What's one thing you love in CoH that most others seem to hate?

[DSorrow]

Planning and optimizing builds. It's probably something people don't really hate, but I'd guess many people don't particularly care for tinkering with Pine's themselves while I just happen to enjoy it almost as much as playing the game.

[Veracor]

Shadow Shard.

 

I know it's a rushed set of zones devoid of meaningful content and only contains task forces that have tons of copied and pasted filler missions with embarassing amounts of typos in them... but I still love the concept of it all.  It's a nice break from all the other zones in the game and it continues to be.  I think if Cryptic had spent just a bit more time on the Shadow Shard, it would have been fantastic.

[THEDarkTyger]

Yes, I know...and I acknowledged that it was a bad comparison. Ableist is an awfully strong word.

 

It's really not. You're implying that you feel it's selfish of people to ask that a trivial change be made to the game because of a physical limitation that caused them literal pain. That's kinda the very definition of being ablist.

 

Ableist is the correct spelling of that. The definition of that is discrimination against people who are disabled. I hardly consider a headache a disability...but let's role with that.

 

Then you're a jerk. I think you're grossly underestimating the severity of the pain people were being caused by this. It's a physical limitation, it's not up to you to determine what's not enough to be a "disability". You sound like one of those people who shout at someone parking in a handicapped space because they don't "look disabled"... 

 

Oh, and if you're going to be pedantic about spelling, it's "let's ROLL with that".

 

I hardly call what I did or said to be discrimination...especially when these headaches that people have is brought on by the graphics of a game, a game they most likely previously knew could potentially give them headaches.

 

You're whining about a change made to accommodate people with a physical limitation. That is textbook discrimination. And, no, many of them did NOT previously know they risked headaches playing the game.

[Kaika]

Shadow Shard.

 

I know it's a rushed set of zones devoid of meaningful content and only contains task forces that have tons of copied and pasted filler missions with embarassing amounts of typos in them... but I still love the concept of it all.  It's a nice break from all the other zones in the game and it continues to be.  I think if Cryptic had spent just a bit more time on the Shadow Shard, it would have been fantastic.

 

I can second this. I went to gather badges there and day ago, I had never really stopped to look around at the grandeur of it all, the place looks absolutely stunning, if a little bit repetitive and unintuitive to navigate. Also the badge descriptions there really paint the zone in a much more interesting and disturbing light, highly recommend reading them if you ever go for em. Shame they rushed it out and didn't really work on it at all after as it could have been amazing and not the empty wasteland it is now

[Xeres]

Knockback.

 

There is nothing more satisfying in this game then a Crane Kick to the bad person's mouth. Yeah it probably will knock back and I'm sorry Tank person but I gotta.  I'll go and kill it though - don't worry.

[Zumberge]

Redside.

 

GM redside bias confirmed, expecting five new blueside zones in i26 to balance this out.  But seriously, the Rogue Isles have a nice design.

 

(Stream of consciousness rambling follows.)

 

The terrain is more interesting and varied; there's a sense of city planning in the urban parts, but unlike Paragon where you've got modern city design techniques where everything is orthogonal, there's more irregularity to the Rogue Isles, with people building from the shore inward.  Kings Row looks old in a 70's Detroit sort of way, but the outskirts of Cap au Diable feel older.  Buildings and roads conform to hills because they didn't have a choice in the matter or the means to level it out.  With how they're designed the redside zones almost tell a story in and of themselves.

 

On top of that there's a sense of verticality with the design that you really only see blueside in Skyway City.  Instead of just square steel and concrete monoliths that really only just take up space you have catwalks and staircases up walls and around pillars, which also ties into the whole "building on islands, space is at a premium" thing.  Despite this the zones never really feel cramped; honestly, they're pretty big.  I really should make a super speed villain at some point because ground level absolutely bears exploring.

 

Apropos of nothing, I'd honestly say that despite Grandville being absolute hell for super speeders, it works as an in-universe "Triumph of the Will"-esque propaganda piece.

 

Plus the atmosphere is more... I don't want to say "dark" because that has connotations, but more dirty and somber, constantly overcast.  The grimy industrial aesthetic that pops up all over appeals to my love of 90's FPS level design.

[PaxArcana]

Building a pure Defender (minimal attacks with as much team support as possible). Nothing like joining a team, keeping them buffed, and then hearing "Did you ever attack?".

 

I got that ALL.  THE.  TIME. on my Robotics/Forcefield Mastermind.  And, well, no, I didn't attack - but I kept your ass bubbled, while my six shiny robotic minions off-tanked for the whole group.  All while maintainung situational awareness, repositioning myself to use Forcebolt's strong KB to throw enemies closer to the melee fighters, watching for additional adds (and sometimes making my robots "take care of" those adds before they ever threatened the other players), and on, and on, and on.

 

Finally, I came up with the best answer, for an MM faced with that complaint: "Next big fight, I'm going to sit out and do nothing.  Robots on passive, no bubbles, no leadership toggles.  THEN, the fight AFTER that, every one of you will sit it out, and it'll be JUST me and my robots."

 

Every single time, "just me and my robots" could tear through twice as many enemies, in less time than 3+ other players took for their fight.  I would even be intentionally pulling extra spawns, just to make my point.

 

And every single time, I stopped getting complaints about whether I was doing anything, or "just leeching".

 

Highly, highly satisfying.  :)

[_NOPE_]

Shadow Shard.

 

I know it's a rushed set of zones devoid of meaningful content and only contains task forces that have tons of copied and pasted filler missions with embarassing amounts of typos in them... but I still love the concept of it all.  It's a nice break from all the other zones in the game and it continues to be.  I think if Cryptic had spent just a bit more time on the Shadow Shard, it would have been fantastic.

 

I can second this. I went to gather badges there and day ago, I had never really stopped to look around at the grandeur of it all, the place looks absolutely stunning, if a little bit repetitive and unintuitive to navigate. Also the badge descriptions there really paint the zone in a much more interesting and disturbing light, highly recommend reading them if you ever go for em. Shame they rushed it out and didn't really work on it at all after as it could have been amazing and not the empty wasteland it is now

 

Thirded, while technically it's like three "zones", I count it at one giant one... Shadow Shard has always been my favorite "zone". I LOVE doing laps around the Storm Palace! Can't wait to get PK to 50 again so that I can do that again!

[Solarverse]

Yes, I know...and I acknowledged that it was a bad comparison. Ableist is an awfully strong word.

 

It's really not. You're implying that you feel it's selfish of people to ask that a trivial change be made to the game because of a physical limitation that caused them literal pain. That's kinda the very definition of being ablist.

 

Ableist is the correct spelling of that. The definition of that is discrimination against people who are disabled. I hardly consider a headache a disability...but let's role with that.

 

Then you're a jerk. I think you're grossly underestimating the severity of the pain people were being caused by this. It's a physical limitation, it's not up to you to determine what's not enough to be a "disability". You sound like one of those people who shout at someone parking in a handicapped space because they don't "look disabled"... 

 

Oh, and if you're going to be pedantic about spelling, it's "let's ROLL with that".

 

I hardly call what I did or said to be discrimination...especially when these headaches that people have is brought on by the graphics of a game, a game they most likely previously knew could potentially give them headaches.

 

You're whining about a change made to accommodate people with a physical limitation. That is textbook discrimination. And, no, many of them did NOT previously know they risked headaches playing the game.

 

I think I like you. You put up a good argument. Let me clarify for you; I wanted the change to be optional...it was not made optional, so now I miss the old graphics. That's it. :)

[Healix]

SO many people hate caves....I like them

[_NOPE_]

I love their pretty purples and deep blues.

[Roughtrade]

Face Planting.

 

Yes, you can do the game and never once visit the hospital, going from Zero to Fifty without Debt.  That’s boring.  If I’m not face planted once an hour then I’m taking things too easy.  If we don’t team wipe once a day then we’re not taking enough risks.

 

This gets terribly difficult for me now that I’m helping my friend teach his kids to play.  First you learn to do it right, then you learn to skate backwards in high heels, yanno?  I can hear him over the headset talking about pulling and watching aggro and then here comes Halo, blasting the lead boss with a snipe and then snap shotting the next two groups while shouting “TAG!” 

 

Oops.  Umm.  Tanks grab aggro?

[Zaphir]

I loved using Air Superiority (flying power pool attack)... and not even because of its usefulness as soft control, but because the animation looked amusing.

 

AE arcs with good story but low rewards.

So much this. I've leveled some characters back on live entirely through player-created story arcs (even considering it was a very suboptimal way of getting xp/inf/loot), and it was amazing. I'm getting ready to do the same thing on Homecoming as well... fire up those [sFMA] tags, author people! :P

[Solarverse]

Shadow Shard.

 

I know it's a rushed set of zones devoid of meaningful content and only contains task forces that have tons of copied and pasted filler missions with embarassing amounts of typos in them... but I still love the concept of it all.  It's a nice break from all the other zones in the game and it continues to be.  I think if Cryptic had spent just a bit more time on the Shadow Shard, it would have been fantastic.

 

I can second this. I went to gather badges there and day ago, I had never really stopped to look around at the grandeur of it all, the place looks absolutely stunning, if a little bit repetitive and unintuitive to navigate. Also the badge descriptions there really paint the zone in a much more interesting and disturbing light, highly recommend reading them if you ever go for em. Shame they rushed it out and didn't really work on it at all after as it could have been amazing and not the empty wasteland it is now

 

Thirded, while technically it's like three "zones", I count it at one giant one... Shadow Shard has always been my favorite "zone". I LOVE doing laps around the Storm Palace! Can't wait to get PK to 50 again so that I can do that again!

 

I am right there with you! My favorite zone! Even when all we had was Paragon Chat, I would sometimes just go there to chill and chat with people, even though there was nothing to do.

[jubakumbi]

Face Planting.

 

Yes, you can do the game and never once visit the hospital, going from Zero to Fifty without Debt.  That’s boring.  If I’m not face planted once an hour then I’m taking things too easy.  If we don’t team wipe once a day then we’re not taking enough risks.

 

This gets terribly difficult for me now that I’m helping my friend teach his kids to play.  First you learn to do it right, then you learn to skate backwards in high heels, yanno?  I can hear him over the headset talking about pulling and watching aggro and then here comes Halo, blasting the lead boss with a snipe and then snap shotting the next two groups while shouting “TAG!” 

 

Oops.  Umm.  Tanks grab aggro?

 

I agree.

Awesome, keep the flame alive.

Years ago, had a friend start playing, ended up staying a while.

However, the first time they faceplanted, we heard them holding back tears.

 

In previous games for them, dying meant such harsh things.

The group laughed, they thought we were laughing _at_ them, had to explain.

 

That player lead the charge after that, regardless of AT, never fearing faling down again.

[Roughtrade]

Hated may be the wrong term, but maybe.... the Pick Up Group, I despise it in other game systems.  I grudgingly sign up on random dungeon runs to get the doohickey of doom required for my crafting and then never again.

 

I love the versatility of the CoH system.  Yes, there are people who insist on team with one tank, one defender, balanced damage vs control, etc...  but you do not *have* to do it that way.

 

The DFB spasm of late has been fun to see what can be done.  I was on a team that was six controllers, my dominator and a sentinel.  We trashed through three runs before it broke up. 

 

I’ve done teams of three MMS, two Crabs, a Widow and two Stalkers.  Five Brutes and three blasters.  Or maybe one was a Sentinal. We used a lot of greens but it was fun.

 

You don’t need a “perfect” team in CoH.  For fun, my friend and his three kids got on, all made up robot themed MMs and just trashed a bunch of newspaper missions just so we could let five sets of robot minions cut loose on a mayhem mission.

 

I’ve played on teams of all archery themed heroes, all tanks, all controllers....  Some were teams of eight, some only four of us.  But there was never any content we could not do.  We might have to tweak notoriety, but probably just back to “normal” mode.

 

City of Heroes is the only game where I look forward to PuGs.

[Rumors]

Some (a lot) of the really serious Defender fans get this, but it's a head scratcher for a lot of other players.  But, playing an Offender. 

 

"Are you trying to be a support or a DPS?"

 

Yes.

 

"Why not play a Corrupter?"

 

Because I wanna do a better job keeping your butt alive and fighting efficiently while I wreck the bad guys.  I don't need silly mechanics like Scourge or higher base damage to wipe the floor with enemies.  My debuffs are going down on the enemies to protect us and to make it easier for me destroy them all.  I am going to output enough damage to make the Blaster go "wait wut da heck?" while protecting everyone else.

 

"But things are going down too fast for you to get set-up."

 

That just means it's time to crank up our notoriety, friend.

 

 

Offending isn't being a "Blaster with a heal" or a "gimped Corrupter" or someone who "ignores their primary".  It's a mindset.  It's being a Defender who is using their full toolkit to support the team while ending the fight as fast as possible.    Not all primaries work super well for it (Empathy Offender sounds pretty meh until you hit the 40s), sure.  But yeah, while that Corrupter might bring more personal DPS, might, the Offender is bringing much more team DPS while still wrecking stuff on their own.

[_NOPE_]

Some (a lot) of the really serious Defender fans get this, but it's a head scratcher for a lot of other players.  But, playing an Offender. 

 

"Are you trying to be a support or a DPS?"

 

Yes.

 

"Why not play a Corrupter?"

 

Because I wanna do a better job keeping your butt alive and fighting efficiently while I wreck the bad guys.  I don't need silly mechanics like Scourge or higher base damage to wipe the floor with enemies.  My debuffs are going down on the enemies to protect us and to make it easier for me destroy them all.  I am going to output enough damage to make the Blaster go "wait wut da heck?" while protecting everyone else.

 

"But things are going down too fast for you to get set-up."

 

That just means it's time to crank up our notoriety, friend.

 

 

Offending isn't being a "Blaster with a heal" or a "gimped Corrupter" or someone who "ignores their primary".  It's a mindset.  It's being a Defender who is using their full toolkit to support the team while ending the fight as fast as possible.    Not all primaries work super well for it (Empathy Offender sounds pretty meh until you hit the 40s), sure.  But yeah, while that Corrupter might bring more personal DPS, might, the Offender is bringing much more team DPS while still wrecking stuff on their own.