You know, in CoH...

[Oubliette_Red]

...you can play with your friends in any mission, regardless of the level of content.
...your character's effectiveness is not dependent on what you are wearing.
...you can team with up to seven of your friends.
...you don't have to pay more to access new content, or even old content.  -.-  (Even during Legacy, the hybrid model allowed free players to run content up to max level, only excluding them from Incarnate.)
...your character's effectiveness is less dependent on taking X ability at Y level, slotted with Z .

 

 

I've been playing another MMO with some friends and every time we play I've come across a mechanic, game design, or pay wall that annoys me.

 

Anyone have a similar experience?

 

[DougGraves]

I generally agree except for the slotting.  Your characters effectiveness is largely determined by your slotting.  Slot nothing and your character will be unable to get through +0/x1 content at level 25. 

[Snarky]

2 minutes ago, DougGraves said:

I generally agree except for the slotting.  Your characters effectiveness is largely determined by your slotting.  Slot nothing and your character will be unable to get through +0/x1 content at level 25. 

If you need help understanding slotting there is PLENTy of help available in game and on the boards.  If you need help buying stuff for slotting, and its for serious, just ask.  I know LOTS of gamers who will just hand you Inf to get you kitted out.

[Oubliette_Red]

3 minutes ago, DougGraves said:

I generally agree except for the slotting.  Your characters effectiveness is largely determined by your slotting.  Slot nothing and your character will be unable to get through +0/x1 content at level 25. 

 

True, but you could slot SO's up to L50 and still be fine, rather than scouring the AH for "the best gear" or grind a specific mission for that one drop.

 

[Oubliette_Red]

...you can save your character's appearance.  Quite a few MMO's have fairly decent character creations and yet don't provide the option to save their appearance.

 

[DougGraves]

51 minutes ago, Snarky said:

If you need help understanding slotting there is PLENTy of help available in game and on the boards.  If you need help buying stuff for slotting, and its for serious, just ask.  I know LOTS of gamers who will just hand you Inf to get you kitted out.

 

I don't think you understand what was written.

 

"your character's effectiveness is less dependent on taking X ability at Y level, slotted with Z ."

 

Your character's effectiveness is dramatically dependent on your slotting.  I am not arguing whether you can learn slotting or not. 

[Arctique]

5 minutes ago, DougGraves said:

 

I don't think you understand what was written.

 

"your character's effectiveness is less dependent on taking X ability at Y level, slotted with Z ."

 

Your character's effectiveness is dramatically dependent on your slotting.  I am not arguing whether you can learn slotting or not. 

 

I don't think they were disagreeing with what you said, I think they were just adding that for players that find the enhancement system a bit daunting/confusing, there's resources and people willing to help. To tell people that think they can get through the game completely unslotted, that others are willing to help them learn because slotting is so integral.

 

A lot of the time the people that are trying to play the game without touching their slotting at all, just aren't sure where to start with it.

 

Though I think the OP's point was more that, you don't need to super-optimize your builds. While you aren't getting far with no enhancements at all, a balanced spread of SO's can be enough to survive you through almost all of the game's content. You don't need a fully IO'd/ATO'd build pumped full of set bonuses to just play and enjoy the game. It just wasn't worded as well as it could have been in the first post.

[Snarky]

29 minutes ago, DougGraves said:

 

I don't think you understand what was written.

 

"your character's effectiveness is less dependent on taking X ability at Y level, slotted with Z ."

 

Your character's effectiveness is dramatically dependent on your slotting.  I am not arguing whether you can learn slotting or not. 

probably not.  I agree your characters effectiveness is dependent on slotting.  If you slot nothing, or heaven forbid whatever randomly dops without seeking out any other source of enhancers.  Not good.

 

I am saying if you ask a couple questions and spend a minimal amount of time on the character it will perform okay.  I ran Brutes on Live for almost aa year using just SOs.  If you ask for any assistance with getting funds because you do not understand how to do that I have seen lots of people take time to help you learn marketing and or give you cash.

 

So yes, it is dependent on slotting.  I am saying it can get to effective slotting with the tiniest amount of understanding and asking a couple questions.  Hour, tops, and the character will play fine for its AT powersets.  Will not be soloing ITF, but it will be okay.

[Grindingsucks]

CoX is certainly leagues ahead of other MMO's with regard to pay walls (none) and level disparity (Moderate).  Side-kicking/Exemplaring is not a panacea (When there are vast level differences between players in a group, you feel that even after being side-kicked up) but a better solution than any other online teaming combat that I've encountered.

 

You can solo pretty much anything with just SO's or standard IO's if you dial your notoriety down to a manageable level.  Fully-kitted out, you do get a problem at high levels, when running teams, b/c groups of those characters become overpowered compared to most of the content.  Hence the advent of steamrolling and speedrunning (not the practice of speedruns, itself- but the ludicrously low times that groups of players can complete supposedly high-difficulty content).

 

Still, compared to 99% of the games out there, our problems are trivial at best.  😁

[TemporalVileTerror]

eh, there's another issue with that list . . . 

There are still numerous missions (in the form of Task Forces, Trials, and the like) which are locked behind level gates, and even some that are "solo only."

 

BUT . . . toward the sentiment that this game "does it best" when it comes to teaming?  Yeah, pretty much.  It could still do -better,- but it's miles ahead of the competition.

[Snarky]

1 hour ago, TemporalVileTerror said:

eh, there's another issue with that list . . . 

There are still numerous missions (in the form of Task Forces, Trials, and the like) which are locked behind level gates, and even some that are "solo only."

 

BUT . . . toward the sentiment that this game "does it best" when it comes to teaming?  Yeah, pretty much.  It could still do -better,- but it's miles ahead of the competition.

Level gates and such are true.  Not sure how (any game) can get around the issue of truly less powerful characters teaming for late game content.  

 

Also, side note, every time I see your name I think of "The Terror" from The Tick.  

 

Edited March 20, 2021 by Snarky

[Oubliette_Red]

2 hours ago, TemporalVileTerror said:

eh, there's another issue with that list . . . 

There are still numerous missions (in the form of Task Forces, Trials, and the like) which are locked behind level gates, and even some that are "solo only."

 

BUT . . . toward the sentiment that this game "does it best" when it comes to teaming?  Yeah, pretty much.  It could still do -better,- but it's miles ahead of the competition.

Well, I did say "missions", though I did not specify that TFs/SFs and the like are different animals since they have specific requirements.

 

[DoctorDitko]

'Way back when i had a decent internet connection, I tried DCUO. (Always been a fan of DC, Marvel mostly came later.)

 

Wow! The costumes, the characters, and some of the voices I remembered! Neat! It's always night in Gotham and always day in Metropolis! Cool!

Then Flash told me I could have his cool yellow boots, but only if I proved myself. And paid him real money, though he was having a special this month... I felt so heroic.

 

CoH always had the hero part down pat. It definitely strayed toward the end there. Now? With the paywalls gone, its gotten pretty damn wonderful! I mean, in how many games does your character have the ability to jump over a two-lane road, straight out of the box?

(Of course, there are few games where a random NPC can walk past you and shove you into the road to be hit by a truck. Fortunately, it doesn't hurt!)

[JnEricsonx]

On 3/20/2021 at 1:59 PM, Oubliette_Red said:

 

True, but you could slot SO's up to L50 and still be fine, rather than scouring the AH for "the best gear" or grind a specific mission for that one drop.

 

I quit Diablo 2 back in the day for COH, when a friend of mine told me about how it's gear system was "pretty simple and not needing you to lose your mind."  This was a bit before IOs, so.  Even with IOs, yeah, you had to grind, but eventually you'd get enough stuff to sell to buy something you needed.  And it STILL worked better than D3's Real Auction House crap.  I'm sorry, the RNG fairy just forgets my address 99.9% of the time.

[Oubliette_Red]

You can take this much damage...
 

And still not die.   Just hope a Hellion does not throw a rock at you after dusting yourself off.

 

[DoctorDitko]

My buddy refers to the last sliver of health as his "favorite hit point!"

 

But you buried the "lede,"* Oubliette!

Did your Mom make it out okay?

 

Yeah, excellent point!

(The whole "surviving jumping off a building" thing is another unique feature!)

 

* Still a neologism as far as I'm concerned, but it's a useful discernment, and the AP Handbook concurs, so I'm trying to go with it!

 

Edited to add:

I just realized standing next to you spamming Radiant Aura after this would earn at least 2 healing badges!

 

Wow!

 

 

Edited March 28, 2021 by DoctorDitko
Wow

[Shred Monkey]

29 minutes ago, DoctorDitko said:

Did your Mom make it out okay?

 

Should have called it, "Save Yo' Momma!"   Missed opportunities *sigh*

 

[Oubliette_Red]

1 hour ago, DoctorDitko said:

Did your Mom make it out okay?

 

 

Honestly, I don't recall. Maybe...?

I immediately tp'd back up and then proceeded to jump off again to verify that yes, the damage number I saw was really that big and not some weird overlap of two separate numbers.

This happened on Legacy and the map it occurred on is not currently available in AE, Legacy devs had removed it at some point. Not sure if it was due to the fall damage issue or for some other reason.

Point of interest, the same map occurs in a red-side contact's arc but does not cause the same fall damage.