Things one misses from the original game

[ZemX]

Redside population.

 

Sure, it was never what the blueside pop was, but with higher server pops in general, it was enough for pretty regular strike forces and pick-up teams.  I joined CoH initially when it was just heroes and then quit when my friends moved on to the next game.  I came back on my own eventually after CoV released and really ended up liking the Rogue Isles.  It was newer.  It was generally better written, I thought.   I maybe remember one of my original heroes and ALL of my villains.

 

28 minutes ago, Marine X said:

Also had a  Yamaha 3D sound card, finding glowies was a piece of cake.

I'll second this one.  I miss 3D sound.  Wish there was a way to fix it here, but it seems not to detect it even if you use something like Creative Alchemy to re-enable DirectSound3D.

[JasperStone]

22 hours ago, Greycat said:

Definitely the Taxibots.

 

Can't really say I miss the instance herding thing. Boring as hell if you're not the tank. Just "everyone stand around and wait. Someone nuke. OK, next floor."

 

True.

But ...

I do miss when a tank would pull  the whole map... like all the Igneous on the Hollows  ... lol

[kikyoku]

I think the biggest change is just the leveling curve. I don't want to turn this into a complaints post, but everyone just powers to 50 on double xp, and the only things being run below that are task forces.

 

Hollows used to be what you did at low levels every time, and the danger of it was the point. Now A Hollows group is pretty rare and they are always just running arcs. Plus, travel powers and fast travel means you don't have your blaster sprinting through the mission door in the red with a group of trolls following them.

 

A couple times now I've powered a new character to 20 to experience low level content and no one was doing it. I know I could just run it myself but... I guess I just miss the crowd of people. I almost wonder if we shouldn't reduce the number of shards and have everyone play together.

[KauaiJim]

I hear what you’re saying but I sometimes will just skip the treats from the p2w and not give the toon startup cash and stick to the training/do/so enhancements to get the ‘feel’ of the original game. Maybe I’m not remembering correctly but when I’ve done this it seems very much to me like ‘the old days’ so to me it’s still possible to recreate that feeling somewhat. Granted there are still a ton of other QoL changes like the fitness pool and early travel powers and respecs etc but those don’t really take away from the game for me. 
 

Yeah, I remember the early days fondly also but in my case just about everything that has been changed or added has been something I can either enjoy or skip if I want to.

 

I do miss my friends and son and brother playing also but the world has moved on for them. 

[Dazl]

The new game smell when you start a new MMO.

[Techwright]

11 hours ago, GastlyGibus said:

To be honest, I kind of miss having to unlock costume parts and slots like capes, auras, etc... I still refuse to utilize those costume pieces and slots until I've done the required missions at the appropriate level. Back on live, it always made me really happy to get to level 20 and go talk to Serge for a new costume, then go to City Hall for my cape. Sure, I can pretend I'm still unlocking it, but it's not really the same feeling, I guess.

 

I've been pondering over that for a while.  On the one hand, it's great to have everything I need from the start.  On the other hand, I see what you're saying.  I'm wondering:  in the future, might it be possible to have the parts immediately, but unlock new textures and patterns on the parts?

 

10 hours ago, Gulbasaur said:

I wish not everything was soloable. The task forces where you used to have to coordinate can now be done by a single player. It's a small thing, but that's a change I wish they'd reverted when the server went public.

 

I thought of this the other day on a task force, one of the Striga Island ones, I think. I do so many I get confused in the details.  Anyway, I remember it saying "must deactivate two devices simultaneously", and suddenly realized I couldn't ever remember having to coordinate with a teammate for such a thing in Homecoming.  I'm guessing that was changed (though not the text) to allow solo play?

[Hew]

11 hours ago, ZemX said:

Redside population.

HAHAHA

 

I played exclusively on redside from the day it was released (have my figs and box and everything from preorder) up until going rogue. On Victory, there just really was no redside at all. People never liked playing it. It was just as lonely then as it is today.

[DoctorDitko]

Quote

I'm guessing that was changed (though not the text) to allow solo play?

 

Yep.

They could update the text with "reprogram both computers as near-simultaneously as you can manage," but I'm not volunteering...

 

It would be nice, though, if there was some kind of bonus (merits? badge?) for doing it The Hard Way.

 

(See also: Einstein vs. Simultaneity)

 

Edited May 24, 2021 by DoctorDitko

[Mezmera]

The way the grind was back on live was atrocious.  I had to screen the very few characters I genuinely liked to play for those expensive builds.  Here every character I make has a thorough build.  

 

Nothing from live makes up for how much less of a grind the player run servers are.  Kudos to them for that!

 

Aside from that if there was anything I'd say I did miss it would be the sheer numbers of people to play with comparatively.  Excelsior feels like a mini version of Freedom.  Plus also I do miss a bit of the mess that was PvP back on live, the PvP right now is just a hot mess.  Recluse's Victory on live there was a good selection of plucky players from the hard talking SR scrappers until a psi attacker showed up to those elusive vulture flyers and everything in between. 

[MTeague]

12 hours ago, Gulbasaur said:

I wish not everything was soloable. The task forces where you used to have to coordinate can now be done by a single player. It's a small thing, but that's a change I wish they'd reverted when the server went public.

 

At risk of derailment, I see no way that could be possible without

1. removing Enhancement Sets from the game, OR, 
2. changing it so that Set Bonuses were 100% suppressed during TF;s / similar content,  OR
3. seriously ramping up the difficulty in such content, and essenntially designing the game around people having top-end tricked out IO builds.

All three are Bad Ideas in my book.

 

Still.  I do not mean to invalidate the nostalgia of "Ya know, there was a time where you just couldn't do that, you HAD to team."  It's a still a valid regret, even if I think we're going to have to accept what is going forward.

Edited May 25, 2021 by MTeague

[Apparition]

On 5/23/2021 at 2:34 PM, Myrmidon said:

The people that never made it back after The Snap.

 

 

It saddens me exactly how many people never did.  There are a couple of people that I still dearly miss from the Champion server and have not yet encountered on Homecoming.  Of course, it probably doesn't help that I use a different global name now.

[GastlyGibus]

20 minutes ago, MTeague said:

 

As risk of derailment, I see no way that could be possible without

1. removing Enhancement Sets from the game, OR, 
2. changing it so that Set Bonuses were 100% suppressed during TF;s / similar content,  OR
3. seriously ramping up the difficulty in such content, and essenntially designing the game around people having top-end tricked out IO builds.

All three a Bad Ideas in my book.

 

Still.  I do not mean to invalidate the nostalgia of "Ya know, there was a time where you just couldn't do that, you HAD to team."  It's a still a valid regret, even if I think we're going to have to accept what is going forward.

I personally just wish activating the challenge settings on TF's gave you bonus merits. "Hey, you did the Imperious Task Force with 0 deaths, enemies buffed and no inspirations? Have some bonus merits for your effort!" I think that might go a long way towards making people use the existing difficulty settings and making the game harder for those who want to.

 

Anyways, back on topic, another thing I miss from live is PvP. Yeah, I know that's technically not a "live vs homecoming" thing, as PvP really died with Issue 13, but I remember being on live pre-Issue 13 and actually feeling a small threat from being in a PvP zone. It felt kind of fun, in a way, knowing someone could swoop in and take my meteor pieces. Now PvP is a barren wasteland that virtually nobody visits.

Edited May 25, 2021 by GastlyGibus

[Techwright]

Also miss Samuraiko creating new videos for new rollouts, lore, and anniversary events.

 

For those who never were in the original game or just didn't know of these:

https://www.youtube.com/user/samuraiko

[tidge]

Here is another thing I thought of when reading about the original grind...

 

I can't say that I really miss this, but I feel pangs of nostalgia in a few of the low level (blue side) zones that I got to know real well (from street level) before travel was easy... and to some extent before the various "remodeling" that added universities, Wentworths, rebuilt Atlas Park, etc. Every once in a while I find my grounded characters instinctively making path alterations in zones like Perez Park, Steel Canyon and Kings Row. Even though those (non-hazard) zones got makeovers, they don't seem as radical as the later changes to Talos Island or Founder's Falls.

[Darmian]

23 hours ago, Xenosone said:

People that knew how to play. Ae FARMS  basically killed that.

Fixed it for you.

[TemporalVileTerror]

You know . . . 

 

Nothing.

 

I gave it a lot of thought, and frankly?  Homecoming is presently delivering the best version of City of Heroes that I've ever played, if I am honest with myself.

Sure, there's room to grow.  Room to improve.  Things that I would have done differently.
But that's ALWAYS been the case.  Nothing's really that different from Retail/Legacy in terms of the game itself, just a whole piles of quality of life improvements and the shifting nature of what we -could- do with the game.

 

So, no.  

No rose-tinted glasses for me here.  I will maintain that City of Heroes isn't perfect yet . . . but this is definitely the best it has ever been for me.

 

And to that end:  

Thanks.  To everyone.  Devs, GMs, and community alike.  

[golstat2003]

On 5/23/2021 at 2:34 PM, Myrmidon said:

The people that never made it back after The Snap.

 

This is pretty much the only thing I miss about live.

 

The list of things I specifically don't miss, including the silliness of the AH/Market on live, the old idea that tank herding was the best way to play, and no solo incarnate path, is much much MUCH longer.

[Gulbasaur]

7 hours ago, MTeague said:

At risk of derailment, I see no way that could be possible without...

No, some of the clickies/mechanics were changed. Several that used to involve coordination now can be done by one player at a leisurely place. Things like the obelisks in the Hollows trial.  The Abandoned Sewers Trial is, I think, the only one that escaped untouched. 

 

While I agree that most of the game should be soloable, the fact that some things can't theoretically be beaten by one strong player is something I miss. It takes the bite out of some of the trials. 

[ZemX]

11 hours ago, Hew said:

HAHAHA

 

I played exclusively on redside from the day it was released (have my figs and box and everything from preorder) up until going rogue. On Victory, there just really was no redside at all. People never liked playing it. It was just as lonely then as it is today.

Well gosh, I'm sorry you decided to play exclusively redside on a server with no redside population.

 

I didn't.

[Hew]

3 minutes ago, ZemX said:

Well gosh, I'm sorry you decided to play exclusively redside on a server with no redside population.

 

I didn't.

That was the thing; I don't really know why, but even when CoV was "teh hotness", it was vastly underpopulated compared to blue.

 

It felt something like an obligation to stay, to bolster the spirits of the few that stuck with it as well. I don't particularly like the save-everyone blueside stuff, preferring the much more nuanced going rogue (recent content), but then they screwed the pooch on that one too, making it pretty much an extended, story rich, solo intro mish arc, 😕

 

The story is so great, that missing it blowing through mishs on teams is something like a sin. 😞

 

Anything not Hero Found Here seems to either languish, or not be played, and that frankly, is sad.

 

 

[ZemX]

2 minutes ago, Hew said:

That was the thing; I don't really know why, but even when CoV was "teh hotness", it was vastly underpopulated compared to blue.

Yeah, I mentioned that too.  But at least on Virtue, redside pop was, at the game's peak anyway, a whole lot larger than it is on HC today.  That's not a complaint.  It's just how it is now.   I easily found and ran on pick-up groups, one of which ended up resulting in an invite to a VG with a good dozen active players at least.   I just miss that.

 

All that dwindled quite a bit by the time the game shuttered, of course.  I was mostly blueside at the end because of it.

[huang3721]

My experience is similar to Temporal.

Whatever I did in the live server years ago, I have done them again here in Homecoming. If anything, I am getting more since there is no paywall in HC.

 

I am not missing anything at all. 

[Coyotedancer]

On 5/23/2021 at 3:13 PM, blaythesteuer said:

level 14 travel powers was good. wish they hadn’t changed that on live 

 

And here's where I say NOPE. 

I don't miss that one bit.

 

I absolutely hated having to wait that long to fly. (If I was playing a winged character... which I often was... it just felt pants-on-head stupid to have to rely on a jet-pack to get around. <_<)

[Scarlet Shocker]

Confusing Vazhilok bombers so they'd blow their own teams up

 

Knockback

 

having to earn capes and auras, I used to feel special when I'd done that

 

shooting back to Atlas inside a red bubble after a respec mission

 

running through zones trying to dodge mobs to get to your team or mentor (but not the Hollows, that was just too tough)

 

spending several days over a single TF

 

 

[Doomguide2005]

On 5/23/2021 at 1:39 PM, Coyotedancer said:

Dumpster Diving had its moments... 

     Usually involved something in the process going a bit sideways, oopsy.

 

Mostly I miss one thing that only very rarely happens, especially without very deliberately trying.  The combined sense of awesome, wow, wtf, wonderment of encountering some content for the first time.  Many of those things are mentioned on various posts above in one way or another.  Seeing a travel power in use for the first time.  "Is that fly?", as I watched the newly leveled team leader use Super Jump to sail away over the Gultch.  Or the utter surprise while watching an Archon suddenly become a huge ... Werewolf?? in front of my scrapper.  Nearly fell out of my chair trying to physically get the hell away from it!  Duoing with a friend in Croatoa and him almost dying because we were both laughing so freaking hard about this Goblin dancing on his head (him on a Blaster, me on an Empath).  And on and on but steadily becoming rarer owing in part to the vastly increased base of player knowledge including forums and in part because well it has been a long time since this was a first MMO being run by newb and not a veteran of many years of CoX.  Takes a lot more to get that feeling I had the first time I saw the Storm Palace.

 

Edited May 25, 2021 by Doomguide2005