Old school playing is getting rare

[Saikochoro]

12 hours ago, MoonSheep said:

Strong opinions / absolute statements

 

People who PL to 50 are a real pain if you have allocated 30-40 minutes in your day to play a TF or trial and several members of the team have no idea how to play and turn it into a 1 hour+ long saga of grinding. Or not being able to find many teams under 20 as everyone is obsessed with running DFBs into the ground

 

City of Heroes is an online game where people are able to team and play together, the quality of the online community is what makes the game a lovely place to be. People who don’t share the values of community, character development/journey, teamwork etc feel out of place in my opinion 

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. 

Edited September 1, 2020 by Saikochoro

[GlaziusF]

4 hours ago, Bentley Berkeley said:

I know there are several one off non arc related mishes that give charged temp powers one can keep as long as they keep the mish up in their actives rather then completing it. Enough of them one could easily end up with only 1 active mish slot to use because the others are acting as place holders to keep a tem power. Used to do them with most new toons on live as temp collecting was a hobby of mine in game back then.

I think pretty much all of these temp powers are in the P2W system right now, for what it's worth.

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

20 minutes ago, GlaziusF said:

I think pretty much all of these temp powers are in the P2W system right now, for what it's worth.

Nope there isa  cryo blast, an electric blast that does extra dmg to clocks( used to always go run syn while I had that one it was nasty on the king) a ring with a short duration that does a dark debuff, as well as a scroll 1 time use from same mish.  those are just off the top of me head.

[GlaziusF]

6 hours ago, Bentley Berkeley said:

This is a pov I think needs more consideration, because while not getting merits myself has never kept me from helping those in need on the final big boss fight of a story arc mish, I have seen no few over the years of live and now this last year+ on HC that suggest it isnt as uncommon as Id like to think it is.

 

One of the things I have always loved about CoH and the community by and large is a lack of the mercenary " I need to be getting mine first and foremost"  so common in the typical fantasy MMO. Ive often thought this might well be due simply to the nature of the genre. In D&D player characters are by and large mercenary adventurers working for pay and the promise of great wealth.

 

In CoH not so much, even our currency is called Influence, to divorce ourselves from the idea our characters are motivated by wealth, rather they seek greater influence to change the world for the better, or in the case of villains are more interested in being the most infamous truly worst of the worst. In either case, the nature of the game universe, and content always directs our characters down the path to being chosen by the universe itself as great champions( anyone ever feel like the writers of the shows like arrow and flash played a ton of coh?, like seriously that crisis cross over was even using the term paragon for their chosen of the well concept) of the forces they fight for.

 

Yet there is a portion of the players who basically will not play any content they do not get merits for. Its the number 1 grumble I see on radio teams, the lack of merits. I see it as the most common grumble for those who enjoy casual street sweeping. I get the feeling there is certainly a meaningful portion of our population that is in fact very reward driven, and its not just AE farmers.

 

Can I ask you specifically though and truly am asking, why cant you help someone with their content, even if it means they get some reward you dont, if you value being a friendly and helpful member of the community, I mean if you are enjoying playing the game, enjoying the company in the game, then why does you getting yours matter so much?

If somebody's asking for help in the help channel I'll sometimes volunteer if I have the time and alignment necessary. If somebody's asking in LFG or another global I treat it as more a "nice to have" than a cri de coeur.

 

And when it's one of those "nice to have"s, well, I could put in the time and get on a team that paid out a small bonus to one person, or I could put in the time and get on a team that pays out big bonuses to everybody. (I usually end up assembling the team, so that throws things into even starker contrast - I can invite people along to get myself a small bonus, or I can invite people along to get everyone a big bonus.)

 

Would I do the same thing with story arcs if there was a weekly rota of the things I could put together in Ouroboros and make sure everybody got the merits, with maybe a bonus kicker and an extra XP chunk/empyrean merit when the whole thing wrapped up? Hecka yes, I would love the variety.

[nightroarer]

13 hours ago, Six Six said:

Oh don't get me wrong, I LOVE the content... I think the content is tremendously wealthy... so much so that I don't take it all in at once.

On my very first toon (I only started playing when HC came out early last year), I tried getting ALL the contacts I can and doing all of their missions. I was disappointed when I out-levelled them. On my next toon, I took the advise to turn XP off so I don't out-level certain contacts. Then toon number 3 onwards, each toon forged his/her unique story through the choice of contacts the toon made along the way.

Some toons only did story arcs, my vigilante only did radio missions, others only street-swept, others exclusively team, do Strike Forces and so on... depending on their character. While most will do a combination of activities, some would not. Is it harder to level? Yes. but that's the toon's story, and he has to stick with it.

I also tried door sitting, which to me translates hanging out with one or two friends and shooting the breeze in chat while a brute does his thing around the map--also fun and I have 1 toon who's never seen the outside of AE building to show for it. I've tried user-generated story arcs in the AE as well. Other times, I would go in to AE with a "mentor" to teach me how a certain AT/power set should be. Just last week, a friend sent a tell and wanted to chat while he was farming. I obliged and when I stepped out, I was 12 levels above what I bargained for. Incidentally, I saw a "beginner's guide to fire farming" here in the forums, so I might give that a try and be the one inviting people to door sit while brute does his/her thing.

But more often than not I still create a toon, skip galaxy/breakout (or not, depends), go to Kuzmin and seek my fortune as the Destined One from there. I'm now on my 24th toon on her way to 50. Meanwhile, I still play my spiders with a dozen T4s to choose from as the rest of my 50s wait in line to earn all their T4 incarnates. Some of my 50s will never be played again because after "grinding" them to Ramiel, I've learned that I didn't like the AT or power set combination or possibly the character I made for it. At the same time, I have still yet to try countless other combinations as well as ATs as soon as I concoct a concept for them. 

No, it isn't a grind to me. It's my dream MMO and I'm loving every single waking hour I can spend in it.

Except for the door sitting, we sound like very similar players. 🙂

 

My wife and I have one new team that is still level 4--even though we have played through multiple contacts. We turned off XP to do all of the original starting contacts in Atlas. We are about to turn on XP again as we have acquired the final missions for each contact.

 

I, too, have characters that follow different leveling paths--or as I prefer, story paths (leveling isn't the main point for me)--and activities. Some are only solo, some team with my wife, some with my daughter, some with both. A few characters have spent more time with base-building or crafting or other more RP-like activities and level slowly. Most of my characters are heroes, but I have a handful of villains and praetorians for a change of pace.

 

There are so many different ways to play characters in this game it's incredible--especially for a writer who loves to create characters and backgrounds.

[Skyhawke]

I have solo characters that have a ton of badges and trophies because they run as many story arcs as I can get my grubby hands on.  I have teaming characters that are just for me to hop into teams and play support and I don't really care about badge/trophy one for them.  I have a spines/fire brute for making moolah.  In short, it depends on my mood.  Thankfully, COH accommodates that.  

[Heraclea]

A lot depends on the character.  I recently rolled a scrapper: claws/fire armor.  The chief purpose of the character will be to make inf and convertible yellow recipes to benefit the rest of the roster.  The character helps to move my dual blades/fire brute into semi retirement; that character recently hit veteran level 99, and as such part of her usefulness is fading.   So I am taking a very direct road to 50, because I know how fire armor works and how to play a scrapper. 

 

Other characters are more experimental.  I tried to get into corruptors and it took a while before I found a combo (psy/dark) that clicked.  Same  with controllers; I tried ill/rad, didn't really like it; then I made a plant/poison and it finally clicked.  All of these characters were levelled relatively slowly because of the learning curve involved.  One of these days I am going to stick with a defender. 

 

I suppose my point is, not everyone levels all of their characters the same way.  I generally don't 'powerlevel' in the traditional way, but for some characters I have a plan I mean to stick with and the main objective is to put it in operation.   I do have a project to take every melee armor and attack set to 50 one way or another.  The alt I mentioned is claws mostly because I didn't have a claws yet.  And others are experiments or jokes; some of my favorite characters started out as jokes, like an ice/plants blaster made to claim the punny name 'Ice Minstrel'. 

[golstat2003]

On 8/30/2020 at 5:11 PM, DougGraves said:

 

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

People team all the time. You experience if vastly different that anything I've seen. You can also run your own teams. You must not have the LFG channel up most of the time.

[Coyotedancer]

Yep. 

There are all SORTS of ways to play this game and none of them are "right" or "wrong". They're just our preferences.

 

As I've said in other threads, I've burned out hard on the low level game. It'll be a rainy day in the Shard before I ever want to see Mercy Island or Faultline again. So, I toss my newbie characters into a quick round of demon-bashing with the fire farmer I have on my secondary account. That gets them into the 30's, where they can have their common IOs and where the game content actually starts to feel like fun to me. I usually run them the rest of the way to 50 the traditional way... but not always. Sometimes I get impatient and take them ship-raiding, or toss them into a PI smash-fest. Sometimes I'll send them back into AE with Harry for another round of City of Farmville.   

 

In any case, I've been at this game long enough (and have had an absolutely ludicrous-enough number of alts in the process... o_O ) to know perfectly well how the characters I build work, no matter which path they took to 50. Just because a character of mine "grew up" bashing cosplayers with Harry on an AE farm map doesn't mean I'm a novice at playing them. 

 

And, for what it's worth... Once my gang do get to 50, that doesn't mean I exclusively play them in high level content. My defenders and corruptors spend most of their time exemped, running with teams in the mid-levels. Because UNLIKE level 50+ smash-fest groups, those 30-and-40-somethings actually have some *need* for support characters. I've been known to run my non-support characters that way, too. If you play on Everlasting and have teamed with some crazy Oranbegan, you may even have met one of them. XD 

 

 

Edited September 2, 2020 by Coyotedancer

[golstat2003]

7 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

Yep. 

There are all SORTS of ways to play this game and none of them are "right" or "wrong". They're just our preferences.

 

As I've said in other threads, I've burned out hard on the low level game. It'll be a rainy day in the Shard before I ever want to see Mercy Island or Faultline again. So, I toss my newbie characters into a quick round of demon-bashing with the fire farmer I have on my secondary account. That gets them into the 30's, where they can have their common IOs and where the game content actually starts to feel like fun to me. I usually run them the rest of the way to 50 the traditional way... but not always. Sometimes I get impatient and take them ship-raiding, or toss them into a PI smash-fest. Sometimes I'll send them back into AE with Harry for another round of City of Farmville.   

 

In any case, I've been at this game long enough (and have had an absolutely ludicrous-enough number of alts in the process... o_O ) to know perfectly well how the characters I build work, no matter which path they took to 50. Just because a character of mine "grew up" bashing cosplayers with Harry on an AE farm map doesn't mean I'm a novice at playing them. 

 

And, for what it's worth... Once my gang do get to 50, that doesn't mean I exclusively play them in high level content. My defenders and corruptors spend most of their time exemped, running with teams in the mid-levels. Because UNLIKE level 50+ smash-fest groups, those 30-and-40-somethings actually have some *need* for support characters. I've been known to run my non-support characters that way, too. If you play on Everlasting and have teamed with some crazy Oranbegan, you may even have met one of them. XD 

 

 

Pretty much this. Folks need to stop assuming the lower level folks you see aren't exemped down.

[golstat2003]

The beauty of this game is that it allows us to play exactly how we want. It's one of the most free flowing mmos in history. With no content you absolutely must do.

 

Compare this to FFXIV (which I also love) where there are some dungeons you MUST DO to progress in the storylline, if you want to get the full story of the game.

 

I"m glad for a game like FFXIV and for a game like COH.

 

I'm also glad that I can pl my way to 50 if I want or play a character to 50 if I want. Neither way is wrong.

 

/shrug

Edited September 2, 2020 by golstat2003

[wolfshadow31]

My latest 50, Dark Ascentia, dark/dark/dark defender, leveled what I consider the old school way. She used no P2W powers, no double xp, no DFB, etc.  She didnt even use the base tp macro. She went 1-50 entirely through story arcs. Her play time at the time she got to 50 was 140 hours over about five weeks of play time.   Now I am sure you could probably knock 20 off for me being afk at times etc. But still, I’ve no doubt it was a good 120 hours to get to 50, as I mainly solo’d story arcs, or occasionally duo’d them with a friend.  I had a complete blast with her. She really came into her own in the 30s and it was so much fun.  

 

I personally find I have a much keener insight into the power sets when I take a slower route to 50. Like you really find out what works  and what doesn’t.  And when to use what power to best effect, and against which enemies are most affected by them. 

 

Anyway, I do recommend the old school way of levelling. If nothing more for the experience of doing it.  Yes, it’s slower, but some things are meant to be savoured...

Edited September 2, 2020 by wolfshadow31

[huang3721]

I wonder how long would it take to reach Lv. 50 by street hunting?

 

Let say 5 Lv.1 toons team up, fight nearest +2/+3 mobs they could find, level up, repeat until they reach Lv.50.

 

Thanks

[Myrmidon]

Once I became capable of doing so, every new character gets their full complement of Attuned IOs/Purples sitting in either storage or trays, all of the Teleport P2W powers and a 8 hours of Amplifiers at level 1 (the mini-game within the game) and then their journey begins. The closest to power leveling that I come to is living in a perpetual state of Double XP until 50.

 

I prefer to team with people when available and save story arcs for soloing when I feel like getting to them. The best are interactive teams that have players with engaging and enjoyable conversation, however, the silent teams are fine. If you ever play on Excelsior, then it’s likely that we will find ourselves teaming at some point. See you around.

 

 

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

On 8/30/2020 at 2:11 PM, DougGraves said:

 

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

Ya know I seem to recall an old quote, goes on about having the strength to endure things they cant change, and the wisdom to know that they cant change them. Try not to worry about something you have no power over, no place voicing an opinion of, and ultimately need to worry about only one person, yourself. Stop ever for any reason under any circumstance thinking about or worrying about me or my characters. That just feels all sorts of cyber stalker perv.

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

3 hours ago, huang3721 said:

I wonder how long would it take to reach Lv. 50 by street hunting?

 

Let say 5 Lv.1 toons team up, fight nearest +2/+3 mobs they could find, level up, repeat until they reach Lv.50.

 

Thanks

Well cant say for HC, but back on live during a double xp weekend I took a brute from start to 38 exclusively street hunting around R.I. after the double xp ended took me about another week doing such to reach cap. Was an energy/energy brute if I recall right.

[TygerDarkstorm]

8 hours ago, golstat2003 said:

Pretty much this. Folks need to stop assuming the lower level folks you see aren't exemped down.

Well, the game actually tells you if someone is being exemped down or not, so that shouldn't really be an assumption. 

 

If you click on a player and their level shows as white/grey (whatever the default color is), then that's their actual level. If it's blue, they either haven't trained or are being sidekicked/malefactored. If it's orangey-red, they're being exemped down.

[Grindingsucks]

This is a topic I have strong (if mixed) feelings about, and I'm happy that someone brought it up so that I can offer my own perspective.

 

Firstly, I should say that I am a role-player first and a computer gamer second.  Thus, finding a good group of people to RP with is my primary concern.  However, having said that, I come to CoH seeking a very specific kind of RP; namely- that of the Super Hero/Comic book genre.

 

Now, I got into the hobby of role-playing games way back in 1981, at the tender age of 9 years old.  I started playing with the blue box dungeons & dragons game, by David Cook.  I love old-school style D&D, where you start out as a common schlub with a sword and shield, and slowly overcome dangers and perils of all kinds, hopefully surviving long enough to grow in strength and power and carve out your own kingdom.  As a lover of sword & sorcery and fantasy fiction, this style of play serves very well to emulate those genres.

 

However, as a reader of Marvel and DC comics since I was a wee lad, I'm looking for an experience that emulates the genre.  In super hero comics, we don't typically (I won't be so dogmatic as to suggest that there are NO examples of this kind) read about the journey from being a common man and slowly training and learning, gaining power in increments over time, until the hero arrives at the pinnacle of power.  Comic book heroes tend to be either naturally powerful at their outset (Superman and Wonder Woman) or are normal humans who, in a single incident (exposure to weird rays/chemicals, gaining a mystic artifact, etc.) are transformed into powerful beings with amazing powers.  Even street level heroes such as Batman, Punisher, Captain America, etc... we don't spend half the run of the first volume detailing their years of training (Yes, we might have flashbacks to that training in certain issues, or a few panels that show the characters training; the X-men danger room, etc.).  Instead, they tend to debut in their stories as extremely potent and capable beings, that are able to challenge foes that give the normal authorities (Police and such) too much to handle alone.

 

Comic book heroes often don't even change that much over time, in respect to their powersets.  Captain America is relatively the same as he was at his inception.  Superman has roughly the same powersets since his inception.  Yes, the characters occasionally receive a power adjustment (up or down, or both, over time).  Superman began as simply being able to jump over buildings, being more powerful than a locomotive, and having the ability to deflect bullets with his skin.  In the sixties/seventies he grew in power to such a degree, that he could crack apart planetoids with his punch and fly through interstellar space.  Later, he  was nerfed back down, as writers felt he had gotten too powerful (and yes, there was that brief incidence where he was split into three weird versions.  Fans didn't care for that, and it didn't last very long).  My point is, conceptually and power-wise, most comic book heroes appear in their first issue with their classic set of abilities and retain (more or less) the same over time.  They may grow and change a great deal, with regard to their relationships with other characters, their personalities, and the story of their various successes and failures.  But their story is not one of grinding out levels and gaining power over time.

 

This is the style of RP I want to experience in CoX.  I want to imagine a cool hero or villain with a certain array of powers and abilities, and I want to dive into and play the character that I imagine, without the grind of old-school, hero to zero, D&D mechanics.  If I wanted that kind of experience, I would play a fantasy themed online game and level up slowly over time.  But, again, that's not why I'm here.  I want an authentic, comic-book super hero experience.

 

I'm always baffled by players that are distressed because other players don't want the classic D&D grind experience.  Firstly, because it seems strange to me that people seeking super hero play would prefer that experience, to an experience that cleaves more closely to emulating the genre.  But secondly, because they object to someone enjoying the game differently to them.  I may not understand other players desire to grind out levels over time, but I DO respect their way to play the game the way they wish to.

 

In fact, a mechanism already exists to accommodate players of this kind.  This is at the very bottom of the general tab in options- the last selection under miscellaneous, labelled "Turn off Experience."  If you wish to control the rate at which you level, you can turn off experience (for example, when being side-kicked up to higher level teams, so that you can enjoy play with those teams and not level to o quickly).  It also allows you to keep from out-levelling story content you haven't finished yet (even I  have used it for this purpose, and I hate level grinding).

 

The same option does not exist, for players such as myself, who desire the opposite game experience.  Yes, I can find someone to let me door sit and level in a fire farm.  I can then use that character to grind influence, to more quickly accrue funds to fit my other characters with IO's (which are insanely expensive to gain through normal play), but I resent being forced to do these things to get the play experience I would like to enjoy, because I could otherwise be using that time do do something that I actually enjoy.  The grinder has no restrictions preventing them from enjoying the game in the way that they desire (apart from finding like-minded players which, judging from the comments in this topic, should not be difficult to do).   

 

Conversely, people like myself, DO find themselves restricted from enjoying the game in the way that they prefer.  I feel quite frustrated about this.  The grinders have the option to turn off experience gain.  Why can't I have the option to make a character of whatever level I desire, and outfit it with whatever IO's I desire, without grinding for cash to do it?  How would other players be disenfranchised, or their play experienced diminished, by the fact that I was enjoying the game in this way?  Why can't players have the freedom to make a group of characters as powerful as the members of the Justice League, and then dive right into playing the characters (and supergroup) that they imagine?

 

Grinders (particularly grinders that are also role-players) tend to deride this kind of play as "Powergaming" and not "True" roleplay (whatever that is- what constitutes "good" or "real" role play is entirely a matter of subjective opinion).  In the strictest sense, they are correct.  Super Hero play, for me, is about having "Power" and "Agency", and the ability to leverage those powers directly to make a real difference in the environment by battling evil and righting wrongs.  In the real world, I grind every day, struggling to enjoy my life, even though I'm poor, have little to no political or other secular power, and seem to never get ahead, no matter how hard I work.

 

Superhero play offers me (at least, theoretically) the opportunity to escape that reality (if only for a little while) and enjoy the fantasy of a different reality, in which I have power and the ability to do the things that heroes do in the comics.  I would be very happy if the devs would include an option for me to enjoy the game in this way, rather than being forced to play as the grinders do, in order to enjoy the content, or jumping through hoops (such as farming for levels and influence) to do the same.

 

It's understandable that a pay to play MMO would require you to grind for levels and cash to get more abilities.  Buying your way past these kinds of "Pay Walls" is how they generate income and run a profitable business.  But the devs have provided access to these game severs for free and, while this is quite generous, and I certainly am thankful to them for doing it, I find it hard to understand why they (and other players) still want to box me into a certain type of play, as opposed to giving me the option to approach play according to my own preferences.

 

Anyway, I realize this was a rather long post, and I apologize for that, but I hope it at least gives you a better understanding of players that have a different view of game play than the OP, and why we feel this way.

Edited September 2, 2020 by Grindingsucks

[ShardWarrior]

On 9/1/2020 at 6:48 AM, MoonSheep said:

People who PL to 50 are a real pain if you have allocated 30-40 minutes in your day to play a TF or trial and several members of the team have no idea how to play and turn it into a 1 hour+ long saga of grinding.

This is not an absolute truth.  There are players out there who have played all the way to 50 through story content that still have no idea what they are doing.  If you only have limited playtime, why are you pugging?  Find like minded players, form a group and enjoy all the content and play how you like. 

[_NOPE_]

I, for one, have never PLed a character in my entire history with the game. What's the point? I also never got the whole "pay to win" mentality. It's a GAME, the purpose is to HAVE FUN. If you don't HAVE FUN while playing the GAME.... what the hell are you "playing" it for???

 

You're only cheating yourself.

[Greycat]

47 minutes ago, The Philotic Knight said:

I, for one, have never PLed a character in my entire history with the game. What's the point?

Farming, to fund other characters.

PVP, because that's not typically a "story driven" exercise.

There are some ATs that... frankly have horrific slog levels. (I hate dealing with low to mid level masterminds, for instance, from about 18-26 when they have three weak -2 minions, one -1, and you don't really have great support ability.)

 

And here? On homecoming, or any other resurrection server? I'd say that's a silly question, honestly. People have characters they had literally spent... perhaps the entire time from issue 0 to shutdown playing, who were 50 long ago, and want to bring them back up to where they were. Not everyone does, of course, because everyone gets to play the way they want.

 

So, there are several perfectly valid 'points.' You not PLing is also perfectly valid if that brings you enjoyment. Neither path is "wrong" or less valid than the other.

[_NOPE_]

@Greycat thanks for the perspective! Enjoy your pretendy fun time games! 🙂

[Lines]

1 hour ago, Grindingsucks said:

Conversely, people like myself, DO find themselves restricted from enjoying the game in the way that they prefer.  I feel quite frustrated about this.  The grinders have the option to turn off experience gain.  Why can't I have the option to make a character of whatever level I desire, and outfit it with whatever IO's I desire, without grinding for cash to do it?  How would other players be disenfranchised, or their play experienced diminished, by the fact that I was enjoying the game in this way?  Why can't players have the freedom to make a group of characters as powerful as the members of the Justice League, and then dive right into playing the characters (and supergroup) that they imagine?

 

I don't explicitly disagree with the nature of your post, even though we clearly do approach the game differently, but I think a couple points in here is a bit of a misrepresentation, and you kinda tripped over it here.

 

Grinding strikes me as having the focused goal of progressing your character at the expense of anything else: having an attitude that the only thing that matters is pushing your characters up the levels. If you want to grind, you can do that at remarkable speed in CoH. The difference between where we're at now and an insta-50 button is almost negligible. Money is so easy to make that kitting out a character is barely a challenge*. If that's still not enough, other servers do provide that as a service.

 

Those who switch off XP don't really qualify as grinding. There's no progression in doing so: the only thing to get out of it is to enjoy the arcs. That's not grinding in any definition. I actually see that as a terrible shortcoming of the game, where there's a dissonance between the game's narrative and character progression. If I turn off xp, it's because I'm choosing narrative over progression - immersion over grinding. I'd rather not have to make that choice, and have progression that adapts to the way I play, but I don't know what that sort of system would look like.

 

(* I'd also add to the above that free IOs would totally collapse the market, and other people's enjoyment of the game. You're not as much in a vacuum as you might like be hoping here.)

[Ironblade]

5 hours ago, Bentley Berkeley said:

Ya know I seem to recall an old quote, goes on about having the strength to endure things they cant change, and the wisdom to know that they cant change them.

The 'Serenity Prayer', written by Reinhold Niebuhr in 1932-33.

 

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference.

 

Edited September 2, 2020 by Ironblade

[Grindingsucks]

Quote

If you want to grind, you can do that at remarkable speed in CoH. The difference between where we're at now and an insta-50 button is almost negligible. Money is so easy to make that kitting out a character is barely a challenge*.

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. 

 

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).

 

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Those who switch off XP don't really qualify as grinding. There's no progression in doing so: the only thing to get out of it is to enjoy the arcs. That's not grinding in any definition. I actually see that as a terrible shortcoming of the game, where there's a dissonance between the game's narrative and character progression. If I turn off xp, it's because I'm choosing narrative over progression - immersion over grinding. I'd rather not have to make that choice, and have progression that adapts to the way I play, but I don't know what that sort of system would look like.

 

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.