Old school playing is getting rare

[Diantane]

So many players want to get their character to max level VERY FAST (insta 50). They do this by "powerleveling" (PL) with 50's killing AV's and other high level missions. All they have to do is stand there and watch the XP fly in. I've tried this and it's dead boring. Then I deleted the character, because I have no good memories or great experiences of "actually playing that character". Plus once you get to 50 using the PL method all you have is an empty 50. What are you going to do, put millions into the enhancements and still don't know how to play them? That would be a waste of your time and resources.

 

My enjoyment of City of Heroes or any other mmo is "playing the character all the way through". Fifty levels on COH isn't a lot so leveling is too fast already. Enjoy your character while you still can.

 

Note: I'm currently leveling a dedicated tank on the Everlasting server. He reached 17 last night. If you ever wanted to play a Blaster, PB or Mastermind with little chance of taking damage (because I'm pulling it all to me), now's your chance. His name is "Tankalot", a BlueSide Hero and my global name is @Diantane. Will be playing all day today: Sunday, August 30th EST. Also play in the evenings and weekends. Hope to see you ingame!

 

PS: We could use a dedicated defender empathy healer. They are fun to play, are always welcome in a group (and often asked to come back), but are very rare to see anymore.

 

See you ingame!

~Diantane

Edited August 30, 2020 by Diantane

[Johnny]

Oh, sure. PL'ing has always been a thing. The history of early MMOs was that all the serious content was at the max-level, and people came into the CoH expecting this. But CoH was different because the content was spread throughout the game levels.

 

Of course, from a new player's perspective, they wouldn't realize that PL'ing would actually cause them to miss out on content. And it didn't help that there would max-level players actively encouraging and "helping" new players to PL.

 

Of all the activities that the Taxibots became involved with, including some hilarious PvP outings, was that PL was not allowed. An emphasis for Taxibots was helping new players with the game, and PL'ing was counter to this experience.

 

I remember one time, a friend reached out and invited me to a team. I liked being sociable, but it turned out they were PL'ing some newbie. And what a dull situation for the newbie, since they were forbidden to move away from the mission entrance, lest they be "defeated." Having a good sense that the newbie wasn't really at risk, I encouraged them to come play by my side; they had fun doing this, and everything was fine.

[nightroarer]

If it'll make you feel any better, I've been playing since I found out about Homecoming June 1 of last year, and I still don't have a level 50 character. My highest level is 30. My CoH playtime is split among 80+ characters, and I feel no need to rush. Any game I play is about the journey.  "Endgame" holds no interest for me.

[Apogee]

4 hours ago, Diantane said:

 

My enjoyment of City of Heroes or any other mmo is "playing the character all the way through".

You nailed it on the head right there. You find enjoyment by "playing the character all the way through". Please understand though that there are people who find enjoyment in power leveling a character to 50 and starting from there. The tone of your post comes off as condemning power leveling as wrongbadfun. There are multiple ways to enjoy this game. To each their own.

[cohRock]

1 minute ago, Apogee said:

You nailed it on the head right there. You find enjoyment by "playing the character all the way through". Please understand though that there are people who find enjoyment in power leveling a character to 50 and starting from there. The tone of your post comes off as condemning power leveling as wrongbadfun. There are multiple ways to enjoy this game. To each their own.

As has already been said, power leveling is not new with Homecoming.  What is new is its prevalence, and I believe that was the OP's point.  Some players seem to assume your new level two "needs" to be power-leveled and may even offer to do so.  A player new to Homecoming, or especially CoX itself, may well get sucked in to that mentality without even realizing the long-term depth of play available outside AE.  What some of us wish we saw more of is the veteran player showing new guys the ropes, not just bringing him into a mission and telling him to stay out of the way.  Just, when you offer to help someone, let them know there are two ways of advancement, and be willing to show them the ropes.  If they want to be sucked into a mission with all purples and pick their nose at the door, cool.  Don't assume everyone had 50s on Live and is anxious to get back to Incarnate Content.  (Or worse, get stuck into self-perpetuating loop of thinking that his job is to start power leveling others.)

[Dazl]

People should play whatever way they want. New players would probably have a better experience if they level up normally since that is a major part of what makes the game fun.

 

However if you are a vet and have done that multiple times, you might want skip some or all of that. A fully decked out 50 can go back and play the old content or do TF's just as well if not better.

 

Play whatever way is fun for you.

[Bill Z Bubba]

I've started doing both now that all my old mains are back to where they should be. Sometimes I street sweep to 4, then run a witch farm to 12 then go run paper missions. Sometimes I PL to 50. Sometimes I'll run regular content just for the hell of it and do a PL bump in the middle of it.

 

That's the beauty of this game. Do what you want. Just don't hurt anyone else in the process.

[FoulVileTerror]

I think if rewards were balanced better across all levels (something the Homecoming Team have talked about, but not implemented yet), rather than 50 being decidedly the -only- way to access some content, drops, and massively larger piles of Inf . . . then maybe the progressive gameplay wouldn't feel like such a colossal waste of time for so many players.

There isn't a quick solution, of course.  At least not one which I've heard of, and I suspect the Devs are in the same boat there.  But I certainly think it's valuable to prioritize efforts in to correcting.

 

But then, I'm just being a broken record at this point.

[Bastille Boy]

I completely agree that leveling the old-fashioned way is the best way to experience the game for the first time. It can be fun for old hands, too. But there are many legitimate reasons for experienced players to power-level toons. Back in spring, I got into PVP (briefly). That required fully decked-out level 50 toons. Right now, my goal is to beat AE 801.2 solo at max difficulty. That requires fully decked-out level 50 toons.

 

7 hours ago, Diantane said:

Plus once you get to 50 using the PL method all you have is an empty 50. What are you going to do, put millions into the enhancements and still don't know how to play them? That would be a waste of your time and resources.

That is what happens to new players who PL. For players who already have one 50 and who are starting a new character, playing the level 50 character (whether by farming or running missions) and sending inf to the new character is more efficient than having the new character pay their own way. Of course if someone prefers to have each character pay their own way, that's legit!

 

Edit: Once a player has several 50s of different archetypes, it's not necessary to level the old-fashioned way to figure out how to play the toon well.

 

Quote

PS: We could use a dedicated defender empathy healer. They are fun to play, are always welcome in a group (and often asked to come back), but are very rare to see anymore.

There is a reason you don't see pure healers often, outside of PVP. Buffing, debuffing, and attacking are all more effective ways of contributing to a PVE team than healing. Empathy is a great set. An emp can make a real contribution to a team, and a well-built, skillfully played emp can do impressive things solo. And there is so much roleplaying potential! The origin story for superhuman empathy can be almost any story. But a well played emp does not focus on healing (unless there is a roleplaying reason for doing that). Buffing and attacking are at least equal priorities, maybe higher priorities.

 

One plus to playing Empathy and other buff sets: it's possible to contribute effectively to a high-level team even at low levels.

2 hours ago, cohRock said:

Just, when you offer to help someone, let them know there are two ways of advancement, and be willing to show them the ropes.  If they want to be sucked into a mission with all purples and pick their nose at the door, cool.  Don't assume everyone had 50s on Live and is anxious to get back to Incarnate Content.  (Or worse, get stuck into self-perpetuating loop of thinking that his job is to start power leveling others.)

I do powerlevel people sometimes, both via AE farms and via level 50 radio / paper teams (usually +3/8). I think it's my responsibility to be clear about what I'm offering, but it's other players' responsibility to decide whether my team is a good fit for them. I don't make any assumptions about what other players want.

Edited August 30, 2020 by Bastille Boy

[DougGraves]

I had a friends list of 4 people who ran low level mission teams all of the time.  They never log on anymore. 

 

I can still find low level teams, but most often it is Positron or Yin.  Mission teams are getting rarer.

[Greycat]

Personally, I'm a big fan of "Don't worry about what other people do with their characters."

[kiramon]

I only self-plvl my characters to 50+60 emp then take them into PIs before I move onto the next.

 

Just how I play. I can't be bothered to ACTUALLY level anymore 😞 

[Judasace]

A lot of "Old School" playing sucked, and it's mostly down to the design philosophy of the original devs, who instead of believing that fun was achieved through a balance of risk and reqard, they somehow got the idea that fun came about as a mixture of Fun and Not Fun. So they did things like make surprise timed missions, kill alls full of places where mobs could easily get lost or stuck in walls, hostages and rescues that you have to lead out like you're trying to lure a cat to a bath.  Even in the later years they designed horrible missions - Faultline's "revamp" brought us Fusionette who will usually get herself killed unless it's on missions that are solo and -1, the field agents in Talos that will give you a surprise timed mission, followed by a nearly impossible rescue and then a ridiculous series of timed rescues. None of these are fun or engaging, they're all just frustrating. At least they somewhat improved Positron's and Sister Psyche's TFs, but the others - Synapse, Manti, Citadel mainly although Numina's hunts are still idiotic - are horrid specimens of game design. Don't even get me started on Trials like Eden and Terra Volta.

 

What they got right were the mechanics of playing and feeling like a superhero, and the character building (eventually). This is what keeps most people coming back, not the actual game content. The game has too much influence from the pre-WoW MMO king, Everquest, to ever be anything but a slogfest if you try to play it the regular way.

 

The game struggled at about 80k players for most of its life and was cancelled for good reasons. The number of people that I recall quitting out of frustration between the initial release of CoH and CoV was staggering. I had an entire 8 person SG just not return to the game after we had to quit a mission during a TF because we couldn't find a glowie...back before they made noise you could look for hours and not find them. I'm still here, but I do and always have taken LONG breaks from playing...had played since launch but hadn't played in a year when they announced the cancellation.

 

This is by all respects a bad game that fills a very particular niche for a lot of people. But objectively, it's still a bad game, poorly designed and not something that would hold a very large audience for long.

 

 

Edited August 30, 2020 by Judasace

[Patti]

There might be a lot of bad and old designed stuff in this game but it also has one of the best designs when it comes to costuming and cosmetics.  And aesthetics.  And customization in an MMO.

If ANY game even came remotely close to City for that then I guess there might be a contest for the crown.  But  As long as City remains Royal Monarch of Player Choice, it can't die.

[Onemantankwall]

Is the OP really dogging on PLing for missing content when you yourself stated your only playing blue side... what about the other 60% of the games content? 

[DougGraves]

3 hours ago, Greycat said:

Personally, I'm a big fan of "Don't worry about what other people do with their characters."

 

I'm a big fan of teaming and playing lower levels.  So I worry about what other people do with their characters. 

Edited August 30, 2020 by DougGraves

[Greycat]

20 minutes ago, DougGraves said:

 

I'm a big fan of teaming and playing lower levels.  So I worry about what other people do with their characters. 

So team and play at lower levels. Don't sweat people who don't. They don't affect you.

Some people enjoy RP. Others don't. They can coexist.

Some people enjoy creating "builds" for characters. Others don't. They don't affect each others play.

Some people enjoy base building. Others find it too tedious to do much more than a basic "here's storage, here's teleporters," if they do anything. That's perfectly fine, too.

 

There's room for everyone. Invite people along, don't worry about people who like something different. They're not wrong. Neither are you. Only saying they are or that they won't enjoy the way they play is wrong. They know what they like far better than you do.

[DougGraves]

21 minutes ago, Greycat said:

So team and play at lower levels. Don't sweat people who don't. They don't affect you.

 

I don't think you understand the thread you are posting on.  The thread is not saying "lots of people do not play old school" but "old school playing is getting rare."

 

You cannot team with others if there is no one to team with.  It does not matter how many people are in AE.  It does matter how many people are looking for Steel Canyon mission teams.  Those people are disappearing. 

 

Do you understand how not having other people playing on low level teams makes it impossible to play on low level teams? 

 

[Greycat]

1. I play on everlasting. There are low level teams constantly.

2. Do you understand that high level players get exemplared down and can *also* play on low level teams if the offer is made?

 

I see plenty of people looking to do Frostfire, for instance, the Posi duo and the like. If you're seeing "no one to team with," you're not looking. Yes, even on low levels.

 

This is not WOW. There's no real "gear grind" that forces you to stay on one high level character. There is great incentive to alt. And exemping down is easy. So, no, these people are not "disappearing."

 

How to solve the OP's dilemma: Open the LFG channel. Say "Hey, I'm running Shauna Stockwell's arc" or "Hey, running Frostfire, room for 7 more." Get replies. Invite people who replied. Play arc.

Alternate solution: "Starting a content playthrough group!" (or even supergroup.) "Let me know if interested, planning to be around these times, playing through all the arcs we can, 1-50."

This could even be done... *gasp* redside if desired.

 

 

 

[Latex]

I think you're speaking about an issue that is changing gaming across the board. It isn't exclusive to City of Heroes by any stretch, in fact it's everywhere.

 

In the past my first ever MMO was Star Wars Galaxies which released in 2003, back then there was no Youtube, Google was prevalent but you barely bothered with it there wasn't really any 'how do I do X fastest' 'where is Y creature' 'how do I get Jedi' you played the game and you discovered it, then someone might post it on the official forums and it would be very slow to take off as it slowly and naturally filtered through the community through word of mouth. New mechanics hidden items or exploits these days in modern MMO's like World of Warcraft are almost instantly discovered and quickly broadcasted to masses of people they're even quicker and easier to search for and research oppose to actually playing the game and having the journey being part of the experience of the gameplay. I went back and played SWG on a Private Server and it was sad to see, macros were perfected to the point you didn't even have to play the game to reap the rewards, people had multiple accounts to min/max their main characters without reliance on others to offer those services, the same thing happens here on this very server (Hello Spines/Fire Brutes) min/max and efficiency is the goal now as discovery is over, you only get to discover something once.

 

The removal of the middle-man (the community/friends/word of mouth) means to play an MMO efficiently you don't need friends or discovery, exploration or errors, you just need Youtube and a quick Google. Almost everyone strives to be efficient, that's probably why people have Vidiotmaps installed, or they want to play a powerset at it's best potential which means minimizing the time taken to farm INF, Levels, etc. Thus powerlevelling, it's efficient.

 

Gaming across the spectrum is no longer about the journey, it is about efficiency. If Youtube, Google and other sources of instant information shut down tomorrow and there was no alternative pertaining to video games everyone in these grand scale MMOG's would be more reliant on each other and more focused on the journey because to be efficient they would need to work together and be exploratory, just like they did back in 2003 with the advent of SWG, Legacy WoW, City of Heroes and others.

 

New releases that are brand new, day zero with no beta or prior playing are the only real legit gaming experiences where everything you do and encounter, explore and discover are like a legit drug where you get to experience that magic because you know nothing about what you're getting into.

Edited August 30, 2020 by Latex

[Lockpick]

3 hours ago, Judasace said:

This is by all respects a bad game that fills a very particular niche for a lot of people. But objectively, it's still a bad game, poorly designed and not something that would hold a very large audience for long.

 

Interesting comment.  To me this is the best MMO I have ever played and I have tried a bunch.  Not sure how this game is poorly designed compared to the competition, since most of them were designed in a similar manner.

 

I do think the HC version is the most player friendly.

[Saikochoro]

2 hours ago, DougGraves said:

 

I'm a big fan of teaming and playing lower levels.  So I worry about what other people do with their characters. 

You are free to team and play at low levels with others who enjoy doing so. Other people can play how they see fit. If they have fun by power leveling to 50 and then running itrials and raids nonstop, then that is perfectly fine. 
 

One way of playing the game is not more valid than another way. If some people only log in to play on the market, that is every bit as valid as someone running story arcs. 
 

You don’t get a say in how people enjoy playing the game. They play for their own fun not yours. 

Edited August 30, 2020 by Saikochoro

[EmmySky]

I am like @Bill Z Bubba up above, sometimes I want to run lowbie stuff, sometimes I want to farm, sometimes I want to PL.  It depends on my mood and how tired I am from work.  This is a hobby, a game I play for fun.  It isnt a job where someone tells me what to do when.  That there are so very many options for leveling up is part of the beauty of the game.

 

I still see quite a few adverts for teams in the low levels on the LFG channel, but with the first wave of shelter in place slacking up in many areas and lots of people going back to work, I have noticed a drop of population through the week.  But those folks are still there, and teaming gets much easier on weekends.  

 

Just hang in there, I am sure you will find a group of like minded folks to join you on your journey, whichever journey you choose to take.  😁

Edited August 30, 2020 by EmmySky

[Apparition]

Outside of a couple of static teams (both of which fell apart by level 30), I haven't done missions on a team since around Issue 10 or 11, and I played until sunset and started on Homecoming on its opening day.  I just don't see the point in it.  You don't get any reward merits, you tend to outlevel stuff that you actually want to do, you're usually rushed and forced to skip all of the text by people who just "want to get to the action," and I don't enjoy most blue side content to begin with, (which is where most of the mission teams are).  I run all missions solo.  If I team, it'll be on Strike Forces, Task Forces, Trials, Incarnate Trials, and raids.

[Judasace]

3 hours ago, Lockpick said:

 

Interesting comment.  To me this is the best MMO I have ever played and I have tried a bunch.  Not sure how this game is poorly designed compared to the competition, since most of them were designed in a similar manner.

 

I do think the HC version is the most player friendly.

This is a superhero game where your superhero doesn't start with a travel power, and originally had to wait 14 levels to get one. That, to me, is the epitome of bad game design. It grossly misunderstands the genre and tries to copy fantasy MMOs of the time, where you had to work to get a mount. The similarity of design to other games of the time, which were pretty much all Fantasy games, aside from SWG and AO, was a big part of the game's problem. People came to play superheroes, not Knights in White Spandex.