The experience of a returning player having to re-learn the ropes.

[crimson72]

I played the original game I believe up until around Issue 7 or 8, so there's a lot of new stuff in this version that I never got to experience.  Back then, I had a group of friends and family who also played this, and I had a far easier time playing whatever I wanted, because I could always generally get a team and didn't have to rely on the generosity of strangers.  

 

In this version, I started as a thugs/poison mastermind, and felt like this class was extremely weak.  Struggled for about 20ish levels with little to no resources for gear.  Getting on a decent team was rare, and solo leveling a pleb mastermind was very slow.  

 

HOWEVER

 

Then I made a spines/fire brute, and started fire farming to power level myself and get drops and money and found this game to be far more enjoyable than the struggles of a fresh starting account with low-mid level mastermind with little to no resources.  Now I at least got enough to keep my enhancements up to date and then some.  And I'm able to make steady and consistent progress without requiring myself to be carried by the community's generosity.  

 

This is my personal opinion, but based on my experience, I wouldn't recommend a returning player on a fresh account try to play anything other than an AE farming build with their first character, because that's a really steep road, and you'd be relying on getting on solid teams in order to level up, which isn't guaranteed, but you'd probably have better luck than I did if you actually have IRL friends or family who play this.  

[UltraAlt]

7 minutes ago, crimson72 said:

Struggled for about 20ish levels with little to no resources for gear.

 

 

[UltraAlt]

7 minutes ago, crimson72 said:

Then I made a spines/fire brute, and started fire farming to power level myself

 

/e facepalm

[crimson72]

1 minute ago, UltraAlt said:

 

/e facepalm

So, I didn't take a free handout, and decided to make my own way, and that's a facepalm?  What specifically did I say that triggered you?  

[InvaderStych]

8 minutes ago, crimson72 said:

So, I didn't take a free handout, and decided to make my own way, and that's a facepalm?  What specifically did I say that triggered you?  

 

Don't ask. There's history there with that one. Don't worry, they'll put you on ignore in a few posts and brag about it for another 17 posts or so. It's their thing.

 

Welcome Home.

 

Play your game your way, player.

[UltraAlt]

2 hours ago, crimson72 said:

What specifically did I say that triggered you?

 

2 hours ago, crimson72 said:

started fire farming to power level myself

 

[GM Crumpet]

5 hours ago, crimson72 said:

I played the original game I believe up until around Issue 7 or 8, so there's a lot of new stuff in this version that I never got to experience.  Back then, I had a group of friends and family who also played this, and I had a far easier time playing whatever I wanted, because I could always generally get a team and didn't have to rely on the generosity of strangers.  

 

In this version, I started as a thugs/poison mastermind, and felt like this class was extremely weak.  Struggled for about 20ish levels with little to no resources for gear.  Getting on a decent team was rare, and solo leveling a pleb mastermind was very slow.  

 

HOWEVER

 

Then I made a spines/fire brute, and started fire farming to power level myself and get drops and money and found this game to be far more enjoyable than the struggles of a fresh starting account with low-mid level mastermind with little to no resources.  Now I at least got enough to keep my enhancements up to date and then some.  And I'm able to make steady and consistent progress without requiring myself to be carried by the community's generosity.  

 

This is my personal opinion, but based on my experience, I wouldn't recommend a returning player on a fresh account try to play anything other than an AE farming build with their first character, because that's a really steep road, and you'd be relying on getting on solid teams in order to level up, which isn't guaranteed, but you'd probably have better luck than I did if you actually have IRL friends or family who play this.  

I agree your original character pick may not have been the best. There are better combinations out there. I tried a few when I started on live before I picked my mains which were AR/Devices blaster and Invul/SS tank. It was such a different experience to my first couple, almost like a new game.

 

As for starting with a farming toon and power levelling new alts as a starting player, I'd recommend against that. The point of the low level contacts is to act as an extended tutorial. Twinshot and Dr Graves are mirrors of each other, but get the basics down in a fun way without feeling like you are "learning". I'm sure we've all seen a level 50 player joining a team and asking "What's an enhancement?" and facepalming. Not their fault, but the modern idea of the game only starting at level 50 and the journey to the good stuff is a grind doesn't apply here.

 

Inf is ridiculously easy to get. Just read a basic tutorial on playing the auction house  (of which there are several excellent ones on the forum or pinned in Discord) and you are sorted. Just from merit conversions and good drops you'll get enough inf to slot a pretty decent character. Farming is actually a slow method of gaining inf. It used to be the fastest, but after the bug exploits and loopholes were closed it stopped being phenomenal and went to just OK. It is a good method of power levelling though. I'll often farm to level 22 so I can slot IO's. I've done the lower content to death and really can't face doing it too often now 😛 

 

I agree though, play the game how you want as long as it doesn't impact on other players. I just think it's a shame when players think farming is compulsory and miss out on some actually great stories because they have levelled past it.

[MoonSheep]

1 hour ago, GM Crumpet said:

 I just think it's a shame when players think farming is compulsory and miss out on some actually great stories because they have levelled past it.

 

i completely agree, especially “the journey” is one of the best bits of CoH along with the friends and community you make along the way

[Nemu]

7 hours ago, crimson72 said:

I played the original game I believe up until around Issue 7 or 8, so there's a lot of new stuff in this version that I never got to experience.  Back then, I had a group of friends and family who also played this, and I had a far easier time playing whatever I wanted, because I could always generally get a team and didn't have to rely on the generosity of strangers.  

 

In this version, I started as a thugs/poison mastermind, and felt like this class was extremely weak.  Struggled for about 20ish levels with little to no resources for gear.  Getting on a decent team was rare, and solo leveling a pleb mastermind was very slow.  

 

HOWEVER

 

Then I made a spines/fire brute, and started fire farming to power level myself and get drops and money and found this game to be far more enjoyable than the struggles of a fresh starting account with low-mid level mastermind with little to no resources.  Now I at least got enough to keep my enhancements up to date and then some.  And I'm able to make steady and consistent progress without requiring myself to be carried by the community's generosity.  

 

This is my personal opinion, but based on my experience, I wouldn't recommend a returning player on a fresh account try to play anything other than an AE farming build with their first character, because that's a really steep road, and you'd be relying on getting on solid teams in order to level up, which isn't guaranteed, but you'd probably have better luck than I did if you actually have IRL friends or family who play this.  

 

As adults we wage war against our greatest archenemy - time. This is a good way to maximize what you want to get out of this game with the time that you have. I think it's great that you took the initiative and did something about your situation to achieve the outcome that you wanted. I can not say the same for the scores more that not only depend on, but demand the generosity of others.

 

I have no doubt that since you took the initiative to change your financial outcome, you'll also have the initiative to do the work and accomplish other things in this game if they compel you.

 

You can make a fire farmer and self level in AE from 1-50+ without begging to sit on farms. It's all a matter of tuning your difficulty settings, start low and crank it up as you level, get more slots, get better enhancements.

 

Another recommendation is to create an alt account. Make that your farming account. I have exactly 1 character on my alt account and I only use it to fire farm. I don't power level every character on my main account that I make, but it's nice to have the option to help a few select combos that don't play as well early game past those hurdles so you can get more fun out of your time.

[GM Crumpet]

Just a reminder that everyone has an opinion and a right to play the game how they want, even if it's not the way you play, or even if it's not the way you think others should play. Jumping on a returning player because they are doing something you disagree with is not good.

 

We have a responsibility to new or returning players to show our good side. Give them advice, point them to resources they may find useful. give them guides to yes, create a really good farming toon if that's what they want. Sometimes having the build for a horribly frankenslotted toon is welcome. I think farming has a place (I'd be a hypocrite to say otherwise as I have farming alts) but I also think it can become the focus instead of a tool and someone ends up farming as the main or only aspect of the game that they play. Even then, that's up to them. If they enjoy it and get satisfaction from it then I'm not going to criticise. There really isn't that much content at level 50. It can get as repetitive as the low level content for someone with altistis who never gets past level 20. A player who only farms and does high end content is always going to complain there is nothing to do, they are bored etc. The trick is to mix it up. 

[DougGraves]

I assume there are people who don't transfer influence to new characters.  Which is fine.  But if you do, then complaining about how they got the influence they gave to a new character makes no sense unless they did something illegal.

 

 

[GM Crumpet]

19 minutes ago, DougGraves said:

I assume there are people who don't transfer influence to new characters.  Which is fine.  But if you do, then complaining about how they got the influence they gave to a new character makes no sense unless they did something illegal.

 

 

I have a lot of inf saved in my global email and drag it out as needed whether it's a level 1 or a level 50 🙂 I also randomly drop inf on new players in atlas

[WanderingAries]

I remember 'taking a break' during live a little before ED hit (I think) and came back a couple issues later. Not only was there a learning curve to it, but I'd lost track of who was who on my friends list, so the experience took a hit there. It's about the same when I play intermittently here.

[cranebump]

As has already been explained, you can grab plenty of Inf without Farming, if that's your druthers. Unless you're planning to got all out on IO sets, you won't need much $$ to have a viable toon for most things. I say this having a few mid-level toons who have DOs and SOs slotted. Between that in Inps, they handle regular content fine (well...you DO get the occassional big bad who's troublesome).

 

That said, having gotten used to grabbing those enhancements via seeding, usually by grabbing explore merits from AP and Galaxy (then converting to converters, etc.), I'm not sure how things would work for me anymore, playing on straight-up default XP/drop mode. I have and do run without ever running 2XP on some chars, but those are special cases. So, I'm thinking I may have to revisit default mode - drops only, no LR TP, Mish TP or anything. I'll have to solo it all, of course, just to make it grindier and more obnoxious.:-)

 

Been wanting to make a blappy arrow guy, so this may be the time. CUE FACEPLANT!

[Yomo Kimyata]

11 hours ago, crimson72 said:

This is my personal opinion, but based on my experience, I wouldn't recommend a returning player on a fresh account try to play anything other than an AE farming build with their first character, because that's a really steep road, and you'd be relying on getting on solid teams in order to level up, which isn't guaranteed, but you'd probably have better luck than I did if you actually have IRL friends or family who play this. 

 

I don't agree with this overall statement, but I would suggest playing through more than once and playing a very survivable melee character first time through.  Any level 50 can easily solo a mission or two and generate several million in inf from drops in a few minutes, while a level 1 will probably have a difficult time completely self-funding through missions.

[carroto]

11 hours ago, crimson72 said:

I started as a thugs/poison mastermind, and felt like this class was extremely weak. 

 

I had the same experience with /Poison on an MM.  A different secondary probably would have fared better.  Also MMs often have a rough patch around the late teens/early twenties where the enemies are getting tougher but you don't have enough defenses for your pets yet so they can get wiped out over and over.

 

As others have said, to start out a simpler and easier character would probably be better.  Any of the melee classes will generally do the trick so you can pick whatever appeals.

 

There are guides here on the forums to making money that don't require farming.  If you aren't trying to get super rich but just want to be able to afford basic enhancements it doesn't take a lot of time or effort.

 

There's a lot of value in playing your way through the game and learning your way around.  Although many players in this game are patient and willing to help, it's not that fun when the rest of the team is waiting for that last player to be walked through how to get to the zone so they can join the TF.

 

Lastly regarding teaming, there's a reason so many players cluster a couple of the servers...it's much easier to get a team if you're where everyone else is.  You might want to consider rolling a character on a higher-population server.

[High_Beam]

I played a Thugs/Poison on live that I struggled to 42 on before deleting out of frustration, just wasn't fun to play.

 

Then again I find farming to be even less fun.

 

I have zero problems finding teams any time I am on who are doing a variety of things and find any character I bring welcome.

 

Fun is where you find it so to each is own unless it hurts others.

[laudwic]

56 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

 

I don't agree with this overall statement, but I would suggest playing through more than once and playing a very survivable melee character first time through.  Any level 50 can easily solo a mission or two and generate several million in inf from drops in a few minutes, while a level 1 will probably have a difficult time completely self-funding through missions.

I agree with Yomo, but write to add that Sentinels are also extremely survivable.  I generally have my 50s fund my new characters.  Especially since by the time I'm working on incarnate abilities I already have everything slotted how I want (I generally don't get many purple sets).

[Bionic_Flea]

12 hours ago, crimson72 said:

Getting on a decent team was rare

 

Forgive me if this sounds condescending; it's not meant to, but you should put the Looking For Group channel (LFG) on it's own tab and keep an eye on it.  That's where most of the team ups occur, unless you have a private channel of friends.

 

Welcome back!

[Nemu]

I forgot to mention the best way to make money is to make @Yomo Kimyata host a build contest and then post creative builds and win.

 

I think I won at least 200000000 billion inf from Yomo at this point.

 

 

 

 

He hasn't paid me yet, but he will.

 

 

 

protip: all the creative builds have whirlwind, it's super creative!

[crimson72]

17 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

 

Forgive me if this sounds condescending; it's not meant to, but you should put the Looking For Group channel (LFG) on it's own tab and keep an eye on it.  That's where most of the team ups occur, unless you have a private channel of friends.

 

Welcome back!

I logged in on 4 separate days looking for a team, and after 15 minutes I just logged out of the game.  Soloing is painful on a fresh start.  This was on Excelsior server as well.  It takes a lot of effort to find a decent team, far more so than it takes to just AE farm.  I'm not going back to spamming LFGs hoping for a group anymore.  Those days are completely behind me. 

 

I might take that suggestion above about making an alt to level up my characters.  The very last thing I want to do is sit and spam an LFG for 15 minutes hoping someone sends me an invite.  I'd rather take advantage of opportunities to join teams for TFs or whatever  vs it being pretty much required for a character.  

 

Also, people don't seem to use the team function, where you flag yourself as looking for group.  In old CoH that system worked, and people would message you and ask if you'd like to team up for X or Y.  I never once got an invite by flagging myself as lfg on the team function.  I don't know why nobody seems to use it anymore.  

Edited May 30, 2023 by crimson72
more info

[Nemu]

18 minutes ago, crimson72 said:

I logged in on 4 separate days looking for a team, and after 15 minutes I just logged out of the game.  Soloing is painful on a fresh start.  This was on Excelsior server as well.  It takes a lot of effort to find a decent team, far less so than it takes to just AE farm to be honest.  I'm not going back to spamming LFGs hoping for a group anymore.  Those days are completely behind me. 

I find the current player base don't read. They may very well spam in LFG that they are forming teams but they don't read the same channel they post and grab people interested in joining teams. It's far easier to get invites by sending tells to people advertising for teams and even then you may run into people that lack the common courtesy to respond back with a "we are full."

 

I totally get where you are coming from. There are days that I don't want to deal with illiterate players or players that lack common courtesy and it's much easier to close myself in. Fortunately this game is lax enough where you can do just that.

 

On the other hand, if you do give teaming a chance you might find yourself having fun with some cool people, some of which might even make your friend list.

 

If you play mostly on Excel, you can also ask those Sovereign guys that are always kneeling in Oro to invite you to their SG/coalition. That coalition is pretty active.

[crimson72]

1 minute ago, Nemu said:

I find the current player base don't read. They may very well spam in LFG that they are forming teams but they don't read the same channel they post and grab people interested in joining teams. It's far easier to get invites by sending tells to people advertising for teams and even then you may run into people that lack the common courtesy to respond back with a "we are full."

 

I totally get where you are coming from. There are days that I don't want to deal with illiterate players or players that lack common courtesy and it's much easier to close myself in. Fortunately this game is lax enough where you can do just that.

 

On the other hand, if you do give teaming a chance you might find yourself having fun with some cool people, some of which might even make your friend list.

 

If you play mostly on Excel, you can also ask those Sovereign guys that are always kneeling in Oro to invite you to their SG/coalition. That coalition is pretty active.

 

Someone invited me to a SG, and I accepted, but this SG turned out to be a massive wall of completely inactive level 50 characters.  It was probably 1 person's alts. 

 

Also, I do like teaming, but I'm not going to wait around too long to get on one.  I've taken advantage of opportunities to do a couple of TFs for example, but beyond content like this, I don't see too many advantages for teaming doing stuff like radio missions for example.  Half the teams I've been on seem to insist on trying to bite off more than they can chew on difficulty and spawns.  I already knew from playing this game previously that ramping up the difficulty and spawns without some damage dealers on the team makes for a not so fun experience.  Getting bogged down by a massive swarm of freakshow while players are dropping left and right just isn't a very intelligent way to play.  

[Snarky]

I like the idea of jumping onto a farmer and bootstrapping yourself up the mountain.  For OCD players it can be rewarding.  There is a burnout risk.  But if tou set a goal and achieve it then use the funds to set yourself up more power to you

 

protip; put that farmer on an alt acct.  then you can PL yourself solo when you want to start a new toon at 25 instead of 1. Or open your alpha slot in 5 minutes on a new 50

[Sanguinesun]

52 minutes ago, crimson72 said:

I logged in on 4 separate days looking for a team, and after 15 minutes I just logged out of the game.  Soloing is painful on a fresh start.  This was on Excelsior server as well.  It takes a lot of effort to find a decent team, far more so than it takes to just AE farm.  I'm not going back to spamming LFGs hoping for a group anymore.  Those days are completely behind me. 

 

I might take that suggestion above about making an alt to level up my characters.  The very last thing I want to do is sit and spam an LFG for 15 minutes hoping someone sends me an invite.  I'd rather take advantage of opportunities to join teams for TFs or whatever  vs it being pretty much required for a character.  

 

Also, people don't seem to use the team function, where you flag yourself as looking for group.  In old CoH that system worked, and people would message you and ask if you'd like to team up for X or Y.  I never once got an invite by flagging myself as lfg on the team function.  I don't know why nobody seems to use it anymore.  

 

 

Primarily in this case and much of your experience, there is just simply a knowledge gap occurring, I believe.  I see this pretty often with returnees from live or even just a couple of years ago or new people.   Its a shame but it happens  pretty frequently.

 

Teams, especially on excelsior are extremely easy to find with caveats:

 

1. Obviously, if you're on a bad time when there are less folks around, its a luck of the draw.  Days of the week also factor.

 

2. Knowing what teams to join also helps.  Not every LFG message makes it clear(out of an assumption players know).  If someone says for example, "level 54 (mission/tips/PI) team looking for x number of people" you can join those, typically from level 1 and I see them every single day at various times of the day.  They're the defacto power leveling/farming outside of the AE.   Also Tasks forces at or below your level are commonly called for and a good way to earn merits too, especially on the weekly task force/strike force ones.  Also X level missions team messages can also be sidekicked up to.   

 

3. While the vast majority of players focus on hero side, any time you also see LFG's related to point 2 but are on the villain side, you can join those at any time just quickly and freely visiting the seagull(null the gull) in pocket d.  There are no restrictions/tediousness involved in switching sides.

 

4. Being patient.  I am a bit skeptical that each and every time you logged in that 15min went by each and every single time and you didnt find teams, either due to the points mentioned above or time as it were etc.  I think if you'd maybe watched lfg more carefully, you'd've found a team.

 

5. I've not used the queue system either in years.  Arguably most dont anymore due to the easy on excelsior to grab a team.

 

6. Nothing, stops you from making your own teams except passivity.  You'd be surprised how fast teams fill once people start asking for task forces or other similar common and incentivized play.  Some other things can take time but usually again patience is all it takes, again unless you're playing at 4am server time or some such on a monday or the like. 😛

 

------

 

Regarding influence issues:

 

Even with double EXP boosters enabled (meaning you dont earn influence from mission completion or kills) from the P2W vendor constantly, one can earn enough influence doing points 2 and 3 typically to earn enough influence for IO enhancers either crafting or buying from the AH (which often can be cheaper than crafting).

 

This can be done by:

 

1. Selling either to a vendor or on the AH recipes that you come across for enhancers.   When you're especially joining 54+ teams from point 2 above, you'll get level 50 recipes.  Regular IO ones as you know go for around 100k as vendor trash, more in some cases if sold on the AH.    Set Enhancers vendor trashing values vary up to about 10k of the level 50 ones BUT some can sell for millions on the auction house (10mil+ even).    

 

2. To get seed money(ie money for listing feeds for the AH too) you can also go to the AH, and offer really small amounts for Single Origin enhancers that are level 50 or just under/above.  Those average 15k sold to a vendor.  You can also look for the afore mentioned level 50 IO enhancers and vendor for 100k as I said but get lucky and get those recipes for 1-how much ever you're willing to spend to earn a profit from vendoring for them. 

 

3. There are a plethora of guiides on how to making tons of money from the AH too of course that explain how to earn seed money and then to start converting cheap enhancers to millions in value ones and more.

 

5. You can just take merits earned and convert them to special salvage or valuable set enhancers to sell. (also covered in guides usually).

 

With Homecoming servers since last fall, we've a new item called Aethers which can sell currently for about 4 million on the AH which randomly can be earned when completing a mission(semi rare but I've average 1 per toon while leveling one from 1-50).

 

And I can go on.

 

For the month of May, I've leveled from 1-50 an average of 2-3 characters a week and procured just from the basics(not the super saavy guide style AHing) close to 200mil while doing so.   They hit 50 and I just would make a new toon, carry over the money to the next one.   This is profit after spending for IO enhancers for them too(non set ones).  Im not hyper focusing on making 1 50 to them work on getting them all the sets IO's etc either.  They're just toons to enjoy the experience to 50 with.  Since I run on taskforces and also earn merits and occassionally the rikti mother ship raid when advertised and get vangard merits, I can also pool the merits to buy enhancers later if I want to focus on 1 toon too.

 

Also once 50 and the double exp boosts no longer work and one starts earning influence, you can do of course any normal 1-50 content and earn too.  Running ITF's can earn you millions too if you just wanted to stick to 1 toon that way or those afore mentioned 54 mission teams are also where folks are influence earning capable.

 

 

This is why crumpet was saying its easy.  

 

 

But the very real and sad part is that for those who do know know these things and more,  it can be extremely challenging.   Its just simply a knowledge gap.

 

People then who do not ask about what to do in game, ask on the forums, read guides etc then of course tend to be the ones who fall through this knowledge gap and its cracks so to speak.  Unfortunately, some in the community do not have much sympathy for those folks either as if they expect the game to be a filter system for those who can and cant, essentially.  This game for returnees and new people has a pretty hefty learning curve, arguably, and quite frankly, typical in game experiential learning doesn't weather that curve as well as it could.

 

 

-----

 

Switching gears then a bit, despite the teeth gnashers regarding farming, it is integral to the sustainability of these servers as they currently exist, again despite their knowledge gap to the contrary.  The auction house is for example cited how to make money as I mentioned above but it is indeed just a --shifting-- of game currency between players and not an actual meaningful nor impactful ---generator--- of influence.  And while general game play generates a meaningful portion of that, the famers are a strong component as well.

 

But with that said, for new players, having them focus on farming in the AE isn't always the best nor matching every person. New players who for example get power leveled in a farm but do not know how to play content with their 50 can then struggle or become discouraged once they try to join teams because they are for all intent and purpose, just still a level 1 in the understanding of the ins and outs of the game.    However, if they just want to also farm and never step foot out of the AE(hard to do for optimal farmers though but that's a different thing, and they're entirely happy to do that, then there's nothing wrong with it.

 

But if I meet a returnee or a new player, I tend to encourage them at the very least to run through teams on tf's or other missions etc to at least see and understand different game play dynamics.  Not all do mind you but that's their choice and nothing wrong with that.

 

-----

 

Again though, CoH and additionally the culture/game play specific to Homecoming(vs live or other unofficial servers), is a learning curve that doesnt appeal to everyone and often its a challenge to see new players who stick with it because of how overwhelming, even when you break it into bite size pieces for them or they do so themselves, they just dont have motivation to stay with it due to either their being influenced by other games and expectations, aesthetics, or the social dynamics (not as in toxicity but the way people interact in the game may not be their cup of tea so to speak).    It is tough.  There's no denying that else we'd have much much much higher player concurrencies that we do now(and now's not bad to be sure, Im just saying in terms of comparison to other games, even if not accurate equivalencies).

 

All in all crimson, you've managed to survive through and seem to express that you're thriving.   That said, help then others and pay it forward to help them understand the game too so that they dont succumb to the frustrations you experienced and thus quit out of discouragement.