CoH difficulty

[Seed22]

Hey there forum folk. I was talking in a discord subthread about CoH and it’s difficulty or perceived difficulty and I’m interested to hear what your thoughts are on the matter.

 

Do you all find CoH difficult? Why or why not? What aspects, if any, do you think are difficult even if you’re a vet of the game or as a new player? Where in difficulty does CoH rank for you in your list of games that play?
 

I want to know all the things! Please feel free to elaborate on these talking points and add some others in.

[Lunar Ronin]

I've been playing City of Heroes off and on for 19 years.

 

Blue side City of Heroes is about as difficult as opening a box of Cheerios.

 

Red side is slightly more difficult.

 

Gold side can actually be a bit challenging, depending on AT and power sets.  Soloing gold side on a Mastermind isn't exactly a walk in the park.

 

Advanced mode isn't difficult either.  Not even 4*.  You just need to have a decent build (note: decent, not meta), and the ability to pay attention.  That's it.  I don't have much to compare it to other MMORPG wise as I don't play many, (most are medieval fantasy and I just find the genre dull as dirt).

 

Here's the thing: Most people don't play City of Heroes for challenge.  I think you know that, and I think that most others know that.  I'm a loner, so I realize that this is a bit of a parodox: I play City of Heroes for both the super-powered fantasy, and for the social aspect.  If I want a challenge in City of Heroes, I play gold side.  One of the main reasons that I don't play blue side is because, yeah, it's too easy.

 

This is just IMO, but as someone who has done and led advanced modes but no longer does so: It doesn't help that people have turned advanced modes into a meta build e-peen competition.  It makes more casual players think that the advanced modes are more difficult than they actually are.  Heck, some of those meta build e-peen competitors think that advanced modes are really difficult, which is just amusing.

 

But I digress.

[Monty Haull]

There are other games out there?   CoH is all there is.

Seriously though, it's the only game I play.

 

As for difficulty it's not a hard game to play but, it's a hard game to master.  The complexities of IOs, set bonuses, salvage, auction house, and incarnates can be overwhelming.  When you add in all the things I didn't mention it can be daunting.  

 

I still find myself learning new things about CoH.  It is truly a great game.

 

[FFFF]

The game play is not what’s difficult. It’s all the stuff that’s not apparently obvious or somewhat poorly documented. 
 

I had my kiddo start to play, and there’s a number of things which seem intuitive but aren’t necessarily obvious. Things like having to slide an enhancement into a slot or that origin is flavor text and really doesn’t affect character performance. I had a new player ask me if teleport powers were common because while he had fly, people were zipping around with assemble the team, Ouro portals, base teleportation. There is a lot of mechanical depth in this game which isn’t explained very well. Let alone whole complex subsystems like Inventions, the Morality systems, Incarnates, AE, and power differences in PvP. 
 

It seems simple to us but many of us have been used to these things for years. Other games also have similar issues. I saw a video from Day9, a fairly known old school pro gamer and streamer, and he found retail WoW overwhelming. 

Edited September 8 by FFFF

[Snarky]

Drugs are bad, m’kay?

 

the game, at this point, is nearly entirely choosable in difficulty level. From boring to 4 star content.  

[GM Crumpet]

10 minutes ago, FFFF said:

The game play is not what’s difficult. It’s all the stuff that’s not apparently obvious or somewhat poorly documented. 
 

I had my kiddo start to play, and there’s a number of things which seem intuitive but aren’t necessarily obvious. Things like having to slide an enhancement into a slot or that origin is flavor text and really doesn’t affect character performance. I had a new player ask me if teleport powers were common because while he had fly, people were zipping around with assemble the team, Ouro portals, base teleportation. There is a lot of mechanical depth in this game which isn’t explained very well. Let alone whole complex subsystems like Inventions, the Morality systems, Incarnates, AE, and power differences in PvP. 
 

It seems simple to us but many of us have been used to these things for years. Other games also have similar issues. I saw a video from Day9, a fairly known old school pro gamer and streamer, and he found retail WoW overwhelming. 

I think that's a problem in all long running MMO's. New mechanics are added, new currencies, new anything really. Try World of Walking from 10 years ago to now for instance. Every update makes changes and it's not that friendly to total newbies. Stuff added to make players lives easier can appear complicated if you haven't been introduced to them gradually.

[JKCarrier]

I generally run solo, on the lowest difficulty. At that setting, most of the game is pretty easy, but Elite Bosses are a challenge when they turn up. At any setting higher than that, the game starts to get overwhelming, and EBs become impossible.

 

Task Forces, Strike Forces, and Incarnate Trials are generally too difficult for my tastes on any setting. If I try to solo them, I usually can't. If I'm teaming, I'm mostly scrambling to keep up and dying a lot.

[Snarky]

6 hours ago, JKCarrier said:

I generally run solo, on the lowest difficulty. At that setting, most of the game is pretty easy, but Elite Bosses are a challenge when they turn up. At any setting higher than that, the game starts to get overwhelming, and EBs become impossible.

 

Task Forces, Strike Forces, and Incarnate Trials are generally too difficult for my tastes on any setting. If I try to solo them, I usually can't. If I'm teaming, I'm mostly scrambling to keep up and dying a lot.

The simple key to this might be…. run them more.   Hear me out.  
 

The first times you do anything is the hardest.  Then things get easier.  Knowing the maps, the fights, the pacing of the TF is a matter if practice.  The Dr Aeon for me was a nightmare until i ran it 15+ times.  

[Luminara]

There is an inherent difficulty in the game, but how it's exposed is dependent on the player.  I think the dominator archetype is the best representative of this.

 

If you're playing with SOs, saving Domination for "big" fights, and focusing on concept over combat efficiency, it's in the combat that the player feels the difficulty.

 

If you're building the way most players appear to (based on posted builds and advice), you're juggling Hasten and Domination, plus Ageless or Barrier, following build patterns and selections according to "common wisdom", then it's the act of playing the character where the player feels the difficulty because it's a lot of extra effort to keep that character rolling.

 

If you're building for perma-Domination without Hasten, piling up damage mitigation so you don't need Barrier, squeezing every bit of performance out of IO sets, then the difficulty is in building the character to work that way.

 

Each approach represents a comparable investment of time and energy.  In the first case, the player's time and energy are spent almost exclusively in the act of defeating enemies.  In the second, the player is capable of defeating enemies more easily, or tougher foes, but the time and energy not spent on enemies is instead spent on maintaining the character.  In the third, the player is spending almost all of his/her time and energy overcoming build restrictions beforehand, so there's no build maintenance required, and only as much effort defeating enemies as the second case.

[Ukase]

I've mentioned this before. As games go - other than Chess and Risk, this is really the only game I've ever played against/with other people (on a computer). 
That inexperience with other games - WoW, SWTO, Guild Wars, LotRO, etc - it can reveal itself when people use terms like "Quest" instead of "Mission". 
Or, "Dungeon". And my favorite, "enchantments", when they refer to enhancements. 

CoH can be as hard as you want to make it. But, in some circumstances, you can't make it super easy. The Labyrinth is a great example. I do not believe that it is possible to solo the Minotaur in the Labyrinth. You could probably try - with a league of players buffing you while you're solo, but that wouldn't really be solo. You could have the best made AT, and I just don't think it's going to happen. Not without some bug, like an apprentice charm doing some ungodly damage or locking the minotaur in place like a malevolent fog. 


If I want to make things hard on myself - I don't make the npcs more difficult. I make my character weaker. Occasionally, I might do both, but that's fairly uncommon. 
I did a "drop challenge" with a number of characters where I can't use the AH, I can't use a merit vendor, all I can slot is what drops. If I get some converters that drop, I can use those, but I can't exchange merits for boosters or catalysts or anything. 

And let me tell you - it's possible to get to 50 without being defeated, but it's really tedious. The only time I get excited is when an end mod enhancement or recipe drops. Those are more rare than very rares! 

The hardest part of CoH is not in the playing of the character. It's in the understanding of the terminology and the methods of outfitting your character, and understanding the non-combat parts of the game. The combat is super easy. You mash the buttons until they're dead or you're dead. 

It's the rest of it that makes the game interesting to me. I don't care about XP. I don't care about challenging encounters. I enjoy more of the management of the character and the resources. What to do with the salvage - stash/hoard vs sell/vendor. Craft/convert? Craft/Stash? 
Do I actually play this character to 50? Or table it until they change kinetic melee to be something worthwhile? Or just delete it? 

It's all the other things - not combat - that makes the game hard. 
 

Do I explain to people that mention global channels I should join that I have 4 accounts? That some accounts may or may not be afk-farming, and I'm actively playing on one? Do I join someone else's SG just because it seems to be the largest? And these guys can't ever seem to fill their teams, as large as they are? And your alts can't communicate with the SG unless they also join the SG? Which would make my own storage SG kind of useless and difficult to use? 

All that interplay between me and other players makes the game super hard for me. On one level, I really need these folks for GM kills and iTrials and some TFs. And on another level, they really slow things down with their wanting to kill everything. And that bunch of speeders always make me feel inadequate with their instant load times and ability to teleport through walls. (which was explained to me how to do this - but that's too much for my clumsy fingers) 

The people are the best and worst parts of the game. They make it super easy or super hard. 


As alluded to by Monty, playing is easy. Playing well or mastering it (which I really haven't, despite having all the badges) is very time-consuming and difficult, in my opinion. 
Nothing is so difficult that any one thing couldn't be done when properly explained. But by mastery, I refer to knowing when to use ouro to exit a map to make things more efficient, as opposed to hitting the exit button and seeing what the next objective is. Knowing to not use your TT because the next mission is a chat, not a mission door. 

Knowing not to use 7 lotg 7.5% because of the rule of 5. Knowing not to use 5 purple sets and your superior ATOs because of the same rule of 5. 
All of that stuff is a lot harder than button mashing and positioning of your character in a challenging fight. 

[MoonSheep]

forum PvP is the hardest part of CoH, the turn based combat element of the game

[Seed22]

10 hours ago, Lunar Ronin said:

don't have much to compare it to other MMORPG wise as I don't play many, (most are medieval fantasy and I just find the genre dull as dirt).

I should of added it doesn’t have to just be MMOs. Any and all games you currently play are fair game for comparison! 

[kelika2]

I personally do not play MMOs for the difficulty.  Adding something new is risky because while you might think jumping through multiple hoops is fun, it also will become tedious if done daily.  Which MMOs are known to do.

 

I personally hard quit FF14 because they were getting way way way too mechanic and one-shot heavy with content past the third alliance raid in Stormblood.  It got worse after that.

I deleted my WoW account in the time travel xpac because there was too much focus on having a main character and sticking with it.  the grind for the legendary ring thing was brutal.  as someone who had 10 or 11 active alts that stopped in.. dunder or something.  iron horde.  the thing after MoP.

 

Please stop adding incoming crowd control enemies, please knock it off with self rezzing enemies, please stop with extreme high acc or defense debuffing enemies

[JKCarrier]

4 hours ago, Snarky said:

The simple key to this might be…. run them more.   Hear me out.  
 

The first times you do anything is the hardest.  Then things get easier.  Knowing the maps, the fights, the pacing of the TF is a matter if practice.  The Dr Aeon for me was a nightmare until i ran it 15+ times.  

Sure, but in the meantime, I feel like I'm ruining other players' fun. A couple weeks back, I got a tell asking me to join a Ms. Liberty TF. I thought, "Gee, if this guy is so desperate for teammates that he's pinging random people on the server, I guess I'll be a good neighbor and help out". But I wasn't much help. I think I died 4 or 5 times just from Thorn Vines, never mind the rest of it. We eventually made it through, but one of the other players commented, "Well that was the hardest 38 merits I ever earned," and I couldn't help but feel that was aimed right at me. Not a great feeling.

[Snarky]

2 hours ago, JKCarrier said:

Sure, but in the meantime, I feel like I'm ruining other players' fun. A couple weeks back, I got a tell asking me to join a Ms. Liberty TF. I thought, "Gee, if this guy is so desperate for teammates that he's pinging random people on the server, I guess I'll be a good neighbor and help out". But I wasn't much help. I think I died 4 or 5 times just from Thorn Vines, never mind the rest of it. We eventually made it through, but one of the other players commented, "Well that was the hardest 38 merits I ever earned," and I couldn't help but feel that was aimed right at me. Not a great feeling.

Yes. Yes indeed.  My first 10-15 times through Aeon I felt carried.  And i was.  Even when i was “helping” it was usually where the job did not even need to be done.  It is an extremely goal specific strike force.  But now i am of help when i run it.  And i do not mind if people are carried on my team.  Its a big circle. 

[Spaghetti Betty]

I personally wouldn't say CoH at a base level is anywhere approaching difficult. I would call it "deceptively unintuitive". It's very easy to target bad guys and click powers, but the game is so much more than that! There are so many systems and nuances to learn, that it really just the gift that keeps on giving for nerds!

 

I'm used to playing games with high APM. I've raided back in the olden days of WoW. Some of my other favorite games are Dark Souls, Devil May Cry, and Tekken. CoH, even at its highest level, doesn't really come close to that level of intensity . But that's why I like it! The game is what you make of it.

 

It's easy to forget that some of us have the upper hand by being years old vets. This game isn't very hard to learn, but it is challenging to understand!

[MoonSheep]

2 hours ago, JKCarrier said:

Sure, but in the meantime, I feel like I'm ruining other players' fun. A couple weeks back, I got a tell asking me to join a Ms. Liberty TF. I thought, "Gee, if this guy is so desperate for teammates that he's pinging random people on the server, I guess I'll be a good neighbor and help out". But I wasn't much help. I think I died 4 or 5 times just from Thorn Vines, never mind the rest of it. We eventually made it through, but one of the other players commented, "Well that was the hardest 38 merits I ever earned," and I couldn't help but feel that was aimed right at me. Not a great feeling.

 

if it was a full team of 8, one person wouldn’t impact the speed of the run

 

3 players lagging behind are unlikely to impact the duration if the other 5 players are experienced and fully slotted

 

i wouldn’t worry about it mate. a good team knows how to make the best use of everyone onboard. even if that means sometimes letting people die for a nice vengeance buff

[Triumphant]

I think difficulty depends a lot on the skill level and (even more importantly) experience of the player.  At base difficulty level, this game is pretty straightforward and easy to succeed in.  It gets tougher as you ratchet up the difficulty setting.  I consider myself a middle of the road player, skill-wise.  Adequate, but not great.  I've played the game obsessively since 2019, so I have a good amount of experience learning the ins and outs of combat.  A lot of the difficulty for me, depends upon the AT and powersets that I'm running.  A well built hard-combat AT, I can run at +4/8 once I hit lvl 50.  More squishy toons, like controllers or what not, I struggle more and maybe only run at +3/8 or even +3/6.  I've never been able to figure out a build that can successfully solo arch-villains or knock down pylons.  That's okay.  I'm happy to team up with folks to take on the Arch-Villains.

 

Anyway, what is difficult is quite subjective to the individual.  The above is just my experience.

[WuTang]

On 9/7/2024 at 10:30 PM, Seed22 said:

Hey there forum folk. I was talking in a discord subthread about CoH and it’s difficulty or perceived difficulty and I’m interested to hear what your thoughts are on the matter.

 

Do you all find CoH difficult? Why or why not? What aspects, if any, do you think are difficult even if you’re a vet of the game or as a new player? Where in difficulty does CoH rank for you in your list of games that play?
 

I want to know all the things! Please feel free to elaborate on these talking points and add some others in.

Let me use some bro-science to explain...

 

In the gym, there are certain machines where you can change the angle of the lift slightly to gain a small advantage or spot yourself if needed, this can be seen as "making it easier." But, if you have added more weight to increase the resistance then it's not really easier, even if it may appear so to onlookers.

 

This game can be as challenging as anyone wants to make it, but it also can be super easy. One of the many facets that I like about CoH.

[Neuronia]

The game is largely point and click and shoot so that's not too hard.
The most daunting part is the enhancement system; when I started my namesake Mind/Bubbler ages ago, I slotted one of each of the allowed enhancement types in my Dominate power and wondered why I wasn't defeating anything. It gets even more arcane with Invention Origin set bonuses, but thankfully there are a ton of good people around to help out.

 

If you are starting I recommend just having a concept and rolling with it. You have a ton of slots so if you don't like it, try again!

Contact me @Neuronia ingame if you need any help.

[Psyonico]

I think people are mixing up difficulty with complexity.

 

With very few exceptions, the game is not difficult.  However, systems like IOs, set bonuses, incarnates, etc. Make the game complex.

[Seed22]

27 minutes ago, Neuronia said:

The game is largely point and click and shoot so that's not too hard.
The most daunting part is the enhancement system; when I started my namesake Mind/Bubbler ages ago, I slotted one of each of the allowed enhancement types in my Dominate power and wondered why I wasn't defeating anything. It gets even more arcane with Invention Origin set bonuses, but thankfully there are a ton of good people around to help out.

 

If you are starting I recommend just having a concept and rolling with it. You have a ton of slots so if you don't like it, try again!

Contact me @Neuronia ingame if you need any help.

Oh no, I’m a vet of ye olden days, been on HC since its re-launch.

 

Just find the discussion surrounding difficulty intriguing in regard to the game 🙂

 

Appreciate the thought though

[Ukase]

35 minutes ago, WuTang said:

then it's not really easier, even if it may appear so to onlookers.

I think the same can be said for a lot of things in game. Some players simply do not struggle with this game, in any fashion, nor at any level. At least, that's the way it APPEARS to me. 

While I am only a 3rd tier speeder, I was fortunate enough to be in an SG just about a week or so after the doors opened, on Torchbearer. I am proud to say I was on the league with the first league to get Really Hard Way since HC opened. Now, take that with a grain of salt, because I'm only assuming that because at that time - Torchbearer was the only server. At least, that's how my brain remembers it. I know it was before Excelsior was created. I simply took it for granted that the SG leader/League leader was telling the truth. 

He was always super nice to me, but like me, he didn't quite use a filter with a GM (I think that's why, not real sure and don't really want to know, none of my business and all that) and got himself indefinitely banned. As far as I know, he plays on Rebirth, and dabbles a bit on his own homemade server. (which gives 3 extra slots!) 

So,  I say all that to share this: 



Now - to be super clear - I wasn't on ANY of these teams. But let me shed some light. (most of these times are from 2019-2020, before a lot of the macro base tp changes, when you could zip out of a mission to base quickly) 
Each one of these TF/SF/Trials has certain nuances that smart folks can grasp and take advantage of. They literally would do a respec before some or most of these TFs to utilize as many tricks as they know how to go as fast as they could. And that's the rub. They made it look super easy, but each of those guys would craft the build in mids, share it on their discord and tweak, adjust, suggest, revamp, modify - all kinds of changes to eke out what they could for each specific character. 

When you add that level of preparation to TF/SF/Trial knowledge & experience (when to use Ouro to exit, when to slap down an SG portal, for example) and the honed eye/hand skill of what I would refer to as very skilled gamers, it's not a surprise they made things look easy. 

This was the one team I was on. It was more corruptors than anything else. I was on my ice/ice blaster. I'm sure I was carried. 

Sorry, I am a bit proud of these guys, even if they are pretty crude on the discord. But I think the point I make is pretty clear - difficult things might look easy, but spending hours on a build, constantly tweaking and revising it - that's not easy at all. It's why folks are always sharing builds, because it's so easy to miss stuff. (at least, it's not easy for me)

Behind every player who makes things look easy is probably a lot of time spent struggling, learning. This is why I am almost always against changes to the game. The new player has SO much to digest and absorb already. Adding new loot, new ways of doing things - without changing the in-game documentation - it just leads to a lot of head scratching and frustration for that new player. The game is supposed to be fun, and getting frustrated due to obsolete or incomplete information ain't fun. And that's not really HC's fault. Paragon had a LOT of incomplete information. To this day, I'm unclear how I made my account for retail and never realized there were forums. I think I played for 6 issues before someone suggested I visit them and learned they existed. Probably because I had the unlimited play code in the box and never had to register on the forums? I dunno. 

Either way, just felt I'd add that sometimes difficult things look easy, but they're not. 
 

[WuTang]

10 minutes ago, Psyonico said:

I think people are mixing up difficulty with complexity.

 

With very few exceptions, the game is not difficult.  However, systems like IOs, set bonuses, incarnates, etc. Make the game complex.

I would add the TFs are also complex, or at least there are still some where I just follow the leader...so to speak. But yeah, there is so much flavor in CoH that one could literally play for years and still find new things, I think.

[Uncle Shags]

I just ran into Vanguard Sword for the first time the other night.  It was a quick wakeup call that I had been playing on easy mode.