Part 1: How Do You Define "Playing the Game," Specific to City of Heroes?

[JasperStone]

Dealing with my altitis ....

 

"Hello my name is John. I make a lot of alts."

.....

"ooooo that could be cool name for a MM or ILL troller"

....

"pardon me"

...

*logins to CoH*

[Mirai]

I'm a solo player with a case of altitis. I do missions, focusing on story arcs, trying to do internal roleplaying as much as I can. No powerleveling, no farming. For some characters, I might occasionally turn off XP gain to get more missions in. I'm not interested in playing a character after hitting 50, outside of finishing up story arcs. I'm also an explorer type, so I like to go after  badges, as long as they're not too much of a problem. (I'm not obsessive compulsive, so I don't mind missing a lot of badges.)

[KC4800]

I spend 80% of my time soloing. I will do an occasional TF and I always join in on GM teams for quick merits.

I always run my new characters with double XP turned on. Since they dont earn INF that way, I use 3 seperate AE farming tanks to gain influence for all my characters.

I don't multi box.

I don't PL myself or others in my farms. I get it done and email the funds to who needs it.

I rarely do incarnate content, but I do enjoy the extra benefit that incarnate powers give my characters in regular content.

With this said, I do not have a boatload of characters to play, maybe 25-30 ish, spread across 5 shards.

 

I do look at the numbers when slotting and try to make the best possible improvements with my slotting. I do not set out to min-max any character, but eventually they get pretty darn powerful. When it comes time to train I do what I feel my char needs. That's how he grows in my idea of playing the game.

 

I do not use mids.

I rarely respec, just hate doing it. Not fun in its current form,, it takes away from the progressive experience to me.

 

My non farming characters do try to enjoy AE content others have written. I just wish there was a way to not be behind the TF Wall, so if someone needs quick help on something, or I need a brief assistance, I could ask for it. Soloing AE is rough when it gets to the final boss sometimes, and I can't ask anyone to help.

 

I enjoy chatting in game at times and helping out in help channel and all the stuff that makes this a friendly community.

[Coyotedancer]

There's definitely an aspect of experimentation to the City for me, even after all this time... "Hmm. X and Y sound like an interesting powerset combination. I wonder how it would handle solo/small team/full team/in Praetoria/whatever?" or "A random roll challenge gave me *what* as a combination? Seriously? What kind of build is it going to take to make THAT MESS work?! Let's find out!" The majority of the game being as casual-friendly (read: Easy Mode) as it is allows me the freedom to play around and make decidedly sub-optimal and 'off meta' characters, concept builds and other strangeness and still be at least fairly successful with them. I can play damned near anything and have fun with it here... so I do. Zen Mode farmer? Human-only Kheldian perma-Fuzzball of Fury? DarkityDark 'Tentacle Blaster'? Sure! Why not.

 

Base-building lets me create small-scale, 3D locations to wander around in. I'm a tabletop gamer, so world-building and map-making are old pursuits. I see my bases as an extension of that. Likewise, putting together sprawling tangles of related backstory for my magi and my bird-things scratches similar world-building itches. Even if I never actually share any of the details with other players, its a fun mental exercise to puzzle out the story of something like Nova Primeva. 

 

  As a roleplayer (Though more of the casual, 'loves RP mission teams but would rather walk through hell than do melodramatic BarP/City of Soap Operas'-sort), I'm also interested in colorful characters and personalities. I like creating my own and interacting with other people's creations. I'd call that IC-level social interaction. 

 

There's also an OOC-level of social interaction, too. Chatting with friends in-game is A Thing for me. A pretty important one. Getting to play the game with my nephews and sib-in-law, who live on the far opposite side of the country... Teaching them the ins and outs of powers, and enhancements and navigating the environments... Showing them things like the ice slides on Frostfire's map... Taking them on their first ship raid... has all been tremendous fun. Running duo with Mr. Coyote. Teaming with fellow Libertines from back-in-the-day. It's all good fun, and a big attraction of being here. 

[Greycat]

How do I play the game... well, first I bring up the launcher, then hit live (or beta) and play... Tend to use a keyboard and mouse...

 

Eh. Honestly for me it's mostly RP these days. Even if I'm solo, the characters are developing - whether they're getting levels or new IOs or not. And RP doesn't have to be *in* the game, either - especially since there's so much that doesn't quite reflect properly in the game engine. But the character's developing, so for me it's "playing the game," still.

 

Even if I'm not on an "RP" team, I'm considering how (or if) the character is reacting. Granted, sometimes it's just "no, this is just levels" and I go on my merry button-mashing way.

 

It used to involve leading or co-leading SGs - that ended up turning into a second job, no matter how much I loved the group and the people in it. And AE - which went along, for quite a while, with leading said group (and some burnout.) It even involved a bit of base building - I would actually build a base as a set for a specific RP arc, tying it in with AE and the other RP. That way led to serious burnout eventually.

 

So... yeah. While I'll play for basic smashy fun at times, for the most part, it's the creation, development and expression of characters and their stories (shared or otherwise) that I'm in the game for.

[Yomo Kimyata]

18 hours ago, GraspingVileTerror said:

Thank you for sharing that, @The_Warpact!

Although it kind of hits in to what I was going to ask in Part 2:  Why Do You Play?

 

 

Can you tell us what the other parts are going to be in this series so we can pace ourselves?

[Greycat]

41 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

 

Can you tell us what the other parts are going to be in this series so we can pace ourselves?

Why do you play?

Who do you play?

Where do you play?

When do you play?

Pineapple on pizza when you play?

What in the heck would a woodpecker peck if a woodpecker were created in COH?

[Bionic_Flea]

One of the greatest things about this game is all the wildly different things you can do -- from beating up NPCs or other players, to base-making, marketeering, role-playing, mission writing, costume creating, min-maxing, power-gaming, speed running, badge collecting, or just exploring the world.  There's something for everyone.

 

To me, personally, I consider "playing the game" to be activating powers to defeat critters.  Not that I have a problem with anything else on the list and I engage in all with varying degrees of success.  But if someone chatted me and asked "what are you doing?" I would only respond with "playing the game" if I was beating up NPCs.  Otherwise, I might say base-building or crafting or whatever I might be doing.

 

[KauaiJim]

50 minutes ago, Greycat said:

Why do you play?

Who do you play?

Where do you play?

When do you play?

Pineapple on pizza when you play?

What in the heck would a woodpecker peck if a woodpecker were created in COH?

 

You left out the most important one...

 

What Is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow in CoH and how does this affect your playstyle?  (African, lol)  😜

[Yomo Kimyata]

1 hour ago, Bionic_Flea said:

  But if someone chatted me and asked "what are you doing?" 

 

 

The same thing we do every night, Pinky.

[MTeague]

I mean, CORE game play?  I'll always look at that as "doing Story Arcs". 

Because if we didn't have Story Arcs, if it was just random street sweeping and badging, I would never have stuck around.

The combat is great, the costumes amazing, the feeling of being your character is fantastic.

But it really does begin / end with the story for me.

 

Take away the missions, I'd log off and do a lot more single player games, or even check out this wierd game I've heard of called Real Life. 

 

Real Life has incredibly good graphics and the best interface ever, but man, it's full of bugs and griefers and you can never get in touch with support staff.  And seriously Real Life is long overdue for having a Save/Reload option...

[Blackbird71]

My own definitions:

"Playing the game" - any activity which involves the use of a character's powers to defeat enemies

 

I say this as someone who spends a majority of my time in-game not "playing the game," as I am often involved in RP, messing around in the character creator, socializing, etc.  All those are perfectly viable activities, but I do not consider them "playing the game," or more specifically, "playing CoH."

I most definitely do not consider working on builds, etc. to be "playing the game."  That is all the unpleasant but necessary work I must do in order to enable me to "play the game."

[oedipus_tex]

I've always approached this game a bit like a more forgiving and friendly Diablo. The core of both games are basically the same. You take a diverse build and head into a dungeon to square off against a comically large army of monsters who hate you for existing. Your goal is to dispatch them in various entertaining ways using the mix of abilities you chose. 

 

I'm at my happiest when the game rewards many alternative solutions to a problem. Probably the most excited I get is when a new powerset launches, especially when it's something very different from the others.

 

I also strongly appreciate the costume options and power recoloring features and consider both of these features superior to Diablo.

 

On the more critical side, I am at my least satisfied when the combat system devolves into a nuke-athon against severely mismatched enemies. The incarnate system in particular loses me. I can't put any of this on the Homecoming team as it's the situation they inherited. It's mildly frustrating because I can remember how the game played before those systems were added, and altho the game wasn't a utopia, it's hard to care too much about build particulars when fights are dominated by powers that don't vary, and your hope is people just don't have or use those powers.

 

Privately, I also do some of my own modding on a private server. I have some game assets of my own I may eventually share with community at large. None of these are so impressive that they solve some of my misgivings about the end game combat system above, but they are additional pieces of content that a few people might find entertaining.

Edited June 9, 2021 by oedipus_tex

[Snarky]

Playing is...playing.  But for me the question is multi faceted.  Many times I will start a character (and 50, slap a very expensive build on, incarnate etc) just to see if I like the powersets.  These character last a week or two.  Almost always deconstructed for parts.  On a somewhat regular basis I will take a character and run every contact and mission Redside.  I have done this Goldside twice, and never succeeded Blueside, highest I think was low 30s.  

 

For my Main characters they are set up on favored power sets and builds.  I run these characters on all my gaming, TF, SF, Trials, whatever.  Game hard, game often.

[Lockpick]

I generally start with a concept and backstory because I find it keeps me engaged with the character.  I make a build in Mids for the character and will create the character and costume.  I have a bunch of alts that I play and I often will rotate the characters at the lower levels.

 

I generally play about 70% solo story arcs and then 30% teaming for TFs and raids.  I work on the 4 passive accolades as I level.  Once I get to 50 I work through the incarnate system and get to Tier 4.  Then I focus on getting day jobs and $100M influence.  Then I move to other characters that are in the rotation,

 

 

[VulnaviaPhibes]

Honestly sometimes I just log in and walk around. Usually somewhere pretty like night ward or mercy island. Just take in the atmosphere and go about my little day for a few minutes.

[Tahliah]

"Playing the game" when it comes to COH means so many things to me, but I don't think that the definition, for me, was ever more clear than when the game went dark.  It was only when I was searching desperately for an alternative that I realized that playing COH was not about just filling time on some game, whiling away the hours punching stuff with sg mates, or working on character builds.  

 

It was about community, about designing my own unique costumes, about exploring the game and discovery (even after all these years, I still find "new" things that have always been there, but I just somehow missed or ignored or didn't care about), it was about great story arcs, interesting and compelling backstory/lore, about each zone's particular feel and music, and all the things I love to do at different times, depending on my mood. 

 

Solo or team?  Run mish arcs or radios or tips?  Work on completing every mish available via the Pillar?  Play blue or redside?  Work on badges, do some marketing, or research and work on builds?  Create my own story arc in AE?  Run others' AE creations (not farms, just for a nice change of pace and to enjoy the amazing talent of our fellow players)?  Heck, join a farm for some quick xp to get through the terrible thirties?  Just coast around on my rocket board enjoying the scenery, the NPC dialogue, and checking out other player costumes?  Take a swim, go ice skating, enjoy some disco dancing in Pocket D, or fly around the shards?  Run something intensive and clicky like a troll or emp?  Or blast everything in sight?  Hang out in AP and hand out influence to new players (or vet players with new rolls)?  Spend some time on base building?  Visit other people's amazing bases?  Focus on answering player questions in Help chat?  See a bunch of people looking for something to do and start a team for them (and me)?  The list of things to do, ways to play the game, is practically endless. 

 

I tend to decide early on which way I'll play each new roll that's not theme/sg-based,, and since I don't typically care for farming levels, I'll pick this one to do AP arcs and end up in KR or that one to do a couple of DFBs before heading to the Hollows.  I love playing content, so I'll pick some to run Striga, some head to Faultline, and some run tfs right away now that Posi can be started at lvl 8.  And some just sit at level two for years.  Heh.

 

Playing COH is a . . . a labor of love, a little slice of a world in which I can relax, be "super" or silly, be a loner working on some pet project or a gregarious teammate excited to run a TF or trial.

[Clave Dark 5]

I play to go pew pew pew.  I PUG because my play time is limited and sporadic so I haven't been able to make any long time friends (not for trying, sigh).  I do the /ah stuff or respecs or whatever with gritted teeth because one has to, but otherwise anything not involved with the pew pew pew is boring to me, just homework. 

 

Oh and the costume creator, love messing about with that.

[Yomo Kimyata]

I consider "playing the game" anything directly related to time spent or time I will spend logged in.  That includes:

 

-- Reading and writing on these forums.  On a side note, maybe it's the smaller population, maybe it's the fact that some of us have aged gracefully, but the interactions on the forums are so much more positive, polite, and constructive than they were on Live.  I'm thankful for that, and I recognize that I am also more positive, polite, and constructive than I was on Live.

 

-- Reading and researching ideas on the wiki.

 

-- Working on builds on Mids.  I really hope they will have a browser-capable version available sometime before I lose interest in this game.

 

-- Socializing and roleplaying.  Although I mostly play solo, it's nice to help people, to be helped, to make and read smart-ass funny comments in chats.  My roleplaying is sporadic and mostly in my head, and I prefer it that way.  Every once in a while I find myself in the wrong part of Pocket D and some of the stuff in Local is extremely cringy.

 

-- The Market.  Oh you sweet temptress.  It's soothing and challenging enough to be interesting.  It's like sitting down for coffee on a Sunday morning and polishing off the Sunday crossword puzzle before doing chores.

 

-- And then there are missions.  I like them too.

[Oubliette_Red]

 

Go. Hunt. Kill Skuls.

 

[gameboy1234]

Usually when playing I try to concentrate on numbers, boosting my own effectiveness (IOs, etc.) and my own skill.  I like to feel that I'm contributing to a team and also getting most out of the character I'm playing.  I like to notice where things could be better and plan out how to address this.  Using Hasten to recharge slow but powerful abilities.  Or using IO Sets or Procs to boost performance.  I'm almost always during down-time looking through the Auction House getting ideas for what might be added to a build, even if I can't afford it yet.

 

Then I get an idea for a cool costume or a cool character name and I make an alt.  That'll start over the process of trying to learn the new toon, discover its faults and where it needs improvement and where I should focus.

 

Then I'll get another idea and start another alt.  It's play, get idea and start an alt, play more, start an alt, play, alt, play, alt, play, alt, etc.

 

I have a lot of alts.

 

I call this "playing City of Heroes."

 

[Solarverse]

For me, I have a pretty set pattern.

I will half of the times go to Outbreak, then I will street hunt in Atlas Park until I hit level 4. Then I will run DFB once, then I head to the Hollows to unlock Frostfire. Then I head to Kings Row and run the Story Arcs there. Once I am at around level 19 to 20, I hit Posi 1. Then I do all of the Task Forces to get the Accolade. After that, I do any other Task Forces like Respec Trials, Hess, DWB, basically any and all side Task Forces. And then pretty much after 50, I do whatever, whenever. I'll even join the occasional Frostfire or join any badge runs.

It's pretty much a set pattern that I have settled in to.

[Bionic_Flea]

On 6/11/2021 at 11:32 AM, Clave Dark 5 said:

I haven't been able to make any long time friends

I'll be your friend DC5!  Seriously, hit me up in game.  I play almost exclusively on Excelsior but I could always transfer or make an alt.

[JasperStone]

On 6/9/2021 at 2:13 PM, KauaiJim said:

 

You left out the most important one...

 

What Is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow in CoH and how does this affect your playstyle?  (African, lol)  😜

Is the sparrow speed boosted?

[Clave Dark 5]

On 6/13/2021 at 12:14 PM, Bionic_Flea said:

I'll be your friend DC5!  Seriously, hit me up in game.  I play almost exclusively on Excelsior but I could always transfer or make an alt.

That's my server too.  But I can't be friends with anyone who typos my initials.

 

Just kidding.  My play times are all over the clock and sometimes I don't play for days too, but I will go looking for you when I log in next, thanks!