Old school playing is getting rare

[Greycat]

1 hour ago, The Philotic Knight said:

I would think that if that's the case, then you might want to move onto other aspects of the game, such as maybe.... modding... for instance? 🙂

<--- RP.

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

5 hours ago, cranebump said:

On the topic of something personally fun: 

 

I think it’d be cool to run with a regular group as a “super team,” sharing our early experiences as we gained prominence. Then, after that, maybe we play the next generation of the team. 

 

Speaking of: I don’t think I’ve seen any instances of a team running in a supergroup matching uni, or even color scheme. I’m sure someone’s done it. I just haven’t seen it. It’d be kinda cool to don the team togs.

While its beena  while now since enough of my midnighters were on at once to see a full gathering. When we have been in force, now few have said we look like we belong on the set of Twilight as most of us are rather gothic in appearance, and know few of us have glowing auras lol. Also been called the rat pack, as again most of us wear casual evening wear while on the job.

 

But easily the most common sight like you mention are red/white/blue themed SG. Hell even the unaffiliated often gather together at places like city halls roof around the flag.

[MoonSheep]

On 9/1/2020 at 7:20 PM, Saikochoro said:

The people who try to enforce their own view of the game on all others are a pain. You know, the ones who like to police how people play and enjoy the game. The ones who try to dictate which ways of playing the game are valid and which ways are not. 
 

COH is a game that gives freedom to play and enjoy almost any way that you want. That is one of the great things about it.  The main things hurting the quality of the game community are the ones who try to enforce their rule on others in how they play the game. 

Think you might have quoted the wrong person in your response there mate, contributing to discussion by posting a viewpoint of “it takes me longer to do a TF when people don’t know what they’re doing, that’s annoying” is hardly “enforcing an opinion” or “dictating how people play”, think you might be a tad overly sensitive to the opinions of others.. 

[Solarverse]

I have been reluctant to comment on this thread for two reasons.

 

1: The last time I made a thread like this one it ended up the same way this one has.

 

2: Any suggestion at all that somebody else's play style is not a way you approve of is taken as if we are saying that you should not play any other way.

It's not like that, it's just that we do not approve of it for ourselves.

Play as you like...I am the last person who needs to be telling others how to play. I, like @The Philotic Knight am not a huge fan of power leveling...that's just not for me. I do however farm for influence. I do not invite others unless I know for a fact that they are seasoned vet players and that by me giving them a few levels by letting them tag along, isn't going to create a player who has no idea how to play his character. So times that I do contribute to others power leveling are far and few between, mainly because when I farm for influence, I do so pretty randomly and don't announce it to others...not even my own SG mates.

However, I am one of those players who prefer to play the game and I am one of those players who miss back when the game was actually difficult and team wipes were common. Power Creep and certain maps getting rehauls have contributed to the lack of difficulty over the years, which is why I will always prefer the old school CoH. I also prefer the days when there was no cap to the aggro and back before the Devs increased the range of the collision mechanics. I did not herd in those days to power level...I did it because it was just straight up fun. However, I never herded on PuG teams, if I wanted to herd maps, I had my set maps just for that. When I played on regular teams, I played as a team and not as a show hog.

Back in the days of herding, we also had this thing that most people barely even notice these days...it was called Debt. Debt in those days stacked up pretty fast to the point that it was not uncommon to go your entire gaming experience working off Debt around 50% of your level grind. I absolutely loved it. That was what caused me to create a Fire Tank to begin with, so that I could help my SG mates of those days clear some Debt. 1 run of Chimera and his Guards, herding Ninjas, would be enough to clear their Debt completely. I even named him DEBTINATOR...some of you from the Protector server may remember him up until the server moves became available, at which point all my characters had moved to Freedom.

So obviously I am very old school, which means I prefer and always will prefer the old ways of CoH...all the way from the mechanics to how players play the game today in comparison to how they played back then. There was a system to how we played back then and a good majority of players used this system...happily. Now days, just mentioning the system can cause a player to tell you to shut it down, lol. The old system worked and everyone contributed equally and had a part to play. Healers were desired, controllers were desired, just as much as the debuffers and scrappers and blasters...everyone on the team was just as important as the other and everyone walked away from that mission feeling like they pulled their own weight. Healers were actually thanked for healing, bubblers were actually thanked for their bubbles...and good tanks were given praise for tanking well. Those days had a lot of respect for each other in a way that is just not there today. Maybe it's rose colored glasses, maybe it's just beer goggles, but that is how my mind remembers it.

Now...now that you know where my mind is, let me end this by saying that I don't think anyone here is here to ruin your fun, or attempt to change the game in any way to fit how we would prefer it. The game will remain the same and I for one will not attempt to come in between you and how this game is today. I am sure that one day, somebody somewhere will create a new server (would sure be nice if Homecoming created such a server! Hint hint...) where the aggro limit is gone, all IO's and the IO system is gone, HO's being the max enhancement, the collision mechanics reversed to their vanilla state and ambush mobs brought back to all the missions that had them. If and when that day comes, those of us old folks and our parents can go there. Until then, like you, this is our home and we don't expect it to change for us at all.

So rest assure, when we talk of the god ol days, that is not us taking a stab at you or how you play...we still love you for who you are.  😄

Edited September 3, 2020 by Solarverse

[RageusQuitus2]

6 hours ago, golstat2003 said:

Bwhahahhahah NO.

So thats a hard yes?  I guess its literally just me but i find fighting alongside vill or hero mobs in sirens hot spots fun.  Huuuge mobs lots of bosses. 

 

Pvp zones are the best street sweeping in game.  Especially now that actual zone pvp is dead.  Ymmv im on excel.  When I want to pvp i switch to indom.  So promise its not some reverse psychology trap.

[Bill Z Bubba]

7 hours ago, The Philotic Knight said:

I would think that if that's the case, then you might want to move onto other aspects of the game, such as maybe.... modding... for instance? 🙂

Nah. Got my modding fill with Fallout 4. I'm just here to kill stuff.

[EmmySky]

3 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Nah. Got my modding fill with Fallout 4. I'm just here to punch faces.

FTFY

 

😝

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 minute ago, EmmySky said:

FTFY

 

😝

Nono, I kill them all dead as dead can be. Not my fault the insane medical porters keep bringin everybody back to life.

[Lines]

18 hours ago, Grindingsucks said:

We'll simply have to disagree on this point.  I don't believe the difference is negligible at all.  It's the difference between grinding a new character for a few hours to get the character I desire, or just creating the character I want to play, whole cloth. 

That's fair, but yes, we have different root expectations of the game.

 

18 hours ago, Grindingsucks said:

I also don't agree that money is easy to make and that kitting out a character is barely a challenge.  These are your opinions.  I won't say that they're wrong, because you're entitled to have your opinion, just as much as I am.  But I do hold a very different opinion of what constitutes "Easy".  Also, if money is so easy to acquire, how can there be any relevant market or need to use and leverage that market for personal gain/pleasure (although, if running a market is mainly your thing, it's odd that you choose a Super Hero MMO.  Surely you'd be more entertained playing a game about Wall Street and Stock trading, banking, or something similar.  City of Investment Bankers?  I dunno.

 

Also, if you can easily make loads of money and quickly buy and kit out your character with whatever they need, why bother making us jump through that hoop at all?  Just cut straight to the point, and let us slot whatever enhancements we desire from the get go, as other servers do (and as you rightly pointed out- although those servers lack the player base to provide the other important element I require to enjoy the game- interesting characters to RP with.  This, of course, is why, having tried them, I remain on Everlasting/Homecoming, even though I hate to grind for xp and inf).

 

My frame of reference for calling it easy is thinking back to what the market was like on the old servers. I was and still am a fairly casual player, and trying to kit out a character on live was absolutely impossible. I think I had a few cheap sets at best. With the same playstyle now and being a little bit clever about how I sell things, I can easily start kitting out my characters at level 30, all self-funded. Homecoming has implemented some extremely effective strategies for keeping the costs down. I don't particularly enjoy the market and I'm not playing CoH in order to marketeer, so it's more that the market isn't the obstacle it used to be I appreciate.

 

I don't know whether free IOs (assuming the free versions can't be traded) would crash the entire market or hurl prices sky-high, but it'd definitely be an extreme impact one way or the other, depending on how players respond. Either I'd feel like there's less to earn and less value in doing stuff, or we'd start sailing back towards live prices. It'd be a good way to push players out either way.

 

Edit: on that last point, I do wonder how much the free-everything is responsible for low playerbases on other servers. I know I find it a deterrent. But it's probably just that people gravitate towards where the players are anyway, so I don't know if it would have an impact on HC's players.

 

18 hours ago, Grindingsucks said:

You can switch xp on or off at will.  I only meant that you have the ability to slow your own xp progression, if you desire- and if you feel you are progressing too swiftly.  For instance, as in the example I described, when you're side-kicked in a much higher level group and don't want to quickly leap upward a couple of levels.  However, as to what your preferred progression system might look like, I think it would probably be the ability to dial xp gain up or down, fine tuning the rate of advancement to your preference ( "X" experience points per mob/mission completion, etc.).  

 

I would support such a change, myself.  It wouldn't be as freeing as being able to simply create my character to taste, but it would be more satisfying than the present system that I'm locked into.

 

It's a bit deeper than this for me. We already do have a lot of control of our XP gain, which is cool, and I tend to find the pace of the game is pretty good even at double XP, with a few exceptional pockets.

 

The trouble is, unless you're well versed in the game and all its content, you don't really know what you're in for until you're doing it. It's hard to preemptively adjust your XP for content you're about to do. For example, if you do strings of contacts like The Hollows or Faultline or the Praetorian starter arcs, the game doesn't really give you any warning that you'll outlevel contacts if you pass certain levels. Your character then has to time travel for some undefined reason to carry on the plot. Or worse, in the case of Praetoria, you have to leap over a bit of plot and can only fill the gap later.

 

The stories in the game are generally really good. The delivery of the stories, often very bad. An ideal story progression system would be one where you don't need to consult any meta knowledge to engage with the stories, like contact level caps or having to fill anything you might have missed by time travelling. What would matter is that progression doesn't disrupt how I interact with with the world, and how I interact with the world doesn't delay progression - CoH's system falls flat on its face trying to juggle the two. Given the choice of the two, I'll turn off XP now and again if it means that progression isn't getting in the way of the stories.

 

A brutal, sledgehammer fix would be giving all content a 1-50 level range, but that would come with its own problems. So I don't really know what a good solution would be. I know I'd give any number of my eight legs for a better contacts interface.

Edited September 3, 2020 by Lines

[Coyotedancer]

16 hours ago, EmmySky said:

I enjoy farming AND I enjoy jabs.

 

Win-win.

 

Now 'm imagining building a Street Justice Brute with a farming build...

I do NOT need another expensive "project brute". I seriously do not. 😝 

[Glacier Peak]

4 hours ago, RageusQuitus2 said:

So thats a hard yes?  I guess its literally just me but i find fighting alongside vill or hero mobs in sirens hot spots fun.  Huuuge mobs lots of bosses. 

 

Pvp zones are the best street sweeping in game.  Especially now that actual zone pvp is dead.  Ymmv im on excel.  When I want to pvp i switch to indom.  So promise its not some reverse psychology trap.

Bloody Bay is a great place to collect a number of badges. The zone story itself is very interesting and the architecture and design elements really give it an atmosphere. And there are shivans glore!

 

Siren's Call has really fun mob spawn mechanics between the Longbow and Arachnos. As they fight each other, it makes for an easy street sweeping target - focus on the bosses and mezzers first though, or they hit hard once one side as the advantage. 

 

Warburg is a great place as well for story driven atmosphere. Every time I launch the rocket I feel like it was a big deal, very climactic. And the rogue arachnos lend a certain "we are our own city". I absolutely love the difficulty of fighting the roaming Hercules Titans (I was a bit of a sucker for this ever since Issue 1 when they added the combining part and Kronos as well). 

 

Recluses Victory is fun for both PvP and PvE. I enjoy the challenge of fighting the roaming AVs after capturing a few pillboxes. The time travel story is a bit farfetched, but I love how the zone changes depending on control.

[Skyhawke]

Sometimes, I take my main to Atlas and use Crushing Uppercut on level 1 Hellions and giggle maniacally as they rocket into the sky.

 

...what?

[MTeague]

2 hours ago, Lines said:

The trouble is, unless you're well versed in the game and all its content, you don't really know what you're in for until you're doing it. It's hard to preemptively adjust your XP for content you're about to do. For example, if you do strings of contacts like The Hollows or Faultline or the Praetorian starter arcs, the game doesn't really give you any warning that you'll outlevel contacts if you pass certain levels. Your character then has to time travel for some undefined reason to carry on the plot. Or worse, in the case of Praetoria, you have to leap over a bit of plot and can only fill the gap later.

My solution to this? 

• Don't scale everything up. 
• You can still walk up to any contact, even the ones you "outlevelled", talk to them, and accept their missions, just as if you were of the appropriate level range.
• If you are of the correct level, everything happens like normal.
• If you had outlevelled them, then as soon as their mission becomes the active mission, you and your entire team are forcibly exemplared down to the top level of that contact's level range. You remain exemplared down until that mission is no longer the active mission.  Either because you complete the mission and turn it in, or you quit the team of the mission owner, or the team leader switched over to a new mission, etc. 

Then all mobs, work exactly as-is. No need to invent lvl 50 Trolls and figure out what powers they should have access to, etc.

A lvl 50 doing it exemplared down will still likely be overpowered compared to at-content because of all set bonuses they might retain, but that's no different from doing it via Ouro.

By tying the exemplaring to the ACTIVE MISSION, it should be possible to invite others even after you accept it. 

It would not provide access to the Ouro challenges, or opportunities to earn the Ouro badges.  Go to Ouro for reals if you want those. 

Some incentive is maintained to at least think about certain IO sets that cap at 30 or 40 if you might be exemplaring at lot (where everything scaling to 50 would toss that out the window)

You could do the plot in a logical order, for any mission chain, (at least as long as it's clear what the logical order is... Praetoria's timeline can be fuzzy there sometimes)

 

EDIT:  Admittedly, this is not possible now. This requires dev work. And standard code rant applies, see dealer for details, offer not valid where prohibited by law, etc.

Edited September 3, 2020 by MTeague

[Lines]

3 minutes ago, MTeague said:

My solution to this? 

• Don't scale everything up. 
• You can still walk up to any contact, even the ones you "outlevelled", talk to them, and accept their missions, just as if you were of the appropriate level range.
• If you are of the correct level, everything happens like normal.
• If you had outlevelled them, then as soon as their mission becomes the active mission, you and your entire team are forcibly exemplared down to the top level of that contact's level range. You remain exemplared down until that mission is no longer the active mission.  Either because you complete the mission and turn it in, or you quit the team of the mission owner, or the team leader switched over to a new mission, etc. 

Then all mobs, work exactly as-is. No need to invent lvl 50 Trolls and figure out what powers they should have access too, etc.

A lvl 50 doing it exemplared down will still likely be overpowered compared to at-content because of all set bonuses they might retain, but that's no different from doing it via Ouro.

By tying the exemplaring to the ACTIVE MISSION, it should be possible to invite others even after you accept it. 

It would not provide access to the Ouro challenges, or opportunities to earn the Ouro badges.  Go to Ouro for reals if you want those. 

Some incentive is maintained to at least think about certain IO sets that cap at 30 or 40 if you might be exemplaring at lot (where everything scaling to 50 would toss that out the window)

You could do the plot in a logical order, for any mission chain, (at least as long as it's clear what the logical order is... Praetoria's timeline can be fuzzy there sometimes)

Yeah, my head was going in the same direction. That would iron out a lot of the game for me.

 

9 minutes ago, Skyhawke said:

Sometimes, I take my main to Atlas and use Crushing Uppercut on level 1 Hellions and giggle maniacally as they rocket into the sky.

 

...what?

If you hand them space station components before you hit them, we'll finally have the moonbase in no time.

[MTeague]

14 minutes ago, Skyhawke said:

Sometimes, I take my main to Atlas and use Crushing Uppercut on level 1 Hellions and giggle maniacally as they rocket into the sky.

 

...what?

The Hellions last recorded words were something like "'Scuse me, while I kiss the sky!"

[jubakumbi]

From my POV, this entire topic revolves around prejudice, even if it's passive-agressive in it's presentation.

By saying "That's fine that you do that, it's just not for me" and then saying there are not enough players that play the way you like, one is, in fact, throwing shade on the 'other' playstyle, IMO, through a passive-aggressive "I am not really saying anything bad" filter.

 

Why would anyone care how another person plays the game, bring that onto the forum, etc. otherwise?

What possible reason could these types of threads have to exist if not to in some way 'shame' those who do not play the same way, especially calling it 'old-school' as if there were any other way the game was ever played?

All of the playstles are 'old-school' they all existed from Day 1...slow leveling, fast leveling, group play, solo play, all of it.

There is no single 'old-school' way to play COH, only players that cannot or will not see that, IMO.

 

Why should any of us care one bit how others play the game, much less come onto the forums to try and shame those who do not play the same way?

It's just llama drama.

[Saikochoro]

10 hours ago, MoonSheep said:

Think you might have quoted the wrong person in your response there mate, contributing to discussion by posting a viewpoint of “it takes me longer to do a TF when people don’t know what they’re doing, that’s annoying” is hardly “enforcing an opinion” or “dictating how people play”, think you might be a tad overly sensitive to the opinions of others.. 

Nope I quoted the correct comment.  What is the purpose of complaining about power levelers other than in an attempt to “correct” their way of playing the game? It’s either Insulting/shaming one way of playing by calling them a pain, or it is trying to get them to change. Either way, it boils down to not approving how people get to play the game. As has been said by more than just me, you don’t get a say in how other play the game. If you don’t want them on your team, then kick them and put them on global ignore. Other than that you don’t get a say. 

 

In your second paragraph you inferred that people who do not share your view of playing the game erode the quality of the community, which is ridiculous.  I countered by saying those that try to enforce their view on others are the problem. 

Edited September 3, 2020 by Saikochoro

[Saikochoro]

1 hour ago, jubakumbi said:

From my POV, this entire topic revolves around prejudice, even if it's passive-agressive in it's presentation.

By saying "That's fine that you do that, it's just not for me" and then saying there are not enough players that play the way you like, one is, in fact, throwing shade on the 'other' playstyle, IMO, through a passive-aggressive "I am not really saying anything bad" filter.

 

Why would anyone care how another person plays the game, bring that onto the forum, etc. otherwise?

What possible reason could these types of threads have to exist if not to in some way 'shame' those who do not play the same way, especially calling it 'old-school' as if there were any other way the game was ever played?

All of the playstles are 'old-school' they all existed from Day 1...slow leveling, fast leveling, group play, solo play, all of it.

There is no single 'old-school' way to play COH, only players that cannot or will not see that, IMO.

 

Why should any of us care one bit how others play the game, much less come onto the forums to try and shame those who do not play the same way?

It's just llama drama.

Quoted for truth. Very well said. 

[Bill Z Bubba]

3 minutes ago, Saikochoro said:

I countered by saying those that try to enforce their view on others are the problem. 

As true in game as it is in life. Believe something? Fine. Live it. Don't attempt to foist that belief on others because that makes YOU the one in the wrong.

 

As my sig line states:

[MoonSheep]

8 minutes ago, Saikochoro said:

Nope I quoted the correct comment.  What is the purpose of complaining about power levelers other than in an attempt to “correct” their way of playing the game? It’s either Insulting/shaming one way of playing by calling them a pain, or it is trying to get them to change. Either way, it boils down to not approving how people get to play the game. As has been said by more than just me, you don’t get a say in how other play the game. If you don’t want them on your team, then kick them and put them on global ignore. Other than that you don’t get a say. 

 

In your second paragraph you inferred that people who do not share your view of playing the game erode the quality of the community, which is ridiculous.  I countered by saying those that try to enforce their view on others are the problem. 

I’m sorry I don’t understand where this language of “shaming” and “enforcing” is coming from and think my post has been rather misinterpreted. I didn’t mean to cause panic or anger by expressing a view that inexperienced PL’ers at time cause me frustration.

 

I seem to have misjudged the vibe of the CoH 2.0 community here by some margin. A rather hostile response to someone contributing a viewpoint to add to the discussion. Nobody is “enforcing” an opinion or any other such nonsense.

[Saikochoro]

2 minutes ago, MoonSheep said:

I’m sorry I don’t understand where this language of “shaming” and “enforcing” is coming from and think my post has been rather misinterpreted. I didn’t mean to cause panic or anger by expressing a view that inexperienced PL’ers at time cause me frustration.

 

I seem to have misjudged the vibe of the CoH 2.0 community here by some margin. A rather hostile response to someone contributing a viewpoint to add to the discussion. Nobody is “enforcing” an opinion or any other such nonsense.

@jubakumbi hit the nail on the head. There is a long standing prejudice against power leveling and farming by a vocal sub section of the community. It pops up every so often usually in a passive aggressive manner.  Myself, and it appears some others, have lost patience with it. 
 

The thing that makes this game great is the ability to play any way that you want. However, there are always those that can’t seems to accept that other people play differently than them, especially in regards to power leveling or farming. 

 

Power leveling and farming is often passive aggressively put in the shame bucket and dismissed as a lesser way of playing the game.  It just gets tiring seeing these threads pop up. I apologize for my overly aggressive tone, but my stance on the issue is unchanged. 

[FoulVileTerror]

Also, there's this:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6JgKQFeBxs

Loading Ready Run skit from late 2018.

[Lines]

I'll try and weigh in here, but it's a hard topic to untangle.

 

I agree that 'old school' is a misleading term. I used it in my first post in this thread, but I don't feel great about it. I'm not sure what word would capture the playstyle better though... Maybe playing progressively? (Edit: I don't like that either)

 

When I read these threads, I don't think they're meant as a stab towards others. There's a difference between people not relating to another playstyle and outright offending another playstyle. I find it's very easy to vocalise why I don't relate, but if ever I do I mean no offence. You do you.

 

But there's something that feels esoterically wrong about trying to play gradually through content right now. Something just doesn't work and it's easy to feel disenfranchised. It's really hard to put our finger on what's up with it:

 

Is it the game?

Is it the community?

Is it me?

 

It's kind of a weird blend of all those things and more, in little parts. I think it's ok if people want to come here and try to untangle that, but it's difficult. I think these threads come up because the OP is struggling to find their place and their playstyle - we've seen the OP here has tried some things that have worked, and that's awesome, and maybe this thread was something that had to happen to get there.

 

If you take it as being a personal attack, I think that's on you.

Edited September 3, 2020 by Lines

[Solarverse]

2 hours ago, jubakumbi said:

From my POV, this entire topic revolves around prejudice, even if it's passive-agressive in it's presentation.

By saying "That's fine that you do that, it's just not for me" and then saying there are not enough players that play the way you like, one is, in fact, throwing shade on the 'other' playstyle, IMO, through a passive-aggressive "I am not really saying anything bad" filter.

 

Why would anyone care how another person plays the game, bring that onto the forum, etc. otherwise?

What possible reason could these types of threads have to exist if not to in some way 'shame' those who do not play the same way, especially calling it 'old-school' as if there were any other way the game was ever played?

All of the playstles are 'old-school' they all existed from Day 1...slow leveling, fast leveling, group play, solo play, all of it.

There is no single 'old-school' way to play COH, only players that cannot or will not see that, IMO.

 

Why should any of us care one bit how others play the game, much less come onto the forums to try and shame those who do not play the same way?

It's just llama drama.

I mean, sure, I suppose. I wouldn't look at it that way but I suppose I can see why you would (that's if you are referring to my post...somebody else might have said something that went beyond what I said so maybe you are referring to theirs?) view it this way. However, I cannot agree that there was never an "old school" way to play...because there was. It was the way the vast majority of players used to play in those days. That way of playing pretty much no longer exists though because the difficulty o the game is child's play compared to what the game once was. So the old style of playing became obsolete.

Honestly though, I for one am not trying to throw any dirt on anyone here. My dirt throwing days ended long ago when I finally stopped trying to prevent people from getting the game nerfed down to what it is today. My dirt was slung very hard when people were requesting IO's and Bonus Set IO's. People kept requesting ways to make the game easier for them to play, while at the same time demanding nerfs to sets that were performing well. One day, long ago...I simply gave up that effort because that battle had been lost.

We can't help that we loved the way the game used to play and the way the vast majority of players played it. The game was a completely different game in those days and some of us miss it. Hope you forgive us that we bring this up from time to time, we are just old men living in the good ol days, heh.

Also, welcome back!  🙂

[FoulVileTerror]

Well said, @Lines.

Granted, while not the original post in this thread, I -do- think some other posters have definitely tread the line on being unkind with their words.

But it's also relatively easy to see how the topic touches some nerves, considering how deeply personal one's connection with the game can be.