City of Heroes Ranked #245 out of 250 MMORPGs

[gameboy1234]

16 minutes ago, Seed22 said:

Edit: CoH’s systems are also superfluous. There’s no point in the IO system since it can be largely ignored for 99.9% of content in the game and only helps you to win harder, which you were going to do anyway. Same deal with the Incarnate System.

 

I actually disagree with this.  Enhancements are part of the game and were since the beginning.  Not having enhancements means a slow and difficult climb up the XP ladder, even with the much higher XP on Homecoming.  Unless you're farming in the AE or you always team, then sure it's much easier, but not all new players do that.  And you'll miss a lot of content that way, something new players are interested in doing.

 

I think that actually makes the Enhancement system a bigger problem, since it's not really optional, but is also kind of a confusing mess.  Simplifying everything, including just making IOs the default and removing nearly everything else (maybe not Hami or DSyncs, since people do use those, but that can wait until 50), might make the game a bit more approachable for everyone.  Generic IOs lower level than 20 could just drop (but sparingly, not anything like the rate for regular Enh) and then by 20 folks could be introduced to crafting.

 

(For folks that still want the regular Enh, I'd leave them in game, but hide them on all vendors.  Make a "Hide Old Enhancements" options on the pop-up menu for the vendors, and set it to hide by default.  Now newbies no longer confused.)

 

[lemming]

I'll just assume he got streaming from some other server than HC since I spotted a lot of costume violations.

[Lunar Ronin]

26 minutes ago, lemming said:

I'll just assume he got streaming from some other server than HC since I spotted a lot of costume violations.

 

Probably.  Homecoming is the only server that cares about that, the rest do not.

[biostem]

5 hours ago, Seed22 said:

Edit: CoH’s systems are also superfluous. There’s no point in the IO system since it can be largely ignored for 99.9% of content in the game and only helps you to win harder, which you were going to do anyway. Same deal with the Incarnate System.

Doesn't this apply to pretty much all games that have different tiers of gear, where the "ultra-rare hard to get" items are only marginally better than the regular stuff you can get?  only in CoH, you can run content with a guaranteed and reliable merit payout, so you know exactly how much you'll have to run to purchase the exact item(s) you want...

[Luminara]

6 hours ago, Seed22 said:

There’s no point in the IO system since it can be largely ignored for 99.9% of content in the game and only helps you to win harder, which you were going to do anyway. Same deal with the Incarnate System.

 

They're lateral progression.  They were designed and implemented as ways players could make their characters better, without raising the level cap.  They were never intended to replace other systems, such as SOs, but to supplement them.  As such, they're neither pointless nor superfluous.  They were made to do something, and they do exactly what they were meant to do.

[Seed22]

1 hour ago, biostem said:

Doesn't this apply to pretty much all games that have different tiers of gear, where the "ultra-rare hard to get" items are only marginally better than the regular stuff you can get?  only in CoH, you can run content with a guaranteed and reliable merit payout, so you know exactly how much you'll have to run to purchase the exact item(s) you want...

No not at all. CoH having IOs isn’t the problem, CoH having IOs while all content is balanced for SOs is the problem.  Thus making IOs and incarnates superfluous. No other games do this. 
 

 

Every other game pretty much in the history OF games has incrementally or actually significantly noticeably better gear and significant difficulty spikes and walls to make use of said gear.

 

CoH is the only game I’ve played that had a serious gear system that didn’t.

Edited 23 hours ago by Seed22

[golstat2003]

1 minute ago, Seed22 said:

No not at all. CoH having IOs isn’t the problem, CoH having IOs while all content is balanced for SOs is the problem. No other games do this. 

 

I don't consider this a problem at all. I consider it a nice way to boost your charactrs without them having to raise the level cap. Which will never happen. It'd be too much of a job even for a paid full team . . . which this game no longer has. IOs and the Incarnate system are fine as is, despite a few rough spots.

[biostem]

1 minute ago, Seed22 said:

No not at all. CoH having IOs isn’t the problem, CoH having IOs while all content is balanced for SOs is the problem. No other games do this. 

Hmm?  IOs are more of an end-game thing, (yes, I know you can use them much earlier, but many games never extend their updated gear over most of the level ranges prior to their introduction, either)...

[Seed22]

15 minutes ago, golstat2003 said:

 

I don't consider this a problem at all. I consider it a nice way to boost your charactrs without them having to raise the level cap. Which will never happen. It'd be too much of a job even for a paid full team . . . which this game no longer has. IOs and the Incarnate system are fine as is, despite a few rough spots.

Raising the level cap doesn’t usually fix an issue of difficulty, if ever solely. It would require actual walls to be implemented into CoH via enemy mechanics that check your level of understanding as a player incrementally along the path to 50( mobs that play like experienced players would, prioritizing targets and becoming heavily resistant to player taunts being a possible example) 

 

This would of course also require revamps and large efforts, understandably. I get why it wouldn’t happen. 
 

 

The IO system IS indeed fine…and I’m not advocating its’ removal to clarify. It’s just…think of it like a max level mage in WoW stomping around their starter zone. Now imagine that for the entire game. 
 

It can be fun, especially if you want to turn your brain off and just smack some goons. But even with that, I still would find it weird that when I want something that at least equals me in power without being artificially difficult(dangerous mechanics and modest stat boost instead of 100% stat boost and the same mechanics you saw in lower tiers of the same content) there isn’t anything in game for that. 
 

TLDR: IOs and incarnates are kind of out of place in a game like this imo. They should not be removed, but maybe there should be more mechanics driven encounters over stat boosted enemies that account for this. 
 

 

 

[tidge]

1 hour ago, Seed22 said:

TLDR: IOs and incarnates are kind of out of place in a game like this imo. They should not be removed, but maybe there should be more mechanics driven encounters over stat boosted enemies that account for this.

 

I agree that Incarnate powers feel out-of-place, but it is IMO the incarnate content that has most of the game's "gotta understand specific mechanics" content... so I don't know if this argument really gels.

 

I rather like the IO system, because it allows a solo player to emphasize their own build by making choices that work the way the player wants their characters to perform. Certainly there are elements of making characters with relatively few weaknesses, but as near as I can tell it is mostly the Incarnate system that is required in order to build characters able to handle the hardest difficulty settings (solo) for otherwise somewhat straightforward missions/arcs. Certainly if we didn't have power picks above 40 as well as all those extra slots most of the game would be much more challenging. I also don't want to discount the fat that having an inherent Fitness pool makes a lot of sense (because the game wasn't that much fun having to include that pool via choices), but even without IOs an inherent Fitness pool makes characters more powerful.

[Luminara]

1 hour ago, Seed22 said:

Every other game pretty much in the history OF games has incrementally or actually significantly noticeably better gear and significant difficulty spikes and walls to make use of said gear.

 

CoH is the only game I’ve played that had a serious gear system that didn’t.

 

Other games have much more restricted character development.  They can do that because they tightly control how powerful any class can be at any given level, how strong the gear is, who can use the gear, how much gear the character can have at a time, any and all special bonus effects from the gear, et cetera.  The people developing those games can create content with extremely specific expectations, based on the limited, controlled character development they've allowed, and have a significant degree of assurance that it will be palatable based on the limitations they've imposed in character development.

 

Co* has 98 gear slots and 34 gear categories, compounded by 15 classes, each with its own gear category, and the only controls over character development are being locked into a single primary and secondary, not being allowed to access more than four power pools, and only one *PP.  You can't have gear checks in a game with this much gear and this little control over character development, not without completely overhauling it from the ground up.  It's was deliberately designed not to have gear checks.  It's not those other games, it never was and never can be.

[Neiska]

I generally take "tier lists" and the like with a large pile of salt. Other people are entitled to their opinions certainly, but I am not obligated to agree or even care.

 

Oh, and Merry Christmas.

[Erratic1]

On 12/22/2024 at 7:45 PM, Lunar Ronin said:

The MMORPG YouTuber Josh "Strife" Hayes put together the "ultimate MMO tier list," and City of Heroes is only ranked #245, behind a bunch of gacha games and games that aren't even out yet.  So when do we riot? /s

 

 

His comments are not negative, but honestly...behind Everquest 3, which does not exist (and he states that)? Same with City of Titans. 🙄

[Kyksie]

I've enjoyed JSH for some time now and have watched almost all of of his "worst MMO ever" videos. Nevertheless, this 'list' is garbage: if anything it's a list of the most talked about MMOs, not the ones you should play. It lists League of Angels at #77 or so, which even he says is 'soulless garbage'.

Edited 4 hours ago by Kyksie

[Gobbledigook]

Champions online at 93 and CoH 245? crazy talk.

[Doc_Scorpion]

21 hours ago, Seed22 said:

CoH having IOs isn’t the problem, CoH having IOs while all content is balanced for SOs is the problem.  Thus making IOs and incarnates superfluous. No other games do this. 

CoX being balanced around SOs wasn't a problem at all - due to their expense, set IOs were not all that common.  CoH:Homecoming is a very different kettle of fish.  Thanks to the Merit/Converter roulette economy, IOs are relatively cheap.  A much higher proportion of the playerbase uses them and builds that use multiple sets in ways that would have been cost prohibitive back in the day are common.  And that's not even discussing the changes in the meta.

It's less a problem with the game or it's design than it is that we da players are no longer playing the game as it was played when IO's were added to the game back in 2007.