So about the DFB

[wmtyrance]

It's all about rushing to end game and max lvl with today's gamers. Really too bad too. The story missions are really fun.

[Impish Kat]

You can also get the origin contacts by running the original Outbreak/Breakout tutorials.  They will be your contacts when entering your starting zone (at least, they have been for me).

[Zolgar]

It's all about rushing to end game and max lvl with today's gamers. Really too bad too. The story missions are really fun.

 

Some of them are.

 

Some of them are mindless slogs of another era of MMORPG mission design. >.>

[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.

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.

 

Good to know. Paragonwiki states they were disabled in Issue 21, so I guess SCORE reenabled them?

[wmtyrance]

It's all about rushing to end game and max lvl with today's gamers. Really too bad too. The story missions are really fun.

 

Some of them are.

 

Some of them are mindless slogs of another era of MMORPG mission design. >.>

Do you even bother to read the mission text?

[Elleriel]

I really like to reroll to try new things, test characters, etc...

But do miss xp until lvl 20 (chen you just begin to see what will be your character in the future) is boring too (always same contact and low level missions) so I prefer take 2 hours in DFB to farm and see if the character is funny to play or not is a better solution for me than lose 4-5 hours farming same low level missions for same result.

As I work full time and have family, I can't take as much time as in the past on this very funny game.

 

I really enjoy doing radio / paper missions, be in team with high challenge but until I found what I really want to up 50, I will reroll and farm DFB :)

 

Cheers,

 

Elleriel

[Zerethon]

AE, DFB, PI With a buddy, it doesn't matter.

 

There's always going to be people (Like me!) who prefer to hit 50 as quick as possible, have everything available, then go back and do the content we missed (TF's exemp down, etc.)

 

I plan my builds around this even

 

Complaining about this is stupid, circular, and downright old after a while. If you want to "Organically" Mission chain/TF/Street sweep your way to 50, you do you. Heck, if you want a couple quick levels to skip a grindy point or reach a new contact i'll gladly hop on a farming toon and power you through them

 

But farming/powerleveling should NEVER be nerfed into the dirt. As was said earlier in the thread, DFB is great for powering through to level 20 or so to see how a build starts playing out much faster. And since CoX is SUCH an alt-friendly game, after the first couple of "organically" leveled chars, it's a nice way to just boost up a build, spec it out a bit, then jump into a level 20-ish TF and see how it plays

 

Combo sucks? send the Inf to your global (if you didn't use the 100% booster currently), delete it, reroll the toon, try again.

 

i have 24 chars at this point, and about 6 of those are WIP Builds, i do exactly that. Make the dude, DFB with the XP booster a few times to hit 20, drop some mods on them and go do normal content to see how the build holds up. If i like it, they get a permanent slot in my roster, and if they don't work that well i just reroll the build with a different set and try again

 

I get the complaining about LFG spam or AE Being flooded with intentionally broken farm maps, But those are both moderation things

 

Farming has literally always driven CoX, from the glory days of herding entire ZONES and murdering them pre-ED and softcaps to portal corp and the various farmable maps, to speed-TF's and AE, it's always just been a thing

 

Nerfing it or punishing people for doing it is dumb. I'm all for smacking people that do the patrol/ambush broken AE farms. Anything i make for that purpose is typically a Battle maiden-esque farm map. No patrols, just groups of mobs and an AV somewhere with some glowies or smashable things.

[Zolgar]

It's all about rushing to end game and max lvl with today's gamers. Really too bad too. The story missions are really fun.

 

Some of them are.

 

Some of them are mindless slogs of another era of MMORPG mission design. >.>

Do you even bother to read the mission text?

 

Sure. Some of it is great. Others are "hey so.. hellions are bad, go arrest a bunch of them? kthxbai"

 

I have been playing MMOs for more than 20 years now, I have seen the industry evolve. Early City of Heroes mission arcs (and task forces), by which I means the ones that have been in the game the longest, often fall prey to the trappings of MMOs at the time. Go talk to person (why can't I just call them on their cell phone?), deliver this to person (what do I look like, a courier?), go killarrest an arbitrary number of bad guys "because we need information from them", etc.

Basically a lot of fluff added to superficially extend the duration of the story arc that doesn't really add a lot TO the story itself, yes, there is story text there, but that text doesn't need a mission! Especially when it is "Go talk to this person in another zone, where you will do NOTHING ELSE for this mission arc, and when you're done come back to me." - which in modern times isn't as bad because of Ninja run/level 4 travel powers/inherent fitness, but back when the game launched pre-level 14? the "go talk to..." missions were a major time sink.

 

This isn't to say that the STORIES THEY TELL are bad, not at all. Many of them still tell good stories, but HOW they tell said story isn't very good by modern gaming standards, and the arcs can be painfully sloggy.

[Zerethon]

 

This isn't to say that the STORIES THEY TELL are bad, not at all. Many of them still tell good stories, but HOW they tell said story isn't very good by modern gaming standards, and the arcs can be painfully sloggy.

 

This, also, most of the story can be read later off the whole souvenir system anyways.

 

As far as end-game content goes, only a handful of them actually matter anyways because they award badges you need for accolades.

[THEDarkTyger]

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

 

In my case, it's not so much about getting to max level as it is about getting past the TO and DO levels so I can feel halfway competent in a fight...

[Rockfall]

2 words: Winter Babies.

 

TBH, I'd missed DFB's existence when I first came back. I did my first ~9 levels on a corrupter and 6ish on a brute the "honest" way. By which I mean did the first 5-10 missions (double xp buffs on the new servers). Later I spotted DFB on a different alt (yes, I have that problem too) and realized I could easily fix up the power sets on the corr and brute a bit since I wasn't super happy with them and wasn't looking forward to some of the initial missions again.

 

If the current devs want to see less DFB, they should look at putting in "respec your primary/secondary within your AT" and "re-select your AT" akin to the reactor. Lacking that, its always going to be a game of grind. "Oh look at that new shiny over there! I want to play with it... at my main's level... guess I'll go PL an alt and then work on the gear for it."

[blayzemaster]

Personally I tend to do it till I get to level 12/14 or so just so I can have a few more attacks to play around with and get a better feel of the character. I do have one I did till level 20 because of specific powers I wanted.

[Burnt Toast]

You do realize the vast majority of people playing on Homecoming... were here back in 2004 when the game launched right? You realize there is not some huge new base of players who have never played CoH before...right?

 

Most of the people I know that are rushing to 50 are doing so because they had that toon at 50 on live and simply want to return to the level of gameplay they were at.

 

And story missions.. uhhh ok. It's all pretty repetitive and frankly boring - especially when you have done them multiple times years ago. It's not like re-reading a great book..it's like being told to re-read the build instructions on a piece of IKEA furniture.

 

It's all about rushing to end game and max lvl with today's gamers. Really too bad too. The story missions are really fun.

[_NOPE_]

You do realize the vast majority of people playing on Homecoming... were here back in 2004 when the game launched right? You realize there is not some huge new base of players who have never played CoH before...right?

 

The first I can see.... the second is a gross assumption. I've seen a LOT of newbies that never got the chance to play CoH before because it was "before their time" that are hopping onboard the train now. Let's give them a chance as well to learn the way we did, eh?

[Sniktch]

I can second this - I've played with folks who were, in fact, experiencing CoX for the first time, and said so.  Just because we're cranky old farts doesn't mean the kids are ignoring our home...and I, for one, DO NOT want them to 'get off our lawn', or be driven away by DFB/AE fatigue.

[Burnt Toast]

I have played with exactly two people out of hundreds that were not vets to my knowledge.

 

I am not saying there are not SOME people who are currently playing for the first time, but I do not believe it is a large amount at all.

 

Maybe it is different on Torchbearer or Exalted, but Indomitable seems to be mainly comprised of veterans. And while Indomitable may be the unofficial official pvp server... there really isn't much pvping going on so I don't think that has much (if any) of an impact.

 

I think more new people see the "business aka redness" of Torchbearer and think "That's the server for me with lots of people" not realizing that the other servers; except Reunion, have a very steady amount of players.

 

You do realize the vast majority of people playing on Homecoming... were here back in 2004 when the game launched right? You realize there is not some huge new base of players who have never played CoH before...right?

 

The first I can see.... the second is a gross assumption. I've seen a LOT of newbies that never got the chance to play CoH before because it was "before their time" that are hopping onboard the train now. Let's give them a chance as well to learn the way we did, eh?

[THEDarkTyger]

You do realize the vast majority of people playing on Homecoming... were here back in 2004 when the game launched right? You realize there is not some huge new base of players who have never played CoH before...right?

 

The first I can see.... the second is a gross assumption. I've seen a LOT of newbies that never got the chance to play CoH before because it was "before their time" that are hopping onboard the train now. Let's give them a chance as well to learn the way we did, eh?

 

They have that chance. No one holds a gun to anyone's head and forces them to run DFB. The rest of the low level content is still there.

[Healix]

I think those of us 'old timers' who have played a long time should help people who have never played CoH before discover why the game/community is so special. They will understand why the heart torches have stayed lit for 15 years.

[Zerethon]

I think those of us 'old timers' who have played a long time should help people who have never played CoH before discover why the game/community is so special. They will understand why the heart torches have stayed lit for 15 years.

 

For all the hate, smack talk, vitirol & more, The CoX Community has always been one of the most easy-going ones out there.

 

Be it Helping lowbies get through a slow spot, helping people get badges for accolades, bringing extra firepower to help people tackle AV missions, or indeed powerleveling people.

 

I have a couple friends i brought in who mostly level organically, and i have another few who want to play more like me (Get a bunch of levels quick, then see what the game is really like with full attack/debuff chains, etc.)

 

It feels good to be home. This is the game i remember so fondly.

[jubakumbi]

I think those of us 'old timers' who have played a long time should help people who have never played CoH before discover why the game/community is so special. They will understand why the heart torches have stayed lit for 15 years.

 

...if that's what brings you joy!

 

Personally, I prefer to let people find there own way and figure it out themselves.

IME, the peopIe I have 'helped' over the years in MMOs just keep coming back for more spoon-feeding and free inf, or yell at me for being nosy.

:)

 

I think that allowing players to find thier own way makes for better players.

Then again, I live my life this way, I don't look to others for data, I gather it on my own.

 

All these players, new and old, have free will, unless they are AIs, then it's an unknown.

If they choose to be lemmings, that is thier choice, IMO.

 

It _is_ hilarious to see the the same tired argument topics against the 'evil powerleveling of newbs' like Winter Babies though...

Internet games forums have not changed one bit since CoX went dark.