What's your favorite content and why?

[Bionic_Flea]

 Is it the story, the maps, the action, the rewards, something else?

 

It seems to me that the player base in aggregate likes to run DFB, ITF, Tin-Pex, RSF/MLTF, Market Crash, whatever the weekly is, the Task Force Commander Accolade TFs, Maria Jenkins Arc, and MSR & Hammy raids.  At least these are the things that I see advertised the most.  And that doesn't include all the people soloing.

[The_Warpact]

Probably 95% is going to be a reward of some type, inf, merits emp, or an accolade power.

[Darmian]

Content is a difficult concept to quantify.  I'm one of those players who sees content as the story and the lore as told across all the arcs and missions, with all the extra information gathered from badges and plaques and so on.

 

For me content isn't rewards - though they're nice - and it isn't in anyway powersets or what have you, even though they're also nice.

 

And from all that my favorite non content thing was the ability to make my own content that added to or is adjacent to the story and the lore.

 

Less said about that the better I suppose for a while! 

[Spaghetti Betty]

I'm here mostly for the combat and customization. I'm not really a fan of Superhero stuff, but CoH remains one of the best dungeon crawler RPGs I've ever played, even through all these years.

 

What content I do doesn't necessarily matter, but my availability constricts me to soloing or small-investment team activities.

 

That being said, it's hard to not appreciate how the lore of the game has been implemented after being a part of it for so long.

[Techwright]

56 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

 Is it the story, the maps, the action, the rewards, something else?

 

It seems to me that the player base in aggregate likes to run DFB, ITF, Tin-Pex, RSF/MLTF, Market Crash, whatever the weekly is, the Task Force Commander Accolade TFs, Maria Jenkins Arc, and MSR & Hammy raids.  At least these are the things that I see advertised the most.  And that doesn't include all the people soloing.

That may be because they are the most prepped and packaged.  Missions feel less so.  Other things, like Arena seem even non-existent.

 

I do like playing a good mission story especially if there are twists and turns in the plot and action.  Unfortunately CoH is not really set up to do this as a team.  If I'm not the lead, I only marginally know what is going on.  And if I'm the lead, I feel pressured to stop reading and cue up the next instance.  In this, I think Star Wars The Old Republic does it better.  That first instance when a team of you takes a transport to another planet and is attacked enroute, that felt like everyone was aware of the story and fully participant in it.

 

I suppose I best love a good fight: not just one where we're so overpowered that we slaughter indiscriminately, but where the enemy is balanced against the team and the outcome is not obvious.  There's something deeply satisfying about a diminishing team standing over your fallen teammates and desperately holding out before finally managing to drop the last opponent without a complete team wipe.  So I'd probably say I like the tunable nature of instances.

Edited August 2, 2022 by Techwright

[Bionic_Flea]

52 minutes ago, The_Warpact said:

Probably 95% is going to be a reward of some type, inf, merits emp, or an accolade power.

So what's your favorite content to run to get those rewards?

 

31 minutes ago, Darmian said:

Content is a difficult concept to quantify.  I'm one of those players who sees content as the story and the lore as told across all the arcs and missions, with all the extra information gathered from badges and plaques and so on.

 

For me content isn't rewards - though they're nice - and it isn't in anyway powersets or what have you, even though they're also nice.

 

And from all that my favorite non content thing was the ability to make my own content that added to or is adjacent to the story and the lore.

 

Less said about that the better I suppose for a while! 

So is your favorite content the content you created?  That's a fair response.  And one I had not thought of.

 

4 minutes ago, Techwright said:

There's something deeply satisfying about a diminishing team standing over your fallen teammates and desperately holding out before finally managing to drop the last opponent without a complete team wipe.

 I agree!  One of my favorite early memories is surviving a team-wipe and cleaning up so folks could rez.

[Darmian]

2 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

So is your favorite content the content you created?

LOL, no it isn't!  My favorite content is the Praetorian material, and I created content to stand alongside it, and fill gaps it doesn't (between Neutropolis and First Ward).

 

I like seeing gaps in the lore and asking "what if?" and then seeing if I can do something with that gap.

 

 

[biostem]

1 hour ago, Bionic_Flea said:

Is it the story, the maps, the action, the rewards, something else?

Honestly, it's how, in those few golden moments, a team just gels.  It can be a string of funny comments, a few players coming together to really compliment one-another's playstyle, or getting right up to the brink of defeat against some really tough enemies, and coming out of it victorious.  It's not a single mission, taskforce, or enemy(group) that does it for me - it's a combination of several things...

[Gulbasaur]

I love map exploration. I know that's not really content, but getting every exploration badge and exploring places that are interesting but otherwise irrelevant was fascinating.

 

So many zones have so much atmosphere that is overlooked. Eden is *chef's kiss*. Monster Island. The southern part of the Wards. So much good stuff that's barely hinted at.

[Bionic_Flea]

9 minutes ago, biostem said:

Honestly, it's how, in those few golden moments, a team just gels.  It can be a string of funny comments, a few players coming together to really compliment one-another's playstyle, or getting right up to the brink of defeat against some really tough enemies, and coming out of it victorious.  It's not a single mission, taskforce, or enemy(group) that does it for me - it's a combination of several things...

What do you do to try and create that?

[Bionic_Flea]

6 minutes ago, Gulbasaur said:

I love map exploration. I know that's not really content, but getting every exploration badge and exploring places that are interesting but otherwise irrelevant was fascinating.

 

So many zones have so much atmosphere that is overlooked. Eden is *chef's kiss*. Monster Island. The southern part of the Wards. So much good stuff that's barely hinted at.

You would be a classic Explorer in Bartle's Taxonomy!  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle_taxonomy_of_player_types

To take the test:  https://mudhalla.net/test/bartle3d.php

[The_Warpact]

35 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

So what's your favorite content to run to get those rewards?

AE Farms, TFs/SFs, etc. Everything is centered around me building toons and then getting specific stuff for those toons. Like the different accolades for melee toons.

My job for my VG is a fully stocked base and inf. That way when we do level our toons to 50, everything will be there for us.

 

[biostem]

19 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

What do you do to try and create that?

It's not something you can force.  I'll try to make some quips about a particular fight we're in, or if an enemy ragdolls in a particularly funny way.  Sometimes you'll find yourself on a team with 2 dramatically clashing characters, (like some uber dark type and a cheery magical girl), or I always get a good laugh commenting about my 7' sharkman being on a team with a bunny or catgirl...

[Gulbasaur]

3 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

You would be a classic Explorer in Bartle's Taxonomy! 

I'm actually fairly solidly Achiever/Explorer.

 

The map exploration stuff was a scavenger hunt. If you give me a ridiculous, convoluted multi-part achievement/accolade that requires an obnoxious amount of travel, I will do it. They could make a "roleplay walk from Atlas Park to [the furthest possible place from Atlas Park]" badge and I would be providing group tours.

 

The knowledge that there were exploration badges with lore did it for me.

 

Doing every blueside and goldside story arc (and most red) was fun, but it was 100% because I set myself that as a goal. My two biggest posts on the forums are my story levelling guides, which do sort of act as a trophy for the story arc stuff.

[Darmian]

2 minutes ago, FriezaReturns00001 said:

I really do enjoy the Gold Side content, in-fact that was literally my first time with experience the game! The depth and intrigue of manipulation of people and even resources + the combination of the betrayals and taking whatever you can with you before it all collapses. That is what got my interest into CoH and that never changed -- I just wish there was more Gold Side content beyond First Ward/Night Ward/iTrials. I read every clue and even watched most of the dialogue that popped up.

 

And finding out what happened to specific people or others (I'm still trying to find out what happend with the ice slinging Aria from Powers Division lol) but man I'ma say this about Tami Baker wtf yo w/o spoilors man go run those missions. I was so shocked how that went down.

As I mentioned above, I love the Gold side stuff, and I like making AE content to fill in gaps.  If you check my signature there's two trilogies of Gold material, one Loyalist and one Resistance, that is supposed to slot between Neutropolis and First Ward, but there's elements that look forward to other things too.  Each trilogy runs in the order they're listed in. (And four of them are Dev Choice/Hall of Fame, so there's some decent XP/drops at least.)

 

[Bionic_Flea]

14 minutes ago, FriezaReturns00001 said:

I really do enjoy the Gold Side content

I think the devs got better and better with their story telling over time.  Red is better then Blue and Gold is better than Red and generally newer stuff is better than older stuff.  Except for the Daedulus arc.  Ugh.  It's horrible to me.

 

The one thing that bothered me in Preatoria, after playing all the arcs, is that there really are no villains and no heroes.  Everyone is trying to manipulate everyone else into doing what they think is right.  I guess that was too much like real life and not enough comic book escapism for me.

[RikOz]

1 hour ago, Bionic_Flea said:

You would be a classic Explorer in Bartle's Taxonomy!  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle_taxonomy_of_player_types

To take the test:  https://mudhalla.net/test/bartle3d.php

Hmm. The wording on this question is ambiguous:

 

"The involuntarily killing of other player characters should not be part of the game."

 

Does "involuntarily killing" refer to, "Oops, I didn't mean to kill that guy" or that the dead guy did not want to PvP?

[Darmian]

25 minutes ago, RikOz said:

Does "involuntarily killing" refer to, "Oops, I didn't mean to kill that guy" or that the dead guy did not want to PvP?

Surely the only way you can realistically involuntarily kill a player character in CoX is when you're confused?  If you killed someone in PVP and they didn't actually want to PVP, you still chose to kill him, basically.

 

OR, drawing soooo much aggro on your team that they wipe, but you didn't actually mean for that to happen?

Edited August 2, 2022 by Darmian

[Brutal Justice]

The Hollows.  The King Row skulls arcs.  Faultline.  Striga.    Croatoa.  I love running all the story arcs in these zones.  

 

The missions go in order so it’s easy for somebody else to join in and receive merit rewards alongside you.  The missions keep you in a specific zone with enemies directly relevant to that zone.  It also feels extra rewarding after completing all the arcs, like you actually just closed an entire book and not just a small story arc.  

 

Gold side has great missions and arcs but with all the different “alignments” it was never that team friendly even when it was new and more populated.  I team almost all the time so I don’t run over there very often.  The Wards are great but it’s also hard to round up teams for them.

 

I wish they they had this similar style of content in the other great zones that are under utilized.  Eden and Crey’s Folly are criminally under used.  Boom town could have a string of story arcs.  

[Ukase]

My favorite will vary with my mood. But, right now, my favorite is rescuing Yin's father. The spacing of the mobs, at that level, is just about perfect, as it's then that I boost the difficulty to +1 or +2, depending on the AT. And, the old man follows well, so if I get an ambush or missed some mobs, he doesn't try to fight them, and they don't seem to target him at all, so I can ignore them if I want to and just proceed to the exit. 

I used to like Atta for nostalgia's sake, but the map is too large. I say that because if you fight through, you end up out-leveling the mobs in it, even if you raise the difficulty. It's just too large, too many mobs. 
Frostfire is interesting, and it's not because of the ice on the floor. It's interesting because if you're level 10, you'll have a different experience with Frostfire than you will if you're level 12 or 14. Sometimes, he spawns imps, and sometimes he doesn't, and it seems to me that it's level dependent. So, always interesting to me in that regard. 

I really enjoy preventing the 30 fir bolg from escaping. I would never want to do that on a team, though. Too many folks are content to let 29 escape, or even let them all escape and auto-fail because they don't like it. But to me, it can be fun to clear the area around the portal, then pursue the npcs that are close by, double back to the portal to be sure none are making their way to get out. It can take awhile, but that's part of why I like it. Ordinarily, if I'm in pursuit of merits and such, I may not like that part, but still, it's something I like - probably because most everyone else hates it. 

 

For TFs, I like Apex just because of the dodge ball; I get to practice jousting, stick and move, stick and move. It's a fun mechanic for me to deal with. 
Market Crash has a lot to offer, too, but that's mainly because it's still "new".

For iTrials, nothing beats Master of Underground, where you zerg the bombs, as opposed to snipe. I used to like the sniping, but when you don't have one, it's a bit of a snooze fest. And explaining to fledgling snipers how to properly approach the bomb without getting within 150 feet of it can be problematic, as I sometimes lack the ability to articulate how to do this properly in a clear, concise manner. Discord is a help, and also a distraction. Some folks aren't happy unless they're chatting. (I believe if it's not a master attempt, it ain't worth doing, as far as iTrials go. Every badge you get, you get one free random uncommon incarnate drop. If you get the master, you get a random rare. Why anyone runs a non-master (except for MoM or Lambda as they require multiple runs) is beyond me. Magisterium isn't bad, but it's tiresome when you see folks who just don't pay attention to the advisory "don't use longer animation attacks until after the crackle".  A fair number of folks get stuck in animation because they're just blindly button-mashing, instead of being more thoughtful about what they do. They die, their lore pets die, and often that can ruin the attempt for RHW. 

[BraveDecoy]

When I need cheering up, I take my robotics MM out for a stroll in a Mayhem Mission.  Just loads of nice, calming explosions, lasers, and property damage.

[RikOz]

15 hours ago, Darmian said:

Surely the only way you can realistically involuntarily kill a player character in CoX is when you're confused?  If you killed someone in PVP and they didn't actually want to PVP, you still chose to kill him, basically.

 

OR, drawing soooo much aggro on your team that they wipe, but you didn't actually mean for that to happen?

The test isn't specific to CoX. I was thinking of a couple possible scenarios:

 

A game that allows "friendly fire", and you unintentionally kill a teammate or otherwise friendly target.

 

A game that isn't specifically a PvP game, but allows open-world, free-for-all PvP. An example would be Diablo II, which was essentially a single-player game, but had the option of playing online, and anybody could choose to attack anybody. So you might simply be playing online for the social aspect, or the ability to trade items with other players, and not be interested in PvP at all, but you could still be attacked and killed (and have some of your stuff taken). In that situation, the killed player did not "volunteer" to get killed.

 

I "involuntarily" killed somebody once in WoW. I didn't play on a PvP server, but there were certain areas in the game that offered certain currency rewards and accepting the quests there would automatically flag the player for PvP. At the time I was doing those quests, it was "old content" and the currency rewards were small, so there weren't ever many players there. But the unspoken norm was that people were just there to get in, quickly do the quests, and get out, and players of opposite factions generally stayed out of each other's way and did not attack each other. But you still had to fight NPC enemies. So this one time, in a completely freak coincidence of timing, I was tab-targeting NPCs and hitting them with ranged attacks, when an "enemy" player came flying past on his flying mount. I never saw him coming, and he probably never saw me, but the timing was just exactly right so that, instead of my tab-target selecting the intended NPC, it selected the other player just as he appeared in my vision, and my following ranged attack one-shot killed this much lower-level player. I imagine he was all "WTF just happened?" I felt so bad about it that I noted the character's name and then rolled an opposite-faction character so that I could drop him an in-game e-mail to apologize.

[ZemX]

I'm not a huge fan of any of the TFs but Ice Mistral is kind of fun for the unique "jump down the pit" mission at the end where you have this huge cavern filled with exploding crystals ending in a AV fight with just massive ambushes.

 

I also sort of like Sutter even if the final fight can be kind of problematic on some teams.  It otherwise takes you some fun places.

 

But my favorite "content" is messy mid-level PuGs.  Well oiled steamroller Incarnate teams are boooooring as hell.  Random teammates?  No incarnate powers?  Decent banter?  Casual attitudes?  Yes please!  Bonus points if it's redside. 

[Yomo Kimyata]

I think I like progression the most.  Start out as a lowly plebe, work/earn your way to bigger things, gain new powers or slots every level, raise your difficulty as you become more of a Really Big Thing.

 

This is probably why I get so bored playing post 50 content.

[Bionic_Flea]

11 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

I think I like progression the most.  Start out as a lowly plebe, work/earn your way to bigger things, gain new powers or slots every level, raise your difficulty as you become more of a Really Big Thing.

 

DING! addiction is real.