Old school playing is getting rare

[Khodi]

It's funny.  I actually play with the extra XP gains off  and play through a ton of story content just for content's sake.  I'm not in a hurry in this game. I only ever wanted City of Heroes (Villains really as I play Rogues mostly) to come back just so I could enjoy the love and weirdness Cyptic and Paragon studios threw into the game.  I'll get to 50, one day

[Judasace]

On 9/16/2020 at 9:16 AM, GM Arcanum said:

I think that having XP Boosts/etc is nice for certain characters. However, there is certainly enough story arcs and content in the game to keep you entertained while leveling (if you enjoy that).

A few of the GMs made (what we refer to as) "Classic Characters". Where we all started off running through the sewers together and leveling them up following a certain set of rules.
- No AE/Farms/DFB. Can only level up via Contacts/Sewers/TFs/Radios/Zone Encounters/ETC
- No Influence Trading. So you can't send influence from another character. You have to purchase/craft your SOs/DOs/IOs with the influence you made from that character.
- No P2W Vendor. So we don't use the veteran powers/buffs/etc.
- No Merits. So you can't use merits to purchase enhancements/etc.
- No Travel Powers prior to Lvl 14 - (We highly enjoyed running around The Hollows from the Hospital again :D)

It has certainly made leveling a lot slower, however, it was extremely fun and rewarding! I think everyone enjoys playing the game in different ways and it's nice that in a game like this you have so many options. I sometimes enjoy the XP Boost, but I also really enjoy playing those characters as well. I'd highly recommend getting a group of friends together and trying it! 

I've had a similar idea myself,, but what has always stopped me is that there's always that one guy who will use the P2W vendor, merits, etc. and just "happen" to keep getting great drops. For some reason there's a certain personality type (psychopath) that sees an endeavor like this as way to have a group of people to somehow feel superior to.

[Golden Azrael]

On 9/16/2020 at 2:16 PM, GM Arcanum said:

I think that having XP Boosts/etc is nice for certain characters. However, there is certainly enough story arcs and content in the game to keep you entertained while leveling (if you enjoy that).

A few of the GMs made (what we refer to as) "Classic Characters". Where we all started off running through the sewers together and leveling them up following a certain set of rules.
- No AE/Farms/DFB. Can only level up via Contacts/Sewers/TFs/Radios/Zone Encounters/ETC
- No Influence Trading. So you can't send influence from another character. You have to purchase/craft your SOs/DOs/IOs with the influence you made from that character.
- No P2W Vendor. So we don't use the veteran powers/buffs/etc.
- No Merits. So you can't use merits to purchase enhancements/etc.
- No Travel Powers prior to Lvl 14 - (We highly enjoyed running around The Hollows from the Hospital again :D)

It has certainly made leveling a lot slower, however, it was extremely fun and rewarding! I think everyone enjoys playing the game in different ways and it's nice that in a game like this you have so many options. I sometimes enjoy the XP Boost, but I also really enjoy playing those characters as well. I'd highly recommend getting a group of friends together and trying it! 

My Duo Partner and I have tried 'old school' style rules of playing.

 

SOs only until L50.  (AT set allowed via earned Merits from playing the mission arcs but no crafting, no IO sets in general.)

 

Sprint only travel power with an SO in Swift.

 

A Pact like parity of progress as a duo.  (No zooming ahead unbalancing the duo.  Picking similar powers...slotting identically.)

 

Only use of Oro is for gaining the Stature missions so we can share the Merits arc rewards and play the 'Natural' Origin content.  Oro not allowed for transport.

 

No xp boosts or P2W powers.

 

+0 x1 only L1-50.  Even Con.  And you get a clear feeling of 'growing' power over time as you become more 'super.'

 

NO influence trading between alts.

 

It's been fun.

 

Azrael.

Edited September 28, 2020 by Golden Azrael

[Golden Azrael]

I find how fast you drive in CoH is a state of mind.

 

HC have done a sound job so that you can set your own 'rules.'

 

Azrael.

[sx978465168]

I only re-discovered the game a month ago, and I last played on retail in late 2008, so there's a lot I've forgotten and a lot that's simply new to me. I do play through the levels and always did, to experience the content, but just like Lines I mainly solo, and for the same reasons. Teams feel rushed more often than not. There's no time to simply enjoy the stories and the scenery.

[Crysis]

Threads like this are amusing.

 

The only logic against PL’ing versus playing all the way up to 50 is personal preference.  And since it’s personal preference, since the game allows both models and everything in between as valid (and always has), you play your way and I’ll play mine.

 

The argument of “I hate teaming with a PL’d 50 who doesn’t know how to play” is silly.  First, rarely have I seen that happen and I play PUG’s all the time.  I’ve seen “naturally leveled” players in their 40’s and up to 50 who are still running on SO’s, many of them red, who can’t hit anything and are otherwise fairly fragile relative to where they should be with decent slotting.  Not everyone reads forums, has MIDS, or even understands the crafting/IO system.  Bad players are bad players, and even they can contribute in a game where so many buffs are shared and the mechanics pretty much boils down to Tab+Click buttons.  It’s not that hard, and not hard enough to be plagued with bad players who are that way JUST BECAUSE they were PL’d.

 

And second, if you don’t like the way someone on the team is playing, either leave the team or kick them.  Problem solved.  And, proving my point, that’s also a personal preference.

 

 

[Myrmidon]

On 9/15/2020 at 7:51 AM, Twisted Toon said:

Agent Knockback is planning on taking every power in the FF/Energy (Defender) combo that has KB.

And, he refuses to have any KB-KD enhancements slotted.

Otherwise, he'd be Agent Knockdown.

Doesn't have the same impact to it.

 

Not to worry, for we now live in a Fold Space paradise.

[Grouchybeast]

9 hours ago, Myrmidon said:

Not to worry, for we now live in a Fold Space paradise.

I'm seriously thinking about respeccing my Ill/Storm, Illusion of Control, into the Teleport pool.  I feel a combination of Fold Space and Hurricane could be very rewarding.

[Myrmidon]

1 hour ago, Grouchybeast said:

I'm seriously thinking about respeccing my Ill/Storm, Illusion of Control, into the Teleport pool.  I feel a combination of Fold Space and Hurricane could be very rewarding.

I am thinking the exact same thing for my Storm/Water.

[Verix]

On 8/30/2020 at 6:04 AM, Diantane said:

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.

 

Once upon a time I played CoV and I had a very nice level 50 MM with everything I ever could have possibly wanted for that character. Later I made other MM characters too so that I could test out other flavors.  But Before that happened I had a mediocre Mastermind that took ages to level (abandoned around level 40) and was completely terrible. To make a long story short I have already had the "Mastermind Leveling Experience". I know how they work and I could probably play anyone else's MM character just fine after reading  power variations I have never used before - if I can understand what they did for their slotting (all bets are off if I went and tried to play something like a scrapper however).

 

For me the fun part is at the end game. This is my dessert; I already earned it. This is where the combat can be challenging and this is where the game gets rewarding. As soon as I had an "empty" level 50 character (that I leveled up more than half way myself) I was raking in the cash compared to what I had been getting previously. The first few days I didn't even know there was an XP boost for free.

 

I will kindly ask you not to judge me for what part of the game I like. You are free to enjoy the parts of the game that I want so skip. To me the middle of the game is very grindy (because it was meant to be a pay per month MMO afterall). And the early game is very slow running with no travel power(you can even "forget" to take a movement power until 14 if you like).

 

I get the impression that most people like to play multiple characters of many different types. I suspect most people don't want to spend weeks getting a character to 50 only to realize they made a garbage character that should have been better researched in the first place. Imagine for example you just clicked some buttons and made a Ninja/Poison Mastermind with no real thought put into it. Would you rather have wasted 5 hours getting power leveled or 5 hours a day for 2-3 weeks (if not longer)?

[Blastit]

On 11/26/2020 at 2:32 PM, Crysis said:

The only logic against PL’ing versus playing all the way up to 50 is personal preference.

There is also what widespread powerlevelling does to the game environment. If nearly everyone goes on AE farms to get to at least 40+ then that leaves the rest of the world empty and further pressures players into powerlevelling. So developers do have to keep an eye on it because otherwise only a small part of their efforts stay relevant.

[Crysis]

1 hour ago, Blastit said:

There is also what widespread powerlevelling does to the game environment. If nearly everyone goes on AE farms to get to at least 40+ then that leaves the rest of the world empty and further pressures players into powerlevelling. So developers do have to keep an eye on it because otherwise only a small part of their efforts stay relevant.

The flaw in this assumption is that people who want/desire to be PL’d or to PL others would otherwise be jumping into ordinary missions via the LFT channels, PUGs or whatever else content grouping is happening.

 

There’s no indication that the AE PL crowd would be here AT ALL or anywhere near as frequently if the PL mechanic was removed.

 

Way back before AE even existed there were entire SG’s who did nothing other than crowd Portal Corps to run the various maps repeatedly to build up their ranks for PVP and base raids.  And even today in AE I still see well known PVP’rs who are simply PL’ing up a variety of alts specifically/mostly to use in PVP leagues only.  You might see them a few times in normal content teams/leagues to craft up an iPower or earn an accolade that gives their build an edge once acquired.  But many people PL because they derive enjoyment from the game differently than you do.  Disrupt that and you disrupt their enjoyment.  You won’t be “forcing” anyone to enjoy the game the exact same way you do.  They will just leave.

Edited December 6, 2020 by Crysis

[The_Warpact]

I do both, I PL specific toons to 50 for specific purposes ie PVP, concept, etc.

 

AND

 

I level them up the "old fashioned " way, my VG has a Praetorian team we run from lvl 1, we are currently in the low 30s and this has taken several months.

Me and the wife also run a host of toons at various levels which are being leveled the "old fashioned ".

 

Both ways we enjoy and is part of how we play. 

 

Now why would anyone take our enjoyment of the game away just because its not what you like. 

I often see on this forum various people trying to push how they play onto others.

Here's my advice, stay in your own lane and mind your business. 

[Hew]

On 11/26/2020 at 6:48 PM, Grouchybeast said:

I'm seriously thinking about respeccing my Ill/Storm, Illusion of Control, into the Teleport pool.  I feel a combination of Fold Space and Hurricane could be very rewarding.

It isn't. 😞

 

I did this exactly for the same thoughts, but it turns out, the mobs don't get acc debuffed fast enough to not plink at  you, and the repel (not kd) part of hurricane isnt very helpful. I figured that coupled with lots and lots of stationary KD from water blast would be ideal, but turns out that no, not really. All because of the damn repel. I was very sad. 

[DougGraves]

On 9/16/2020 at 6:16 AM, GM Arcanum said:

 I'd highly recommend getting a group of friends together and trying it! 

 

And that's the problem, finding a group of people that want to play this way.  That's the entire point of this thread.  It is getting harder and harder to find players in game who want to play this way.  If I had a group of friends playing that wanted to play this way and we all played at the same time this wouldn't be a problem.  But I don't.  So this is my entire problem with playing CoH.  Logging on and trying to find a group of people who want to play without powerleveling, farming, or playing godmode.

[Darmian]

You know, from this entire discussion I still have no real grasp of what old school playing is!  Other than it is apparently rare now. I mean is it this? 

Or what?  I mean that seems interesting as a challenge but I can't say it's for me.  Then there's this argument.

 

7 hours ago, Verix said:

Imagine for example you just clicked some buttons and made a Ninja/Poison Mastermind with no real thought put into it. Would you rather have wasted 5 hours getting power leveled or 5 hours a day for 2-3 weeks (if not longer)?

Each have their adherents and live and let live I say.

 

Personally?  Levelling up is a thing that happens to my characters as I play the game, it's not the point of the game for me.  So is that a third option there?  I doubt I'm alone in that. But that's not "old school" either, I'm just a story hound and like to explore all the things all the way through.  I mean I never played a WS on Live and now I'm working my way through all that lore. Fun times.

 

There's room for everyone.

[Blastit]

11 hours ago, Crysis said:

The flaw in this assumption is that people who want/desire to be PL’d or to PL others would otherwise be jumping into ordinary missions via the LFT channels, PUGs or whatever else content grouping is happening.

 

There’s no indication that the AE PL crowd would be here AT ALL or anywhere near as frequently if the PL mechanic was removed.

 

Way back before AE even existed there were entire SG’s who did nothing other than crowd Portal Corps to run the various maps repeatedly to build up their ranks for PVP and base raids.  And even today in AE I still see well known PVP’rs who are simply PL’ing up a variety of alts specifically/mostly to use in PVP leagues only.  You might see them a few times in normal content teams/leagues to craft up an iPower or earn an accolade that gives their build an edge once acquired.  But many people PL because they derive enjoyment from the game differently than you do.  Disrupt that and you disrupt their enjoyment.  You won’t be “forcing” anyone to enjoy the game the exact same way you do.  They will just leave.

My contention is with the idea that powerlevelling is only a matter of personal preference. It's more complicated than that. I don't even advocate its eradication, I've only said that developers "have to keep an eye on it". Hardly controversial. Additionally, of course I know that some people love having an instant level 50 and that they can want that for multiple different reasons. There are people who like and dislike everything.

[Blastit]

14 hours ago, Verix said:

I get the impression that most people like to play multiple characters of many different types. I suspect most people don't want to spend weeks getting a character to 50 only to realize they made a garbage character that should have been better researched in the first place. Imagine for example you just clicked some buttons and made a Ninja/Poison Mastermind with no real thought put into it. Would you rather have wasted 5 hours getting power leveled or 5 hours a day for 2-3 weeks (if not longer)?

 

What kind of person would slot out a build after five hours of powerlevelling and instantly realise the sets sucked ass but not do so at any point during seventy or a hundred and five hours of active playing? Five hours every day, no less.

 

If we're talking how different characters can be before and after getting maximally IO'd out, then... no relevant amount of players would know that much about endgame builds and goof it so hard on their choice of what to fundamentally play.

 

 

And anyway, if some sets are trash then the devs should probably do something about that. That's kind of a bigger-picture concern.

[Crysis]

2 hours ago, Blastit said:

My contention is with the idea that powerlevelling is only a matter of personal preference. It's more complicated than that. I don't even advocate its eradication, I've only said that developers "have to keep an eye on it". Hardly controversial. Additionally, of course I know that some people love having an instant level 50 and that they can want that for multiple different reasons. There are people who like and dislike everything.

Actually, and being a bit controversial here, I don’t know why this game hasn’t yet instituted an “Insta-50” function in game, either via a P2W function or a true purchase/influence sink.  This existed during the “forbidden years” of the game when it was hidden away.  And it still exists on test server.  Do that and you do away with need to grind it out via power leveling and/or using AE mostly for those purposes.

 

I mean if we still had to pay for accounts and subscriptions I’d see the need/desire to slow down leveling.  But since this is now free to play and you can have as many accounts as you want....why even bother with the pretense of “grinding” to make a 50?  I mean it worked just fine for several years when the SCORE servers did it with a player population of invite-only and perhaps 1000 total players.  Seems like that’s pretty good validation it could work just fine now as well and....no more need to PL, no need to watch chat spam for AE PL teams, no need to worry about AE PL “depriving” the content players of potential teammates (although I still think that’s a seriously flawed argument) etc.  PL players get what they ultimately want....fast 50’s.  PL haters get what they want....everyone who plays the game is playing the content, not the min/max method of leveling on god mode and/or only Zerg rushing mission objectives for faster XP per hour.  
 

Of course, this may still render lower level content less desirable than upper level content.  But you could address this as an insta-10/20/30/40/50 model.  I generally PL all my alts to level 32 already.  I don’t really desire to go all the way to 50 and I can PL 1-32 in about 30 Mins.  But if you’d give me a feature to insta-32 I’d take that in an instant.  I just don’t enjoy the lower level content.  
 

 

Edited December 7, 2020 by Crysis

[TygerDarkstorm]

9 minutes ago, Crysis said:

Actually, and being a bit controversial here, I don’t know why this game hasn’t yet instituted an “Insta-50” function in game, either via a P2W function or a true purchase/influence sink.  This existed during the “forbidden years” of the game when it was hidden away.  And it still exists on test server.  Do that and you do away with need to grind it out via power leveling and/or using AE mostly for those purposes.

What do you mean by this game? Homecoming's particular server group? Because, from my understanding, there are other private server groups running CoH where you can roll yourself an instant 50. Homecoming isn't the only server for CoH, so it's a bit misleading to just say "this game."

[Crysis]

5 minutes ago, TygerDarkstorm said:

What do you mean by this game? Homecoming's particular server group? Because, from my understanding, there are other private server groups running CoH where you can roll yourself an instant 50. Homecoming isn't the only server for CoH, so it's a bit misleading to just say "this game."

Well since you are on the Homecoming forums I would have thought the answer would be obvious.  Yes, I was referring to Homecoming.  I’m aware of the other servers and some of their various features, including the instant-50 capabilities.  But that’s not relevant on Homecoming.

 

....yet

[golstat2003]

11 hours ago, DougGraves said:

 

And that's the problem, finding a group of people that want to play this way.  That's the entire point of this thread.  It is getting harder and harder to find players in game who want to play this way.  If I had a group of friends playing that wanted to play this way and we all played at the same time this wouldn't be a problem.  But I don't.  So this is my entire problem with playing CoH.  Logging on and trying to find a group of people who want to play without powerleveling, farming, or playing godmode.

You're looking for a game that doesn't exist anymore. IOs and Incarnate abilities is something that won't be going away. At this point its ingrained into what COH is. That's not a bad thing. But it does make it harder for those who long for the old days. There are other servers out there that still have the old school feel though.

Edited December 7, 2020 by golstat2003

[golstat2003]

2 hours ago, Crysis said:

Actually, and being a bit controversial here, I don’t know why this game hasn’t yet instituted an “Insta-50” function in game, either via a P2W function or a true purchase/influence sink.  This existed during the “forbidden years” of the game when it was hidden away.  And it still exists on test server.  Do that and you do away with need to grind it out via power leveling and/or using AE mostly for those purposes.

 

I mean if we still had to pay for accounts and subscriptions I’d see the need/desire to slow down leveling.  But since this is now free to play and you can have as many accounts as you want....why even bother with the pretense of “grinding” to make a 50?  I mean it worked just fine for several years when the SCORE servers did it with a player population of invite-only and perhaps 1000 total players.  Seems like that’s pretty good validation it could work just fine now as well and....no more need to PL, no need to watch chat spam for AE PL teams, no need to worry about AE PL “depriving” the content players of potential teammates (although I still think that’s a seriously flawed argument) etc.  PL players get what they ultimately want....fast 50’s.  PL haters get what they want....everyone who plays the game is playing the content, not the min/max method of leveling on god mode and/or only Zerg rushing mission objectives for faster XP per hour.  
 

Of course, this may still render lower level content less desirable than upper level content.  But you could address this as an insta-10/20/30/40/50 model.  I generally PL all my alts to level 32 already.  I don’t really desire to go all the way to 50 and I can PL 1-32 in about 30 Mins.  But if you’d give me a feature to insta-32 I’d take that in an instant.  I just don’t enjoy the lower level content.  
 

 

I'd pretty much done 95% of the content on live with multi alts the hard way. I don't enjoy the lower level content after having seen it the 10203203th time. So I would not mind if this was implemented.

[Grouchybeast]

9 hours ago, Crysis said:

Actually, and being a bit controversial here, I don’t know why this game hasn’t yet instituted an “Insta-50” function in game, either via a P2W function or a true purchase/influence sink.

I agree this would be a great inf sink.  It even double-dips on inf reduction: the price of the P2W option + the inf that would otherwise have been generated by levelling the character in AE.

[Snarky]

NO on insta 50s.  yes.  I yelled.

 

My method to 50:  4-6 DFBs, 4 DiB, Posi 1, 2, Synapse, etc  TF TF Team, TF, Team.  Preferring TF.  THis allows me a couple things.  1) Define character.  Picking powers, rethinking concept as I am in the drivers seat.  If it is a new power choice/build then I get to see how it performs. 2) Generate merits, which I love.

 

If you insta 50s then content that is not incarnate/weekly TF/50 content will be on a death spiral of "only the inner cabal" plays that.  

 

Plus, the game (quite successful despite what some corporate wonks think) was designed for the run to 50.  The zones, story arcs, enemy groups. all designed to test characters as their powers level up.  So, insta 50ing would flush that away as useless.

 

I never thought AE was the death knell of CoX.  I have heard it a lot.  Never even considered it might be true.  Anyone who grinds in there hardcore isnt going nowhere.

 

I do believe insta 50ing would be the death knell of CoX.