I can't seem to stay interested in any one character.

[Mimpyyme]

I have been playing this game for not that long, maybe 2 months, but I have already racked up 11 characters and if you count deleted characters that number jumps to close to 20. Because of all these characters, the average level is around 10, and many have over 30 days offline. I doubt there would even be a solution to this, but if by chance anyone else has had this problem and solved it, please tell me! 

 

Thanks!

 

Edit: Jeez, I did not expect that many responses that fast. Thank you! I don't think the words "problem" and "solution" were what I was going for here. What I was trying to say is that I want to play new content, or in the case of the more story-rich Praetoria (Which is mainly what I play), the full story and lore. I am worried that if I keep playing the beginner areas/experiencing the same stories, I will eventually lose interest. 

 

Edit 2, Electric boogaloo: Despite what I said in edit one, that is not the entirety of the problem. I also saw a lot of people going by their character names on forums etc, and it seemed abnormal. I do, in fact, have ADHD, and all of you saying that it's normal has been very reassuring. Again, thanks all for dedicating some of your very valuable time to my topic!

Edited September 22 by Mimpyyme
Clarification

[Apogee]

Welcome to CoH Altaholics!

 

I have around 140 characters ranging in level from 10-50+.  if you count deleted characters, well...let's not even go there.  It is very common to switch between multiple characters.  Don't fight the desire to try something new.  Embrace the alts!

[TygerDarkstorm]

This is a problem? It has a solution?

 

Joking aside, I am also an altholic. Similar to Apogee, I've probably in the neighborhood of 130ish characters between Everlasting & Indomitable. One of the best things about this game is its very alt friendly nature, and unless you're really wanting to push to join the end game hard mode content, there's no reason you can't just play whichever of your characters sounds like fun at the time. Forcing yourself to play something just to get to 50 is a fast way to burnout (imo anyway; it is for someone like me with ADHD).

 

Trying a bunch of different combos is also a good way to figure out what you really end up enjoy playing! I have had some characters just end up being way more fun than I thought they would be and played them for several days straight because I wanted to see what else they could do (currently experiencing that with my aresnal control/marine affinity controller).

[Snarky]

23 minutes ago, Mimpyyme said:

I have been playing this game for not that long, maybe 2 months, but I have already racked up 11 characters and if you count deleted characters that number jumps to close to 20. Because of all these characters, the average level is around 10, and many have over 30 days offline. I doubt there would even be a solution to this, but if by chance anyone else has had this problem and solved it, please tell me! 

 

Thanks!

When falling into madness…..DIVE

 

(make more alts)

[Ukase]

So, a lot depends on what you enjoy in game. 

There's one guy, and his wife who make a character, and do Frostfire. After Frostfire is done, they log off, make a new character. I think they've done this over 200 times. The claim I heard was they did level a character to the 40's, but they just didn't like the game at those levels. And that's fine! 

There's no rule that says you have to play one character until you've done every bit of content available! You can do what's fun, and log off or stop what you're doing when it's not. 


My solution (so far) has been to set a goal of 100 Hero merits. That's 5000 reward merits for the math-challenged. It's not even close to what a lot of folks earn in a week. But, Most of the day, other than hopping on and killing a GM or two, I'm not doing much. Maybe I can squeeze in a labyrinth run. I never know. 

So, goals, I guess are a way to keep you focused. 

Maybe you'd like to hop past level 10 and get to 20 before you start over. 

It might be helpful to identify why you stop playing the current character. In my case, it's often what I call "alt-envy". 
I'll see someone just destroying a mob with a series of attacks and then I'll wish I was on the kind of character they were playing. (I've never felt this way about MMs or Doms. Every now and then I'll be impressed with a Warshade, but those khelds are kind of creepy, and there's a dire shortage of slots, in my opinion (like every other build of mine, lol) 

I know when I first started to play on retail, I think my first character was a tank. And then I got stone armor, and it looked like someone crapped all over my character! (The costume options, and the options to reduce FX from various auras and such were not as they are now) So, I logged that one off, and never played it ever again. It eventually got deleted, because back then we only had 10 slots per shard. I think at some point VIP got another 10? But I could be remembering wrong. 

In any event, try to figure out why you're discontinuing playing the current character. Is it the content? Is it some confusion about what to do next? are there struggles with your character missing a lot, or being defeated? 
Once you share that with us, we may be able to help reduce this alt-ism you're concerned about. 

Just be clear on one thing, if nothing else: Making alts in normal! We have 1000 slots for a reason! 

[Psyonico]

I've got north of 250 characters on Everlasting, what you're experiencing is normal, it means one of 2 things:

 

1. You've got altitis

2. You just haven't found a combo that syncs with you yet.

[kelika2]

Been suffering from this shit since like 1993 or so.

FF6(3) snes wanting to keep using different characters all the time

or using many types of pokemon or different starters or or or or

and everquest was bad.  my guild wanted me to focus on one character so i stopped giving my newer alts names to my old guild members and spread out super hard.  even in planes of power i was raiding with like 3 or 4 different guilds

oh man and warcraft, at the end of MoP i was playing so many alts regularly and blasting ass through the material farms which made me more gold than i knew what to do with and LFR raids

and i can fill this fuckin chatbox with all the characters I have across all bethesda games.  finding a fallout 3 mod that restored cut content/weapons that spawned like 4 or 5 alts.  finding out the best way to play Oblivion was not leveling past level 5 or 10, or finding a mod in Skyrim that changes the way Conjuration weapons work, or finding out that Chillrend was a thing, or downloading a mod that buffs unarmed damage in a natural way that does not break the game or an enchanting mod that gives you additional slots sooner and even something like Practiced Basics mod that lets you temper Iron, Fur and other unclassified stuff before.

and finding a special weapon in new vegas.  my current build is not suitable for it and as i am playing THAT game i am thinking about SPECIAL stats for the next game for that weapon i found as well as perks and and and this many hours happened.  im not out of time or anything like that but i cant think of a weapon or weapon type i didnt play with.  1str/9cha maria or compliance regulator to wait this isnt fun to read

 

and all of that wanting to play differently with the game 100% happened with city of heroes

 

[Mimpyyme]

3 hours ago, Snarky said:

When falling into madness…..DIVE

 

(make more alts)

Will do lol

[Greycat]

11. That's cute. 😄

 

Anyway. If you want to get a character past that first ten levels?

 

1. Keep trying new combos. You really haven't gotten the "flavor" of them yet, by 10. But the ATs play differently, and the combinations of powers in the ATs play differently, so you may just not have gotten THAT ONE yet.

 

2. Do you RP? Find an RP group. Yes, RPers do more than stand in Pocket D. Such as RP teams. If you don't RP, but might want to, pick a character and decide what they're like. What sorts of things got them to start fighting, what they do or don't like, something in their background. Start picking missions and contacts that match that, and while playing, think of what their reaction is... congrats, you've now gone from some pixels and powersets on a screen to a character. You've dipped a toe into RPing. You'll find you spend a bunch of time on that character and... unless you deliberately choose not to, you'll find yourself at 50 with thousands of threads, shards and merits, wondering when that happened.

 

3. Desperate for a 50? Make a temporal warrior. They can only run around in PVP zones, but hey, they start at 50. 😉

 

4. Find (or make) a supergroup. When you have a group of people, it's easier to just play and keep leveling. It can be a fairly big one like Chaos United, or one of a few people that happen to be playing the same time you do you can join up with to run stuff.

 

5. Are you goal-driven? There are plenty of goals (besides "hit 50") in the game, from those (like badging) that are built in to those that you give yourself - for instance, while on Live, I had things like "One of every control set to 50," "one of everything electric," or "one of each melee primary" that you set for yourself.

 

For what it's worth, I even made a guide to this back on live... it's from 2011, but you can see you're not alone in this!

[Mimpyyme]

1 minute ago, Greycat said:

11. That's cute. 😄

 

Anyway. If you want to get a character past that first ten levels?

 

1. Keep trying new combos. You really haven't gotten the "flavor" of them yet, by 10. But the ATs play differently, and the combinations of powers in the ATs play differently, so you may just not have gotten THAT ONE yet.

 

2. Do you RP? Find an RP group. Yes, RPers do more than stand in Pocket D. Such as RP teams. If you don't RP, but might want to, pick a character and decide what they're like. What sorts of things got them to start fighting, what they do or don't like, something in their background. Start picking missions and contacts that match that, and while playing, think of what their reaction is... congrats, you've now gone from some pixels and powersets on a screen to a character. You've dipped a toe into RPing. You'll find you spend a bunch of time on that character and... unless you deliberately choose not to, you'll find yourself at 50 with thousands of threads, shards and merits, wondering when that happened.

 

3. Desperate for a 50? Make a temporal warrior. They can only run around in PVP zones, but hey, they start at 50. 😉

 

4. Find (or make) a supergroup. When you have a group of people, it's easier to just play and keep leveling. It can be a fairly big one like Chaos United, or one of a few people that happen to be playing the same time you do you can join up with to run stuff.

 

5. Are you goal-driven? There are plenty of goals (besides "hit 50") in the game, from those (like badging) that are built in to those that you give yourself - for instance, while on Live, I had things like "One of every control set to 50," "one of everything electric," or "one of each melee primary" that you set for yourself.

 

For what it's worth, I even made a guide to this back on live... it's from 2011, but you can see you're not alone in this!

1. Will do!

 

2. I'm assuming RP means roleplay, and if so, I already do! all of my characters have fairly detailed personalities and actually one of my resistance warden characters who HATED seers got some character development during Stefan's storyline where where she learned to accept the seers and instead turn her hate toward Mother Mayhem - it was really cool!

 

3. I've considered it, but I'm not sure I'm good enough for PVP.

 

4. I still need to get the hang of chatting and organizing things like this, but it sounds really cool! I'll ask around in the help tab when I'm back in game

 

5. Not really, I am more story/lore driven.

 

Thank you! Will read the guide!

[Mimpyyme]

3 hours ago, Ukase said:

So, a lot depends on what you enjoy in game. 

There's one guy, and his wife who make a character, and do Frostfire. After Frostfire is done, they log off, make a new character. I think they've done this over 200 times. The claim I heard was they did level a character to the 40's, but they just didn't like the game at those levels. And that's fine! 

There's no rule that says you have to play one character until you've done every bit of content available! You can do what's fun, and log off or stop what you're doing when it's not. 


My solution (so far) has been to set a goal of 100 Hero merits. That's 5000 reward merits for the math-challenged. It's not even close to what a lot of folks earn in a week. But, Most of the day, other than hopping on and killing a GM or two, I'm not doing much. Maybe I can squeeze in a labyrinth run. I never know. 

So, goals, I guess are a way to keep you focused. 

Maybe you'd like to hop past level 10 and get to 20 before you start over. 

It might be helpful to identify why you stop playing the current character. In my case, it's often what I call "alt-envy". 
I'll see someone just destroying a mob with a series of attacks and then I'll wish I was on the kind of character they were playing. (I've never felt this way about MMs or Doms. Every now and then I'll be impressed with a Warshade, but those khelds are kind of creepy, and there's a dire shortage of slots, in my opinion (like every other build of mine, lol) 

I know when I first started to play on retail, I think my first character was a tank. And then I got stone armor, and it looked like someone crapped all over my character! (The costume options, and the options to reduce FX from various auras and such were not as they are now) So, I logged that one off, and never played it ever again. It eventually got deleted, because back then we only had 10 slots per shard. I think at some point VIP got another 10? But I could be remembering wrong. 

In any event, try to figure out why you're discontinuing playing the current character. Is it the content? Is it some confusion about what to do next? are there struggles with your character missing a lot, or being defeated? 
Once you share that with us, we may be able to help reduce this alt-ism you're concerned about. 

Just be clear on one thing, if nothing else: Making alts in normal! We have 1000 slots for a reason! 

 

[Mimpyyme]

I think I'm just losing interest. This has been a thing in my life in general, where I just want to do everything, I don't want to miss out on anything. Like for example, I play 5 instruments. This might be what you were talking about with alt-envy, where something seems cool on the outside before you use it/learn to play it, because you've only seen someone very high leveled/very skilled use it.

 

I also want higher level characters to experience higher level stories/locations like the Rikti war zone and its missions and task force, or other places like that.

[Marine X]

If you find you are losing interest you might try shaking things up a bit. Through Orobouros or a "Pillar of Ice and Flame", ( which can be installed in your base ),  you can try content not always available through the contacts you have. Some award badges. You can also repeat content you really enjoyed. You can only do content at or below your level ( works like a task force ) but it opens up access to a lot of Stories.

[Greycat]

4 hours ago, Mimpyyme said:

3. I've considered it, but I'm not sure I'm good enough for PVP.

 

 

Pfft, didn't say you had to PVP, just that it'd give you a 50. 🙂 

[Ridiculous Girl]

PFFT! amateurs! 865 alts an counting on 2 servers... 💩

[Scarlet Shocker]

It doesn't matter.

 

Altitis is a thing and some (me included) have literally hundreds of alts in various stages of development.

 

There is only one question you need to ask yourself: Are you having fun doing what you're doing?

 

 

[Snarky]

make a dual pistol Blaster…

Edited September 22 by Snarky

[Ukase]

8 hours ago, Mimpyyme said:

I think I'm just losing interest. This has been a thing in my life in general, where I just want to do everything, I don't want to miss out on anything. Like for example, I play 5 instruments. This might be what you were talking about with alt-envy, where something seems cool on the outside before you use it/learn to play it, because you've only seen someone very high leveled/very skilled use it.

 

I also want higher level characters to experience higher level stories/locations like the Rikti war zone and its missions and task force, or other places like that.

Just a guess here. I'm not privy to the specifics of your mind, or life. But what I think what keeps people in this game is not the content or the powers or the loot or any of that. It's the other people they team with and get to know. 

If I hadn't run into really interesting people on retail like an SG called "The Debt Junkies", who considered a dirt nap as evidence you were actually playing and doing something, I might never have played as long as I did.

On retail we had a ridiculous global channel just for our shard, Liberty. There were some bozos, to be sure, but there was always someone who could answer a question if the help channel came up dry. And you'd see the same names cracking the same lame kind of jokes. Most of them were inside jokes that you might not have been privy to, but the silliness was there. 

 

I could be wrong of course. It could be the game itself, outside of figuring out what powers do what just doesn't hold your interest. And that's fine too. Maybe just don't be in such a hurry to figure it all out. You could literally spend your whole life in this game and not figure it all out. Just make a list, and work towards it. 

[Apogee]

2 hours ago, Ukase said:

I could be wrong of course. It could be the game itself, outside of figuring out what powers do what just doesn't hold your interest. And that's fine too. Maybe just don't be in such a hurry to figure it all out. You could literally spend your whole life in this game and not figure it all out. Just make a list, and work towards it. 

 

I've been playing since Open Beta and I still haven't figured it all out.  Ok, I'm a little slow, don't judge!  I've been playing MMOs since Ultima Online and City of Heroes is by far my all time favorite.  Give it time, it grows on you, or maybe that's just the Devouring Earth...

[Mimpyyme]

5 hours ago, Snarky said:

make a dual pistol Blaster…

I already have like 4 XD. I LOVE blasters and especially dual pistols!

[Mimpyyme]

9 hours ago, Ridiculous Girl said:

PFFT! amateurs! 865 alts an counting on 2 servers... 💩

I... your power scares me.

[SeraphimKensai]

I also find it difficult to stay interested in a toon, so I have quite a few alts.

 

I kinda quit counting awhile back after getting 250 lvl 50s. It's sad but some of them haven't been played in 3+ years. One of these days I'll have to do a new count.

 

I also have some alts below lvl 50 scattered about.

[Riverdusk]

2 months?  I think I remember back in the day on live it took me like 9 months before I finally made it to 50 for the first time.  Yes, after many characters.   Sounds like you are doing fine.

[kelika2]

8 hours ago, Mimpyyme said:

I already have like 4 XD. I LOVE blasters and especially dual pistols!

my pistol/tactical arrow and pistol/fire blasters were super fun

and my pistol/bio sentinel was so much toxic damage

[NotsoevilDM]

Only started playing again earlier this year and already have a few pages of toons. It's the right way to play CoH.

 

Back on live, when the number of slots per server were more limited, I had at least one team of alts on the French server because I had no free slots on the other servers. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose!