Your play style: what's different 20 years on?

[Jimpy]

My style back then was run in there and whomp on the enemy and it still is now, I'm not subtle.

[Andreah]

In the beginning, I mainly played scrappers and stalkers and mostly soloed. Now, It's mainly support and tankers, and I almost exclusively team.

[Chompie]

I didn't join until somewhere between IOs and the Real Numbers update, but a surprising amount of how I play is still the same!

 

The big difference is in what sorta missions I go for- back in the day I was ravenously eating up radio missions any day of the week. If someone broadcast a radio/newspaper/whatever mission team, I was there.

Those are quite a lot more rare now, and I'm finding myself playing storylines solo instead! It's been fun bouncing between them and pointing at the screen going "oh this one must have been from the Going Rogue era! Oh this one is ancient! Oh this one has tech they added around when Villains were added!"

 

I suppose I also favor different archetypes now. I used to avoid Stalkers (just couldn't get into them) and Corruptors (I didn't want to play a 'worse defender'). Now I find both of em delightful, but I play less Tankers and basically zero Brutes. Hell, Corruptor might be my most-common AT on homecoming!

 

Soooo many other things are the same as they always were. I still hop around like a ninny any time I'm not actively doing something else. I still try to cheekily grab a pack of enemies when the whole team's not there yet. I still love combat jumping and superspeed. I still do barely any task forces. I still can't get into Controllers. I still write every character like an elaborate joke. And I still love this darn game.

[Coyotedancer]

I'm still a "serial altist", who finishes one character before moving on to the next. I'm still more interested in very solid, generalist builds than in full-on Min/Maxed Nightmares. I still love Stalkers. I'm still a /Willpower fan-girl. I still solo Zen-farm for fun... My preferences and the way that I handle playing the game itself haven't really changed, in other words.

 

It's really only the way that I interact with other players that's definitely different...

 

Once upon a time, back in the game's retail days, I did a fair few TFs/SFs with the Ouphs and the Liberty badgers. I cat-herded iTrials, and attended a lot of Rikti ship raids and Hami jello-fests. I was a good little teamer... Even in Homecoming's first year or so, I still did some of that. 'Led PI smash-team runs, PUGed with the role-players and generally tried to be social. When that first group of players started to wander away, and I finally figured out that "serious" City role-play just isn't My Thing, I took to PUGing pretty often. I even built a small collection of Defenders designed specifically to help out with mid-level teams, where support is still actually useful and desirable. I had some good fun with that.

 

At some point along the way, though, people began grumping very loudly about how exemped-50s running with lower-level teams was always BADWRONG and "ruining their fun". They claimed to absolutely hate the practice... So, I mostly shelved those Defenders. I was already running solo with other characters, so it's not like they were all I had to tinker with.

 

These days I'm still almost exclusively a solo or duo player, running alone or with Mr. Coyote. The only exception is when I'm running small-team with the Wolfepack. (The family SG made up of myself, Mr. Coyote, two of our nephews and their mom-) I don't PUG. I don't do ship raids, or Hami or iTrials. As far as "public" teaming goes, I basically don't exist. I don't see that changing in the future, no matter how team-focused the Homecoming devs may want to make the game.  I just don't have the patience or the desire to deal with "The Community", I guess... At least not in-game, when the Fire Blasts, Ion Judgements and Meteors start flying.  🤣