CoH community is divided between 5 basic groups that see things differently

[Greycat]

1 minute ago, Heraclea said:

When the encounter first went live, it was possible to pull Trapdoor out of the room where his healing clones spawned and defeat him straight up.  At some point, this was changed and it became impossible to pull him out of range of them. so he always ended up getting healed back to full.  I was fortunate enough to get past it on most of the characters that I cared about before this change.  Afterwards it always required a teammate with spammable holds to get past it. 

It doesn't. It really doesn't. Never has. Even on live.

[Bill Z Bubba]

6 minutes ago, Greycat said:

It doesn't. It really doesn't. Never has. Even on live.

When in doubt, eat more reds.

[Coyotedancer]

For what it's worth, I managed to beat the snot out of Trappy with Khalil, my WP/StJ Tank, a couple of weeks ago. It wasn't a fast fight by any means, and I did have to clobber his clones as they spawned, but it's definitely do-able. 

 

Annoying... But not impossible.

[Bastille Boy]

2 hours ago, DougGraves said:

They spend time on IO sets or other godmode abilities if they want to, and if they don't want to they don't. 

IO sets are not godmode. Builds are not godmode. Even incarnate powers are not godmode. All toons in this game have limitations. There are tradeoffs between durability and doing damage. There are tradeoffs between being good at clearing large groups of minions and being good at taking down AVs. There are tradeoffs between solo efficiency and contribution to a team.

 

2 hours ago, DougGraves said:

4. Players who want to be as powerful as possible but want to be challenged.  This is a tiny portion of the population.  They want to design builds and then see how good they are.  They do not want to just copy someone else's build and turn on godmode.  The fun for them is creating and testing the builds.

I would place myself in this group. I don't think it's a "tiny" group. Just look at all the people posting in the forums about builds they crafted!

 

The appeal of the game for me is creating the strongest possible character within the constraints of a character concept, e.g. "defender, good in both PVE and PVP, no magic use" or "DPS tanker whose powers have entirely natural origins" or "dominator whose origin story is getting a Ph.D. in psychology."

 

2 hours ago, DougGraves said:

Occasional defeats are good - they mean that there is a real challenge.

I respect this attitude but don't share it. Avoiding defeat isn't the only challenge in the game. Finishing missions quickly is also a challenge.

 

2 hours ago, DougGraves said:

I cannot speak for how solo players play.  I have played enough teams to know that at least those who put teams together are rarely interested in a challenge.  Radio teams just doing council missions is definitely a thing, and the higher level you get the more likely it is that they only do council missions. 

I don't only want to play Council stomps. But sometimes I want a Council stomp, either because I'm trying to level up a toon quickly or because I just want to chill for a bit.

 

If you want challenging missions, you may need to organize teams yourself! Especially if you play at a less busy time. Make clear what you're looking for when you advertise.

 

[Shred Monkey]

The problem with this line of thinking is that gaming doesn't work this way.   It's not a player driven world.  All 5 categories are really the same.  They're all just some version of "I want to feel awesome."  Of course every player wants this.  That's why "becoming awesome" works as a reward. 

 

Here's how it really works.  RPG Games are created by Game Masters.  GMs set the difficulty, create the powers, setting, everything.  A good game master understand that games are supposed to provide both challenge and reward.  While GM's should listen to the players, they should never just do everything the players ask.  That would make a horrible game.  That would be superman, with no Kryptonite.  That wouldn't be a game.  Just like Superman wouldn't be a good story if he can never lose.  Kryptonite is the only thing that makes him interesting.   It's the GM's job to provide us with those Kryptonite moments.  They should be creating a balancing point between frustration and success, between danger and reward.  It's not their job to grant us our awesomeness.   Essentially it's the opposite.  It's their job to keep that "carrot of awesomeness" dangling in front of us to so we keep moving forward, but if they ever let us catch it, the game is over.

 

The current situation is really something that exists in every game.  Endgame content eventually gets beat, and the final rewards prepare you to take on the next challenge.  Long running games keep pouring out new content every year and much of that content is a further developed endgame to keep the long-time players progressing along a never-ending arc.  If new content stops, you will reach the point where endgame content becomes trivial and then, with time, it becomes boring. 

 

I love this game.  It will always be special to me.  The fact that it is back still makes me tear up a little, even a year later.  No other game comes close to that for me.  But I can't imagine I'll still be running the same 5-7 endgame TFs every night 2 years from now.  I'll be somewhere else.  That's just how the world of gaming works.

 

[seresibyl2]

6 minutes ago, Shred Monkey said:

The problem with this line of thinking is that gaming doesn't work this way.   It's not a player driven world.  All 5 categories are really the same.  They're all just some version of "I want to feel awesome."  Of course every player wants this.  That's why "becoming awesome" works as a reward. 

 

All 5 are the same. 

 

All different versions of wanting to feel awesome.

 

ER GO

not the same 

 

just sayin'.

 

The reward is the same. The way they feel that way is different. 

[SwitchFade]

You forgot...

 

Players who play Regen.

 

Nerf Regen.

Edited May 22, 2020 by SwitchFade

[SwitchFade]

You also forgot...

 

Players who don't play...

 

...and just post on the forums.

 

Nerf Regen.

[Lines]

I'm firmly in that fifth group. This game is definitely targeted at a niche type of person, and towards sunset became increasingly for that certain type of person.

 

A few weeks ago, it definitely hit me hard that I'm not one of those people. I was soloing a lot to try and get any satisfaction at all out of playing, but I was running low on stuff and do and the moment I teamed there was just nothing there for me, to the point I was struggling to complete content out of boredom or getting anxious about missing out on stuff.

 

But y'know, different strokes for different folks. I enjoyed the year of nostalgia, but it's not my cup of tea anymore.

[DrInfernus]

I love feeling really super and powerful, teaming through the levels, soloing sometimes, making cool builds, alting, challenges, task forces, raids, incarnate content, and socialising. 
 

Which group am I in? 

[Rathulfr]

There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't.

 

[Naraka]

Group #1 seems rather nebulous but I suppose that is where I'd fit.  Although I don't just solo, I mainly do TF/SF in teams and solo story arcs.

 

But then I can also fit into group #4 since I do like making competent characters and be challenged in the content I play.  Although it's not really about creating and testing builds but rather experiencing the different combos for myself since you will hear people complain about a set or rave about a set, rather than going by word of mouth, I'd rather decide what is good and what isn't.  Like when I made a Savage Melee Brute, all I heard was how nice that set is but it felt feeble.  Trying Energy Melee, all I hear is how it's garbage...but it's fun stunning *everything* and it looks good with your own choice of colors.

 

I could also be a part of #5 since I'm a team player.  I'd sooner hold back using some of my powers so that everyone on the team contributes before I go about carrying anyone.  In that respect, I want to be challenged to adapt to the team and the foes present.  Practically every quality stated there I fit...except I don't use other people's builds and I do like making my own builds with varying levels of specializations. 

 

However, none of these groups speak to the qualities I feel are most descriptive of my participation in the game: while I do discuss a lot about suggestions and changes on the forums, arguments and all, I am a rather quiet player.  I don't complain some ranged knocked back my target, or foam at the mouth when I see Dimension Shifted foes, if a party member is carrying me I am indifferent and content I don't like I don't play.  My game revolves around alts, not because I like making builds but rather I like making characters.  Like, if my main character is a martial artist and he had an experienced teacher...I'll make that teacher as a character...or if my main character's mom is an inventor that makes support tech for law enforcement...I'll make someone who's using her tech...or if that mom had a rival in university who ended up in the dumps and now tried to get revenge for stealing her ideas by making magic robots with weird powers...I'll make that robot with weird powers.

 

And those examples aren't made up.  That's my game and if I start getting bored, I stop playing for a while.  It doesn't mean I'll never come back or that I am completely hook on this game.  It's just a game to play on the side of doing a bunch of other stuff.

 

[EDIT] and since I seem to be a part of multiple groups, it's not such an easy divide, I would assume.

Edited May 22, 2020 by Naraka

[DougGraves]

2 hours ago, Naraka said:

I am a rather quiet player.  I don't complain some ranged knocked back my target, or foam at the mouth when I see Dimension Shifted foes, if a party member is carrying me I am indifferent and content I don't like I don't play. 

 

90%+ of players are quiet players.  That is true of all customers.  They are the bane of businesses.  When they do not like something they do not speak up, they just leave. 

[Apogee]

4 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

I'm Bill Z Bubba. I'm in a box that doesn't fit any of the definitions put forth so far in this thread because I'm a bit of all of them. I suspect, as Coyotedancer stated, that this is probably true of many of us.

Move over Bill, make some room for me please.

[Greycat]

57 minutes ago, DougGraves said:

 

90%+ of players are quiet players.  That is true of all customers.  They are the bane of businesses.  When they do not like something they do not speak up, they just leave. 

Of *course* they don't speak up. Even if you can hear them around that mouth... thing, you can't understand them.

[MunkiLord]

This is a terrible list. There are two types of players, Scrappers and those that want to be Scrappers.

[Bionic_Flea]

6 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

I'm Bill Z Bubba. I'm in a box that doesn't fit any of the definitions put forth so far in this thread because I'm a bit of all of them. I suspect, as Coyotedancer stated, that this is probably true of many of us.

 

[Yoru-hime]

The CoH community is divided into thousands of entities called "players", each of which possesses a completely independent, multi-faceted value structure. Studies have shown that within these so-called "players" are something called "moods" which can alter their priorities and behavior over a shockingly wide variance over time. Someone who craves the challenge of soloing a TF one day may, unbelievably, do something as completely mindless and free from challenge as fire farming the next.

 

None of the other problems with CoH begin to compare to the raw chaos that these unpredictable, quixotic creatures have introduced since they showed up.

 

Nerf players.

 

Then nerf regen, just to be on the safe side.

[Crysis]

Opinions devoid of any empirical evidence backed by data are what’s meaningless. But if all posts required evidence to back up opinions this would be a pretty quiet place.

 

Opinions are just bellybuttons.

[Crysis]

5 hours ago, Rathulfr said:

There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't.

 

01011001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01110111 01101001 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101000 01110010 01100101 01100001 01100100 

[skoryy]

1 hour ago, MunkiLord said:

This is a terrible list. There are two types of players, Scrappers and those that want to be Scrappers.

Controllers and those that want to be controllers.  Or was that tankers.  Blasters?  MFin' warshades?

[Apparition]

13 minutes ago, skoryy said:

Controllers and those that want to be controllers.  Or was that tankers.  Blasters?  MFin' warshades?

 

I'm pretty sure that everyone wants to secretly be a Mastermind and imagine other players as their pets.

[MunkiLord]

15 minutes ago, skoryy said:

Controllers and those that want to be controllers.  Or was that tankers.  Blasters?  MFin' warshades?

Those all ATs that secretly wish they were Scrappers. 

 

1 minute ago, Apparition said:

 

I'm pretty sure that everyone wants to secretly be a Mastermind and imagine other players as their pets.

Other ATs are Scrappers pets. 

[tidge]

6 hours ago, Rathulfr said:

There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't.

 

😛 ffff...

 

...always forgetting those who know hexadecimal.

[Galaxy Brain]

8 hours ago, Coyotedancer said:

I think it's a fool's errand to try to put any of us in neat little boxes.