below) good advice.

 

For me, though? I played from a few months after the game launched until the day it was shut down. I created hundreds of characters and had dozens of level 50s. I've done all of that low-level stuff -- even Twinshot's tedious watch-instead-of-playing arc -- many, many times. I know how basic game systems like contacts and arcs and merits and finding a team work. I don't need to go through that again. So yes, in the absence of a method to skip that stuff altogether, I'm going to take the option to fast-forward past it.

 

I want to play the character I want to play, at a level when they actually play as I expect/want/remember. I DfB'd like crazy when I made my Illusion controller a few days ago, because pre-Phantom Army, Illusion is a totally different (lesser) thing. I did it again for my Arachnos Soldier, because I wanted to play a Crab Spider and shoot lasers in all directions and do cool Crab Spider stuff, and was very, very un-enthusiastic about slogging through 24 levels normally as that most-common and least-interesting form of video game protagonist, "some regular dude with a gun," to get there.

 

Besides that, DfB teaches one very important skill for, again, both new players and players who weren't around at the end: using the LFG queue/Team-Up Teleporter. "Hey, guys, which contact to we go to to start this?" We don't, we just start it. I went out on the LFG channel yesterday about starting the Summer Blockbuster and specifically said "Don't send a tell, just queue up" and still got a bunch of tells asking me for an invite. Because those people had never joined a team any other way. That's not a huge thing, but once those players hit level 50 and want to do Incarnate content, well, that's something they'll probably want to know how to do. DfB teaches that early. Microsoft included Minesweeper with early versions of Windows largely to teach users about right-clicking, then did the same with Solitaire to train people in the use of drag-and-drop. DfB serves a similar purpose.

[rookery.]

And I get that Mjolnerd. Totally.

 

Rawk on rawking on!

 

 

[Impish Kat]

Something that a friend told me he was going to do.... TURN OFF xp!!

 

Why?  Because he wanted to do the content he'd missed on live by PLing all the time. 

 

Cool Beans.

 

He could turn off his xp... run the DFB a few times for the buffs, run a few content mishs, turn xp back on (and off) when he wanted...

 

Brilliant.

[Prototelis]

People aren't having fun the same way I do. Better call the police.

 

The OP wasn't saying to "call the police", they were gently letting new players know that there's more than just DFB out there. Just because YOU already know that, doesn't mean that everybody does.

 

People aren't playing the game the way I do, better tell them how to play a video game where freedom of choice is a core concept

[Trickshooter]

Your Origin initial quest giver inside City Hall, i.e. Azuria if you are magic in the M.A.G.I.

 

I don't believe any of the initial Origin contacts are, well, contacts anymore. Pretty sure Matthew Habashy is the only contact for levels 1-4 now.

[Jaguaratron]

I think it's fair to point this out! In the first week of the game being up a lot of people were doing conventional teams going into the actual sewers to grind levels.

 

In the second and third weeks the info about Death from Below got out and the mix shifted. At the same time there were a lot of actually new players who genuinely thought that was the expected path to play through. That of course is not great. I totally appreciate many people want to kick start their leveling process and get a big handful of powers available and I think it's great there's a way to do that.  I just want new players to know it's an option!

 

Those Hollows missions are MERIT LOADED guys. Doing the full set of 4 arcs yields about 95 merits. That's not a mistake they painted a big ole dollar sign on them to induce players to do them.

 

No, they were not, they were piling into AE and farming that.

[_NOPE_]

Your Origin initial quest giver inside City Hall, i.e. Azuria if you are magic in the M.A.G.I.

 

I don't believe any of the initial Origin contacts are, well, contacts anymore. Pretty sure Matthew Habashy is the only contact for levels 1-4 now.

No, they still work, you can still walk up to them if you have the "right" origin and level range, and they'll still give you missions. They just aren't handed to you as initial contacts anymore.

[jubakumbi]

No, they were not, they were piling into AE and farming that.

 

These are not as mutually exclusive and 'black and white' as this statement implies, IMO.

 

Players have been using all of the available tools to level, not all players see all things.

[Sunrunner]

I don't believe any of the initial Origin contacts are, well, contacts anymore. Pretty sure Matthew Habashy is the only contact for levels 1-4 now.

 

They are contacts.

 

They are also available as contacts for every character regardless of that character's origin.  Use the Find Contacts button to scroll through your available options (and even teleport yourself directly to them if you've not already talked to them).