The Old Days

[jprewitt73]

On 9/23/2023 at 1:18 PM, Faelia said:

Repeat Offenders shenanigans

 

 

Those Fire/Rad Superteams were so much fun. Both Controller and Corruptor. RO was my first experience with a villain and my Fire/Rad Corruptor was my baby for a looooong time. 

 

[ARTBUNKER]

First post here, but played COH a lot on old roomies computer. My old day memory was getting too far from your sidekick and level 5 debt. Back when there was no Hollows and Perez park was crowded. When level 14 was that level everyone had to get to to have a travel .

 

Finally, entering level 50 with debt . If you know you know guys lolol.

[ZekeStenzland]

I joined on day 3, because I was too cool to preorder like my friends.

 

As I recall, my first enhancement drop in the game, I was so excited. I couldn’t slot it, but that meant I could probably sell it in /broadcast for big bucks! It was a level 2 Intangibility TO. 
 

[Yep, Nope is right]

On 9/26/2023 at 10:50 AM, Psi-bolt said:

 

This used to drive me so nuts.  I also remember that even after they added real numbers, Statesman would occasionally make comments to the effect that people didn't really need them to play the game.   Absolutely insane.

 

That dude was just weird, even by gamer standards.

[Mjolnerd]

23 minutes ago, TheHunterJLJ said:

That dude was just weird, even by gamer standards.

This is also the guy who was surprised that people had more than a handful of Hami-O's on any given character, because what MMO player would run the same content over and over again for the best gear available at the time?

 

And apparently the rest of the dev team had to fight him about marking shops on the map because he had some weird idea about their locations being secret and spreading through the community by word of mouth. Because that's how stores work.

[biostem]

29 minutes ago, TheHunterJLJ said:

That dude was just weird, even by gamer standards.

IMO, he was like one of those GMs that did all sorts of dice rolling behind the GM screen, never really revealing what or why he was rolling them in the first place, and just expected the players to go along with it... 

[drgantz]

In the early days, there was a mission that awarded a badge.  To get this mission, you had to do a specific mission chain.  Some people would miss this chain, and then offer 900K Infl for that mission.  I would make a new toon, do that mission chain, and then wait for someone to make a chat announcement that he was offering infl for that mission. 

Then - Profit!

[FFFF]

15 hours ago, drgantz said:

In the early days, there was a mission that awarded a badge.  To get this mission, you had to do a specific mission chain.  Some people would miss this chain, and then offer 900K Infl for that mission.  I would make a new toon, do that mission chain, and then wait for someone to make a chat announcement that he was offering infl for that mission. 

Then - Profit!

 

Save the Fortune Teller (Spelunker badge). It's a badge that is necessary for the Atlas Medallion accolade. It's super easy to miss especially if you're teaming a lot on low levels. It's not so annoying anymore due to Ouro.

[srmalloy]

1 hour ago, FFFF said:

Save the Fortune Teller (Spelunker badge). It's a badge that is necessary for the Atlas Medallion accolade. It's super easy to miss especially if you're teaming a lot on low levels.

What I learned, back before Ouro, was to, as soon as I got Trevor Seaborn, Hugo Redding, or Haley Phillips as a contact, to immediately go to them and get a mission from them, abandoning it and asking again as many times as necessary for them to give me the "Rescue the Mystic from the Circle of Thorns" mission. That way, it would sit in my mission list even if I outleveled the contact, and be there to complete later, or while in the team.

[Yep, Nope is right]

On 10/1/2023 at 8:15 AM, drgantz said:

In the early days, there was a mission that awarded a badge.  To get this mission, you had to do a specific mission chain.  Some people would miss this chain, and then offer 900K Infl for that mission.  I would make a new toon, do that mission chain, and then wait for someone to make a chat announcement that he was offering infl for that mission. 

Then - Profit!

 

This highlights one of my subtle critiques of a LOT of what even the live CoH devs, the SCORE team, and even the HC devs here have changed. Often the players come up with quite viable work-arounds to even tough-to-solve problems like this. Rather than supporting or encouraging that innovation, they put in a 'fix' - thus removing agency from the players. Sure, flashbacks are perfect, and they even have a (bad) explanation in lore (time travel). Talk about both a story-telling crutch AND a way to make a complete pretzel out of what little continuity and canon there really is. <sigh>

 

"But running that mission is not worth 900k INF! Drgantz was evil for exploiting those poor people that way," I am sure someone is at least thinking. A thing is worth what someone is willing to pay, the fundamental law of economics. Ask the people who gladly forked over that INF to get that badge back in the day, guarantee they were happy as heck to make the exchange. You want the price lower? Fine, channel the entrepreneurial spirit of the noted mission contact Drgantz, get the mission on your list, then start advertising you'll run it for what you consider a fair price. Hey, developers, you coulda saved a LOT of development effort by setting up a channel for that, and advertising it in the launcher or a logon message. Encourage teaming, encourage players to active friendly COMPETITION to help each other and provide a valuable service? Gosh, seems like a helluva return for creating a chat channel and adding a few prominent notices. If more players had been actively and publicly flogging this (and other) missions for cash, the competition would have inevitably driven the price downward. 

 

Do please note, I am not, in fact, advocating against flashback. Using this as an illustrative example of a strong bias I've observed for years if not decades among development teams across the entire industry against giving the players the tools to solve issues like this as a community rather than spending untold gazillions of development hours and money adding bells and whistles to the MMO when supporting the ingenuity of the players can often yield not just a solution to the perceived issue, but lots of 'intangible' benefits. Even some aspects of MMOs I personally find quite odious COULD be made a lot more tolerable if to the greatest extent possible PLAYERS were given more tools to solve the inherent problems which arise in edge cases. Some of what I have in mind goes back to the very earliest days of online gaming, and worked at least as well as the Rube Goldberg arrangements we get now. But then the developers got it into their pointy little heads that a fancy system was better than the community working things out on their own and having the tools to do so, and here we are. <sigh>

Edited October 5, 2023 by TheHunterJLJ
added a sentence I forgot

[Snarky]

9 minutes ago, TheHunterJLJ said:

 

This highlights one of my subtle critiques of a LOT of what even the live CoH devs, the SCORE team, and even the HC devs here have changed. Often the players come up with quite viable work-arounds to even tough-to-solve problems like this. Rather than supporting or encouraging that innovation, they put in a 'fix' - thus removing agency from the players. Sure, flashbacks are perfect, and they even have a (bad) explanation in lore (time travel). Talk about both a story-telling crutch AND a way to make a complete pretzel out of what little continuity and canon there really is. <sigh>

 

"But running that mission is not worth 900k INF! Drgantz was evil for exploiting those poor people that way," I am sure someone is at least thinking. Ask the people who gladly forked over that INF to get that badge back in the day, guarantee they were happy as heck to make the exchange. You want the price lower? Fine, channel the entrepreneurial spirit of the noted mission contact Drgantz, get the mission on your list, then start advertising you'll run it for what you consider a fair price. Hey, developers, you coulda saved a LOT of development effort by setting up a channel for that, and advertising it in the launcher or a logon message. Encourage teaming, encourage players to active friendly COMPETITION to help each other and provide a valuable service? Gosh, seems like a helluva return for creating a chat channel and adding a few prominent notices. If more players had been actively and publicly flogging this (and other) missions for cash, the competition would have inevitably driven the price downward. 

 

Do please note, I am not, in fact, advocating against flashback. Using this as an illustrative example of a strong bias I've observed for years if not decades among development teams across the entire industry against giving the players the tools to solve issues like this as a community rather than spending untold gazillions of development hours and money adding bells and whistles to the MMO when supporting the ingenuity of the players can often yield not just a solution to the perceived issue, but lots of 'intangible' benefits. Even some aspects of MMOs I personally find quite odious COULD be made a lot more tolerable if to the greatest extent possible PLAYERS were given more tools to solve the inherent problems which arise in edge cases. Some of what I have in mind goes back to the very earliest days of online gaming, and worked at least as well as the Rube Goldberg arrangements we get now. But then the developers got it into their pointy little heads that a fancy system was better than the community working things out on their own and having the tools to do so, and here we are. <sigh>

okay.  Nostalgia is great, ...but....

 

On Redside we needed the location badge from each bank for the accolade power.  There were some clunky workarounds, a lot of begging, and luck involved.  (if you missed one or more)  They put in a workaround.  That we begged for, for many years.  I do not want them to take that away...so we can be "creative"

[Yep, Nope is right]

5 minutes ago, Snarky said:

okay.  Nostalgia is great, ...but....

 

On Redside we needed the location badge from each bank for the accolade power.  There were some clunky workarounds, a lot of begging, and luck involved.  (if you missed one or more)  They put in a workaround.  That we begged for, for many years.  I do not want them to take that away...so we can be "creative"

 

At this point, no, of course not. The point is there were SEVERAL viable solutions to BOTH the problems cited. Ya know, SGmates, second accounts, dual boxing, all that, and I bet I'm glossing over a half dozen other ways. Then there's the opportunity cost. What did we NOT get because of the development effort which went into Ouroboros and Flashback? Impossible to know, of course.

 

I contend we lost something else, too. Look around the forums, or on the discord, all those vets don't just talk about nostalgia, they talk about how CoH has been moving more and more toward a solo experience over the years. Part of that is because the development effort both on live and since the revival has made it more and more convenient to do EVERYTHING solo. Now, I'm an introvert, quite dubious of PUGs most of the time, and think this is absolutely GREAT for my insular curmudgeon playstyle. But I am pointing out that in an MMO which always prided itself on the strong, helpful community, continually making development choices which remove player agency in helping each other may not over the long run be a great design philosophy.

[Snarky]

16 minutes ago, TheHunterJLJ said:

 

At this point, no, of course not. The point is there were SEVERAL viable solutions to BOTH the problems cited. Ya know, SGmates, second accounts, dual boxing, all that, and I bet I'm glossing over a half dozen other ways. Then there's the opportunity cost. What did we NOT get because of the development effort which went into Ouroboros and Flashback? Impossible to know, of course.

 

I contend we lost something else, too. Look around the forums, or on the discord, all those vets don't just talk about nostalgia, they talk about how CoH has been moving more and more toward a solo experience over the years. Part of that is because the development effort both on live and since the revival has made it more and more convenient to do EVERYTHING solo. Now, I'm an introvert, quite dubious of PUGs most of the time, and think this is absolutely GREAT for my insular curmudgeon playstyle. But I am pointing out that in an MMO which always prided itself on the strong, helpful community, continually making development choices which remove player agency in helping each other may not over the long run be a great design philosophy.

CoH is an old game.  It is easy to point at ANY change and say "look, this is causing population decline.  I can prove it.  They added it and the population declined...."

[Yep, Nope is right]

2 minutes ago, Snarky said:

CoH is an old game.  It is easy to point at ANY change and say "look, this is causing population decline.  I can prove it.  They added it and the population declined...."

 

That's a different though itself interesting point. We still have a healthy population for an ancient if beloved game like this (even if it IS superior to pretty much everything built since), but the prevalent STYLE of play has from what I can see moved a lot more toward the 'unofficial solo server' Protector style I always favored outside of the big announced 'raids' and holiday events. Now, entirely possible I am seeing what I want to see, though given what I've seen lots of other people say, I don't think so. Not gonna waste either of our time arguing the point, all you have to do is scan the thread titles in the forums to see lots of talk about these sorts of observations and concerns.

 

Like a lot of topics I address, this is a bigger issue even than CoH. I know for a fact certain there are developers in other MMOs playing, volunteering, and even reading these forums. So a little constructive critique might perchance go a long way. Though I also know from long discussions with developers of my acquaintance just how often their hands are tied by the people above them. Among other things, I'm still in touch with a couple of people I played with in CoH and other games who now work in the MMO world. Big corporations have their own problems, far beyond the scope of any discussion worth pursuing on a gaming forum. <shrug> I worked for a series of them for 34 years, and got the scars and t-shirts to prove it.

[CFIndustries]

City of Villains Beta Event where devs played their signature heroes invading the Isles…and got their backsides handed to them. 🙂

 

Trees that suddenly came alive! It was an outdoor setting and didn't know those DE mobs could do that since they don't con from afar. Serious "oh sh*t!" moment.

 

Figuring out safe routes to run through the Hollows with Sprint and not get wiped by purple mobs.

 

"Run down the middle of the street" as the pro tip for lowbies in Steel.

 

Joining a PI team on a lowbie before the "SK bumps your levels" thing…death runs through the streets of PI from the ferry to Portal Corp. 😜

 

EEK! Nazi werewolves!?!

 

Hating Skyway with a passion without a travel power.

[Crysis]

On 9/10/2023 at 1:27 PM, A Cat said:

Yeah, I remember street sweeping for low level magic salvaged back in the day. Did that a bit on HC when I first started before I figured out everything changed.

 

I once took a Fire/NRG blaster all the way to 50 (pre-Incarnate days) in a 48 hour marathon ONLY street sweeping.  Back then (I3 or so) Blasters were pretty fragile.  It was a forum dare I think where someone kept saying Blasters needed huge help to survive. Of course, the secret for street sweeping always was/has been you can choose your own targets, those that are weak to your attacks while not throwing out status attacks of their own.

 

Was fun though.  My eyes hurt after that marathon though.

[High_Beam]

On 10/5/2023 at 6:33 AM, Snarky said:

okay.  Nostalgia is great, ...but....

 

On Redside we needed the location badge from each bank for the accolade power.  There were some clunky workarounds, a lot of begging, and luck involved.  (if you missed one or more)  They put in a workaround.  That we begged for, for many years.  I do not want them to take that away...so we can be "creative"

Villains don't get to have nice things 🙂

[Azari]

I miss the original Rikti designs. I think their faces looked much better.

 

I wonder if it is possible to set up an old school COH server, that recreates the feel of classic early issues.

Edited October 9, 2023 by Azari

[MoonSheep]

On 9/28/2023 at 9:06 PM, ZekeStenzland said:

As I recall, my first enhancement drop in the game, I was so excited. I couldn’t slot it, but that meant I could probably sell it in /broadcast for big bucks! It was a level 2 Intangibility TO. 
 

 

what a memory - makes me think of when a +2 damage DO dropped around lvl 12 ish on my first character, a blaster. looking at those precious green numbers on the enhancement i remember thinking damn, slotting this is going to be a game changer

[rolandgrey]

To Hell with the Old Days.

 

Without being able to Email items between our characters, we wound up with a pile of junk we couldn't use on each character.  That junk then gets cast into the market, where people have gamed it to the point of trivialty.  Unless you got a "moneymaker" piece, there's no point in putting it on the market.

 

Without IOs and IO sets, there WERE such things as "Bad Builds."  Cripes, a Martial Arts/Super Reflexes Scrapper?  In the days of JUST Single Origin Enhancements?  One Dragon Tail and there went half your endurance...  Good luck fighting the Malta Group or the Carnival of Shadows without sucking wind!

 

Before Super Sidekicking, you wound up with two things.  One, a team leader who had to find just the right mix of teammates so that everybody was getting rewards; and if they were unlucky, they were told to keep the "bridge" teammates five levels below them so the other sidekicks could get maximum rewards from enemies six levels higher.  That brings me to the next part, where once you hit level 45, like almost the SECOND you did, you were BOMBARDED with Tells from team leaders desperately trying to fill those teams with bridges.  So, get ready for five levels of not actually playing your character, because the Fire/Spines player is going to kill everything while you sit and twiddle your thumbs.

 

Before Ouroboros, content missed was content never seen again on that character.  Content played and enjoyed was still never seen again on that character.  Maybe you could get Exemplared down, but that ran into the exact same problem from before Super Sidekicking.

 

Before, before, before, it doesn't matter what the topic, THE PLAYERS DIDN'T LIKE HOW IT WAS.  We BEGGED for the ability Email items to each other.  We BEGGED for a better teaming system.  We BEGGED for a way to explore old or missed content.  WE THE PLAYERS demanded these improvements to the quality of life in this game.  Sorry to all of you scavengers of human misery who got outvoted, but the game is MORE FUN THIS WAY.  Hell, even the much maligned Enhancement Diversification was necessary, because you were left with utterly BORING builds ("Ope, no reason to slot anything but Damage and Defense!  Just like all my other characters...").

 

You want difficult?  You want miserable?  You want to be forced to play a game in as clunky a manner as possible?  Go play Tarkov.  Go play Marauders.  Go play Dwarf Fortress.  Hell, go play Champions Online, it's still clunky and crinkly after all these years, lacking all the things you're whining about. 

 

Then, when you remember why you stopped playing those games in the first place, because after all the lessons learned by the Paragon Devs were never implemented by anybody else, that after all these years, game companies are STILL just turning their games into Inverse Skinner Boxes (that stab you when you don't do what they want, which is pay them more money), when you're tired of your entertainment turning into work because it's Raid Night and you need to be in top form because the Guild Brass needs their shiny pauldrons for 2% more damage reduction (Maybe this time they'll recognize your efforts and give you full Guild priveleges...  But don't you DARE roll Need, you f*cking scrub!  That's grounds for getting kicked out!)...  When you're tired of all of this crap...

 

Welcome back to City of Heroes, where players can be wacky and weird!  Welcome back to City of heroes, where there's no "right" way to play.  Welcome back to City of Heroes, where the last years of the game's development were focused on improving the Fun factor, not figuring out how to fleece more money from our wallets.  Welcome back to City of Heroes, where the Homecoming Crew is figuring out how to eke out even more story from the zombie setting, and we get the thrill of discovery again.

 

I will never understand anybody who fetishizes "The Good Old Days."  There's no such thing.  EVERYTHING can be improved upon, and you shouldn't hate those improvements just because people are having fun without being forced to deal with you.

Edited October 11, 2023 by rolandgrey

[Snarky]

30 minutes ago, rolandgrey said:

To Hell with the Old Days.

 

Without being able to Email items between our characters, we wound up with a pile of junk we couldn't use on each character.  That junk then gets cast into the market, where people have gamed it to the point of trivialty.  Unless you got a "moneymaker" piece, there's no point in putting it on the market.

 

Without IOs and IO sets, there WERE such things as "Bad Builds."  Cripes, a Martial Arts/Super Reflexes Scrapper?  In the days of JUST Single Origin Enhancements?  One Dragon Tail and there went half your endurance...  Good luck fighting the Malta Group or the Carnival of Shadows without sucking wind!

 

Before Super Sidekicking, you wound up with two things.  One, a team leader who had to find just the right mix of teammates so that everybody was getting rewards; and if they were unlucky, they were told to keep the "bridge" teammates five levels below them so the other sidekicks could get maximum rewards from enemies six levels higher.  That brings me to the next part, where once you hit level 45, like almost the SECOND you did, you were BOMBARDED with Tells from team leaders desperately trying to fill those teams with bridges.  So, get ready for five levels of not actually playing your character, because the Fire/Spines player is going to kill everything while you sit and twiddle your thumbs.

 

Before Ouroboros, content missed was content never seen again on that character.  Content played and enjoyed was still never seen again on that character.  Maybe you could get Exemplared down, but that ran into the exact same problem from before Super Sidekicking.

 

Before, before, before, it doesn't matter what the topic, THE PLAYERS DIDN'T LIKE HOW IT WAS.  We BEGGED for the ability Email items to each other.  We BEGGED for a better teaming system.  We BEGGED for a way to explore old or missed content.  WE THE PLAYERS demanded these improvements to the quality of life in this game.  Sorry to all of you scavengers of human misery who got outvoted, but the game is MORE FUN THIS WAY.  Hell, even the much maligned Enhancement Diversification was necessary, because you were left with utterly BORING builds ("Ope, no reason to slot anything but Damage and Defense!  Just like all my other characters...").

 

You want difficult?  You wand miserable?  You want to be forced to play a game in as clunky a manner as possible?  Go play Tarkov.  Go play Marauders.  Go play Dwarf Fortress.  Hell, go play Champions Online, it's still clunky and crinkly after all these years, lacking all the things you're whining about. 

 

Then, when you remember why you stopped playing those games in the first place, because after all the lessons learned by the Paragon Devs were never implemented by anybody else, that after all these years, game companies are STILL just turning their games into Inverse Skinner Boxes (that stab you when you don't do what they want, which is pay them more money), when you're tired of your entertainment turning into work because it's Raid Night and you need to be in top form because the Guild Brass needs their shiny pauldrons for 2% more damage reduction (Maybe this time they'll recognize your efforts and give you full Guild priveleges...  But don't you DARE roll Need, you f*cking scrub!  That's grounds for getting kicked out!)...  When you're tired of all of this crap...

 

Welcome back to City of Heroes, where players can be wacky and weird!  Welcome back to City of heroes, where there's no "right" way to play.  Welcome back to City of Heroes, where the last years of the game's development were focused on improving the Fun factor, not figuring out how to fleece more money from our wallets.  Welcome back to City of Heroes, where the Homecoming Crew is figuring out how to eke out even more story from the zombie setting, and we get the thrill of discovery again.

 

I will never understand anybody who fetishizes "The Good Old Days."  There's no such thing.  EVERYTHING can be improved upon, and you shouldn't hate those improvements just because people are having fun without being forced to deal with you.

[Mjolnerd]

32 minutes ago, rolandgrey said:

To Hell with the Old Days.

And so on....

Well, that was... not entirely incorrect, but certainly needlessly hostile.

 

I don't think I've seen anyone in this thread "whining" or calling for any of the changes made in the game's lifespan to be rolled back, just reminiscing. "Hey, remember this thing?" "Oh, yeah, haha, I do remember that thing!"

 

Yes, things are better now than they used to be. Yes, there's always room for improvement. But seriously, dude: chill the eff out.

[Ghost]

1 hour ago, rolandgrey said:

To Hell with the Old Days.

 

Without being able to Email items between our characters, we wound up with a pile of junk we couldn't use on each character.  That junk then gets cast into the market, where people have gamed it to the point of trivialty.  Unless you got a "moneymaker" piece, there's no point in putting it on the market.

 

Without IOs and IO sets, there WERE such things as "Bad Builds."  Cripes, a Martial Arts/Super Reflexes Scrapper?  In the days of JUST Single Origin Enhancements?  One Dragon Tail and there went half your endurance...  Good luck fighting the Malta Group or the Carnival of Shadows without sucking wind!

 

Before Super Sidekicking, you wound up with two things.  One, a team leader who had to find just the right mix of teammates so that everybody was getting rewards; and if they were unlucky, they were told to keep the "bridge" teammates five levels below them so the other sidekicks could get maximum rewards from enemies six levels higher.  That brings me to the next part, where once you hit level 45, like almost the SECOND you did, you were BOMBARDED with Tells from team leaders desperately trying to fill those teams with bridges.  So, get ready for five levels of not actually playing your character, because the Fire/Spines player is going to kill everything while you sit and twiddle your thumbs.

 

Before Ouroboros, content missed was content never seen again on that character.  Content played and enjoyed was still never seen again on that character.  Maybe you could get Exemplared down, but that ran into the exact same problem from before Super Sidekicking.

 

Before, before, before, it doesn't matter what the topic, THE PLAYERS DIDN'T LIKE HOW IT WAS.  We BEGGED for the ability Email items to each other.  We BEGGED for a better teaming system.  We BEGGED for a way to explore old or missed content.  WE THE PLAYERS demanded these improvements to the quality of life in this game.  Sorry to all of you scavengers of human misery who got outvoted, but the game is MORE FUN THIS WAY.  Hell, even the much maligned Enhancement Diversification was necessary, because you were left with utterly BORING builds ("Ope, no reason to slot anything but Damage and Defense!  Just like all my other characters...").

 

You want difficult?  You wand miserable?  You want to be forced to play a game in as clunky a manner as possible?  Go play Tarkov.  Go play Marauders.  Go play Dwarf Fortress.  Hell, go play Champions Online, it's still clunky and crinkly after all these years, lacking all the things you're whining about. 

 

Then, when you remember why you stopped playing those games in the first place, because after all the lessons learned by the Paragon Devs were never implemented by anybody else, that after all these years, game companies are STILL just turning their games into Inverse Skinner Boxes (that stab you when you don't do what they want, which is pay them more money), when you're tired of your entertainment turning into work because it's Raid Night and you need to be in top form because the Guild Brass needs their shiny pauldrons for 2% more damage reduction (Maybe this time they'll recognize your efforts and give you full Guild priveleges...  But don't you DARE roll Need, you f*cking scrub!  That's grounds for getting kicked out!)...  When you're tired of all of this crap...

 

Welcome back to City of Heroes, where players can be wacky and weird!  Welcome back to City of heroes, where there's no "right" way to play.  Welcome back to City of Heroes, where the last years of the game's development were focused on improving the Fun factor, not figuring out how to fleece more money from our wallets.  Welcome back to City of Heroes, where the Homecoming Crew is figuring out how to eke out even more story from the zombie setting, and we get the thrill of discovery again.

 

I will never understand anybody who fetishizes "The Good Old Days."  There's no such thing.  EVERYTHING can be improved upon, and you shouldn't hate those improvements just because people are having fun without being forced to deal with you.

[MoonSheep]

5 hours ago, rolandgrey said:

To Hell with the Old Days.

 

Without being able to Email items between our characters, we wound up with a pile of junk we couldn't use on each character.  That junk then gets cast into the market, where people have gamed it to the point of trivialty.  Unless you got a "moneymaker" piece, there's no point in putting it on the market.

 

Without IOs and IO sets, there WERE such things as "Bad Builds."  Cripes, a Martial Arts/Super Reflexes Scrapper?  In the days of JUST Single Origin Enhancements?  One Dragon Tail and there went half your endurance...  Good luck fighting the Malta Group or the Carnival of Shadows without sucking wind!

 

Before Super Sidekicking, you wound up with two things.  One, a team leader who had to find just the right mix of teammates so that everybody was getting rewards; and if they were unlucky, they were told to keep the "bridge" teammates five levels below them so the other sidekicks could get maximum rewards from enemies six levels higher.  That brings me to the next part, where once you hit level 45, like almost the SECOND you did, you were BOMBARDED with Tells from team leaders desperately trying to fill those teams with bridges.  So, get ready for five levels of not actually playing your character, because the Fire/Spines player is going to kill everything while you sit and twiddle your thumbs.

 

Before Ouroboros, content missed was content never seen again on that character.  Content played and enjoyed was still never seen again on that character.  Maybe you could get Exemplared down, but that ran into the exact same problem from before Super Sidekicking.

 

Before, before, before, it doesn't matter what the topic, THE PLAYERS DIDN'T LIKE HOW IT WAS.  We BEGGED for the ability Email items to each other.  We BEGGED for a better teaming system.  We BEGGED for a way to explore old or missed content.  WE THE PLAYERS demanded these improvements to the quality of life in this game.  Sorry to all of you scavengers of human misery who got outvoted, but the game is MORE FUN THIS WAY.  Hell, even the much maligned Enhancement Diversification was necessary, because you were left with utterly BORING builds ("Ope, no reason to slot anything but Damage and Defense!  Just like all my other characters...").

 

You want difficult?  You wand miserable?  You want to be forced to play a game in as clunky a manner as possible?  Go play Tarkov.  Go play Marauders.  Go play Dwarf Fortress.  Hell, go play Champions Online, it's still clunky and crinkly after all these years, lacking all the things you're whining about. 

 

Then, when you remember why you stopped playing those games in the first place, because after all the lessons learned by the Paragon Devs were never implemented by anybody else, that after all these years, game companies are STILL just turning their games into Inverse Skinner Boxes (that stab you when you don't do what they want, which is pay them more money), when you're tired of your entertainment turning into work because it's Raid Night and you need to be in top form because the Guild Brass needs their shiny pauldrons for 2% more damage reduction (Maybe this time they'll recognize your efforts and give you full Guild priveleges...  But don't you DARE roll Need, you f*cking scrub!  That's grounds for getting kicked out!)...  When you're tired of all of this crap...

 

Welcome back to City of Heroes, where players can be wacky and weird!  Welcome back to City of heroes, where there's no "right" way to play.  Welcome back to City of Heroes, where the last years of the game's development were focused on improving the Fun factor, not figuring out how to fleece more money from our wallets.  Welcome back to City of Heroes, where the Homecoming Crew is figuring out how to eke out even more story from the zombie setting, and we get the thrill of discovery again.

 

I will never understand anybody who fetishizes "The Good Old Days."  There's no such thing.  EVERYTHING can be improved upon, and you shouldn't hate those improvements just because people are having fun without being forced to deal with you.

 

i appreciate your detailed response but i disagree with your views

 

gradual progression is what makes an MMO fun in my view. even during the early issues things would be challenging or perhaps slow, but rarely impossible

 

to me, what the early issues encouraged was team play and cooperation. modern day City of Heroes is City of Me Me Me

[PLVRIZR]

Trying to find a "trustworthy" player to transfer infl. between toons.

Making all Mutant origin toons because the Mutant store was close to the Steel tram and hitting lvl 12 and racing there (without dying) to load up on DOs.

FINALLY hitting 14 and getting a,...wait for it...TRAVEL POWER!!!

Very first time my Kin/Dark 'fender teamed with a SS tank, over level 18 and watch the windup of Knockout Blow.  Amazing!

Getting that same 'fender to 50, by teaming with a Stone tank on the Chimera ninja map and speed boosting that granite/SS pile driver to herd half the map at a time.  I think I went from 42 - 50 in about two hours.

Turning off all powers and jogging back to Ms. Liberty, to train, after dinging 50, regardless of where you were.  Usually Peregrine Island...