The Good, The Bad, and the City of Heroes...

[madpoet67]

Let me start by saying I love this game... I won't speak for anyone else, but to me, it's the best game ever made. But, like anything else in life, there are things that I don't like... things that annoy me... and things that I just plain hate!

 

How about you?

 

For me:

 

Most hated enemy: Malta Sappers - ridiculously over-powered for a minion. Can virtually one-shot your endurance dropping your toggles and then perma-hold you until you die.

 

Most hated enemy group: Tsoo - Chicken sh$ts... all they do is run away and make you chase them all over map... and sorcerers are the worst of the lot.

 

Most hated map: Purple caves... nuff said!

 

I'm sure there's more villain side, but I'm mostly a hero.

 

What are your most hateds?

 

 

 

 

[Abraxus]

I don't disagree with anything on that list.

 

However, I will add that I LOVE having the opportunity to loath these things once again!  I would rather fight Malta, and Tsoo for every friggin' mission than ever lose this game again!

[malonkey1]

The villains I hate most are any with End drain. A lot of my characters are really END hungry (especially in low-to-mid) so they're really annoying.

[Williwaw]

I don't like Carnies in general, but the Master Illusionists are the worst, going intangible half the time, summoning untouchable pets, crowd control powers, and Psionic damage, they have something that will hit at least one weak spot on your character.

 

I'm not sure whether I hate them more or less than Sappers.  Master Illusionists are Boss-rank, so they're a pain to take down, but Sappers are much more common.

[marcussmythe]

Almost anything that was invented around Going Rogue or later.

 

Defense?  Nah, we can debuff that to nothing.

Resist?  Lol.  -100% for you.

Regen?  Why do you need HP?

[Redlynne]

Shop.

Save.

Rularuu.

[Heraclea]

What amazes me about the game is that it is the greatest game whose devs never really understood what they had made and what made it fun.  A whole lot of the material added during the latter third of its official life is borderline unplayable and extremely team unfriendly.  Vanguard, revamped Praetorians, goldside content, revamped Dark Astoria, incarnate storylines - you don't want to have a team, dial up the difficulty, or spawn bosses for any of that crap.  You will instead spend your days playing and replaying the material from before this garbage, while ignoring it to the extent possible. 

 

You will not grind out this stuff, you will not bring friends, you will get bored with it very quickly as a result: the psionic damage and undefended mezz flying around there means that you will prefer to do, literally, anything else.  I have two level 50 tankers.  They are well built versions of the game's toughest AT.  They ignore it, and refuse invites from people foolish enough to try.  You cannot soak up the alpha or taunt the spawn here. This stuff amazes me mostly because it testifies to the fact that the devs did not understand the wonderful thing they had made despite themselves.  For the entire history of the game, from global defense nerf and ED to this twaddle, the statements and releases from the devs bore constant witness to the apparent fact that they did not grasp what made their game uniquely enjoyable.  The greatness of the game arose despite the intentions of its makers. 

[Primantis]

What amazes me about the game is that it is the greatest game whose devs never really understood what they had made and what made it fun.  A whole lot of the material added during the latter third of its official life is borderline unplayable and extremely team unfriendly.  Vanguard, revamped Praetorians, goldside content, revamped Dark Astoria, incarnate storylines - you don't want to have a team, dial up the difficulty, or spawn bosses for any of that crap.  You will instead spend your days playing and replaying the material from before this garbage, while ignoring it to the extent possible. 

 

You will not grind out this stuff, you will not bring friends, you will get bored with it very quickly as a result: the psionic damage and undefended mezz flying around there means that you will prefer to do, literally, anything else.  I have two level 50 tankers.  They are well built versions of the game's toughest AT.  They ignore it, and refuse invites from people foolish enough to try.  You cannot soak up the alpha or taunt the spawn here. This stuff amazes me mostly because it testifies to the fact that the devs did not understand the wonderful thing they had made despite themselves.  For the entire history of the game, from global defense nerf and ED to this twaddle, the statements and releases from the devs bore constant witness to the apparent fact that they did not grasp what made their game uniquely enjoyable.  The greatness of the game arose despite the intentions of its makers.

 

 

Yes indeed, I truly believe CoH was a happy mistake for the most part.

 

A lot of the later mobs are just.. over designed. Too many debuffs, way too many buffs... NightWard is a friggin nightmare depending on which mobs you are up against. Feels like the mobs are designed for level 50+ content, not 20-30. Same with Preatoria. Huge ambushes, tough mobs with mezzes and debuffs you generally wouldn't see until the late 20s at the very earliest (and iirc they were on *minions* not LT or bosses). It feels like what you get when players make AE maps with custom mobs and try to make things overly difficult by giving them too many good powers.

 

 

Now if a player enjoys this stuff, more power to them. But zoning through a portal on level 30ish x8 team, only for nearly the entire team to instantly wipe because the devs decided to make a faction full of mini-masterminds who cast Darkest Nights, mezzes and res debuffs *and* have them camp the portal, not my idea of fun..

 

 

[Zolgar]

What amazes me about the game is that it is the greatest game whose devs never really understood what they had made and what made it fun.  A whole lot of the material added during the latter third of its official life is borderline unplayable and extremely team unfriendly.  Vanguard, revamped Praetorians, goldside content, revamped Dark Astoria, incarnate storylines - you don't want to have a team, dial up the difficulty, or spawn bosses for any of that crap.  You will instead spend your days playing and replaying the material from before this garbage, while ignoring it to the extent possible. 

 

You will not grind out this stuff, you will not bring friends, you will get bored with it very quickly as a result: the psionic damage and undefended mezz flying around there means that you will prefer to do, literally, anything else.  I have two level 50 tankers.  They are well built versions of the game's toughest AT.  They ignore it, and refuse invites from people foolish enough to try.  You cannot soak up the alpha or taunt the spawn here. This stuff amazes me mostly because it testifies to the fact that the devs did not understand the wonderful thing they had made despite themselves.  For the entire history of the game, from global defense nerf and ED to this twaddle, the statements and releases from the devs bore constant witness to the apparent fact that they did not grasp what made their game uniquely enjoyable.  The greatness of the game arose despite the intentions of its makers.

 

 

Yes indeed, I truly believe CoH was a happy mistake for the most part.

 

A lot of the later mobs are just.. over designed. Too many debuffs, way too many buffs... NightWard is a friggin nightmare depending on which mobs you are up against. Feels like the mobs are designed for level 50+ content, not 20-30. Same with Preatoria. Huge ambushes, tough mobs with mezzes and debuffs you generally wouldn't see until the late 20s at the very earliest (and iirc they were on *minions* not LT or bosses). It feels like what you get when players make AE maps with custom mobs and try to make things overly difficult by giving them too many good powers.

 

 

Now if a player enjoys this stuff, more power to them. But zoning through a portal on level 30ish x8 team, only for nearly the entire team to instantly wipe because the devs decided to make a faction full of mini-masterminds who cast Darkest Nights, mezzes and res debuffs *and* have them camp the portal, not my idea of fun..

 

To be fair, around that time, people were complaining about how trivial the content was, how there was no challenge in the game anymore, how a good team could just rofflestomp everything without even thinking about it.

 

So the devs took those complaints to heart and made content that was challenging, they made content that you had to use tactics to beat, that a team just trying to wrecking ball through it would run in to trouble.

 

The problem with this is that in so doing, they made it excessively hard for people to solo or run with less optimized teams.

 

Regarding the OP:

 

Enemy: Carnies Master Illusionists.

Enemy group: Honestly? Vahzilok. Some groups, Carnies, Malta, Circle of Thorns, etc. can be problematic, but for the most part by the time you face the worst parts of them you have the tools to deal with it. Vahzilok are a low level enemy group that, in the time you face them, you are almost guaranteed to not have the  tools you need to face them since they deal one of the two least resisted damage types in the game (toxic), and have pretty intense recharge slows, at a level when you have so few attacks you might not even have a full chain without recharge debuffs.

Map: Oof, this is a tough call. I would have to say any Council map with the water room, closely followed by anything in Orangabangatangofoxtrotdafuqidk.

[Xaeon]

Carnie Illusionists are rivalled only by the likes of Corpus Nullifiers in sheer player hostility. Being able to make themselves invincible while still attacking you with attacks that ignore nearly all forms of mitigation no less and also having extremely high defense even when not invulnerable is some wonky as hell game design.

[Myrmidon]

Longbow. A year in the Rogue Isles (which I only left for SG events and maintenance) really made me despise that faction. And it’s not their difficulty, it’s simply because they were entirely too much of the villain side content.

[Xaeon]

Longbow. A year in the Rogue Isles (which I only left for SG events and maintenance) really made me despise that faction. And it’s not their difficulty, it’s simply because they were entirely too much of the villain side content.

Comes with them being basically the only 1-50 good guy faction you can fight since Wyvern, the Legacy Chain et al disappear off the face of the earth after level 30, the Midnighters are rare as hen's teeth, the Scrapyarders/Dockworkers are peculiar to their neck of the woods, and the PPD would have to arrest itself if it tried to enforce American laws in a sovereign foreign nation like the Etoille Islands. 

 

I always maintained that there should have been a NATO/US Military faction for villains (and sometimes heroes) to fight for that reason. Along with some other vigilante groups banding together to try and do good in the Rogue Islands. Maybe even kind of inverse mirrors of the Skulls and Hellions in the form of Energy and Cold focused vigilante militias to pad out level 1-20 content? Along with the Carnival of Light and other more heroic Praetorian Factions establishing themselves more in Primal Earth. Maybe even a Fae based good guy faction trying to oppose Arachnos' lackadasial attitude towards nature? 

 

 

[Heartcatch]

My most hated enemy are Cray Paragon Protectors since they still use the old pre-nerf Moment of Glory. You get them down to 10% health or so, and then they go essentiallt invincible for a minute and you're just stuck standing there looking at a guy who's almost dead and feeling stupid as you wiff every attack and the one that does hit lands for 2 points of damage. Plus, they're usually bosses so unless you've got capped defenses you're not going to want to rush another group of mobs while one (or worse two) of these are pounding on you. Carnie Illusions are pretty much in the same boat for a similar reason.

 

Least favorite faction to fight are Vahzilok at low levels. The toxic damage (which bypasses most defenses) and exploding enemies can easily wipe you at lower levels if you get just a little bit unlucky. At high levels I hate carnies for similar reasons since the psychic damage often bypasses most defenses and and a lot of those pure psychic attacks come loaded with mezzes. I find if I don't carry a lot of purples I'm usually in for a rough time.

 

Least favorite map - caves of course. They're a pain to navigate and get even more annoying when you've got a kin throwing speed boost on you, which would normally be a pretty good thing.

[Razia]

I don't disagree with anything on that list.

 

However, I will add that I LOVE having the opportunity to loath these things once again!  I would rather fight Malta, and Tsoo for every friggin' mission than ever lose this game again!

 

QFT

[Legree]

However, I will add that I LOVE having the opportunity to loath these things once again!  I would rather fight Malta, and Tsoo for every friggin' mission than ever lose this game again!

 

This.  I find this takes the sting out of almost any annoyance.

 

That said I'll nominate the blue science base maps.  I like the caves and find them an interesting environment to fight in, but the multi-level science bases are mostly just a succession of long, wide, open corridors and I find them rather dull.

 

In general I like the difficult enemy groups - dealing with stacking debuffs from Vahzilok at level 2 (yay for science origin) or being chain held by Circle of Thorns at level 12 makes me think harder about ways to counter these threats on different ATs... even if the answer is only "always carry a break-free."

 

The one exception I'd make to that is that the newer content does have a tendency to go a bit overboard on multiple boss ambushes - either more than one at a time or one after another.  I always enable bosses fairly early on - usually by level 5 - so that boss fights feel like boss fights, but there's a few encounters that can be exceedingly rough on lower level characters, especially melees who don't have many options other than stand and fight.

 

But these are minor things, and insignificant compared to the sheer joy of being able to play the game again.

[nihilii]

What amazes me about the game is that it is the greatest game whose devs never really understood what they had made and what made it fun.  A whole lot of the material added during the latter third of its official life is borderline unplayable and extremely team unfriendly.  Vanguard, revamped Praetorians, goldside content, revamped Dark Astoria, incarnate storylines - you don't want to have a team, dial up the difficulty, or spawn bosses for any of that crap.  You will instead spend your days playing and replaying the material from before this garbage, while ignoring it to the extent possible. 

 

You will not grind out this stuff, you will not bring friends, you will get bored with it very quickly as a result: the psionic damage and undefended mezz flying around there means that you will prefer to do, literally, anything else.  I have two level 50 tankers.  They are well built versions of the game's toughest AT.  They ignore it, and refuse invites from people foolish enough to try.  You cannot soak up the alpha or taunt the spawn here. This stuff amazes me mostly because it testifies to the fact that the devs did not understand the wonderful thing they had made despite themselves.  For the entire history of the game, from global defense nerf and ED to this twaddle, the statements and releases from the devs bore constant witness to the apparent fact that they did not grasp what made their game uniquely enjoyable.  The greatness of the game arose despite the intentions of its makers.

 

To be honest, I love running all that content - at +4/x8 and solo, on teams, anything.

 

It's the "Dark Souls" conundrum: one person will die twice and see the experience as an unbelievably tedious slog. Another person will die forty times and see it as an enjoyable challenge.

 

(And of course, there's yet another group of hardcore minmaxers who will power through the whole thing without blinking and call both former groups "noobs" for dying at all.)

 

We have another thread where people are arguing incarnate powers trivialize everything in the game. Ultimately, I think there's great virtue in the tacit admission players are looking for a variety of different experiences; giving them the tools to tailor that experience, a little bit of guidance, then letting them roam free. There lies the greatness of the game, if you ask me. From costume creation to the way you interact with the content, CoH embraces personalization to the point nobody will truly get the exact same thing from the game.

[hastened]

This is really convincing me I need to run the Night Ward/First Ward content, since I never got to it live.  One of the things I love most about CoH is that it isn't afraid to let the players be brokenly overpowered...and it isn't afraid to let its enemies be, either.  Its beautiful for a superhero game in a way that a more balanced game never will be.

 

Seriously though, having enemies where planning, positioning and teamwork matter is nice.  Having missions that are difficult enough that failure is actually possible is nice.

[_NOPE_]

Runners. Just f***ing runners, man.

[Xeres]

Two bad stick out right away.

 

Dark anything and that accuracy debuff.  I get hit by a few of those and basically it's just wait it out or I'll be stamina-starved soon.

 

The cargo ship missions with the kill all enemies condition.  No matter how thoroughly I go through that ship there's ALWAYS a patrol I miss.  Even worse, yesterday I get to the back of the interior of the ship and kill the "last" baddie but no Mission Complete.  No red arrows on the map either.  Until I go outside again and theres one! baddie swimming alongside the ship.  WTH.

[Twisted Toon]

...NightWard is a friggin nightmare depending on which mobs you are up against. Feels like the mobs are designed for level 50+ content, not 20-30...

 

I'm currently on the last mission of Night Ward. I did not find Night Ward (or First Ward for that matter) all that difficult, with the exception of a few Elite Bosses and a couple of swarming waves of ambushes. But then, I'm playing a Demon/Dark Mastermind. Everyone knows Masterminds are teh OP...except when all of their pets are one-shotted and they are held.

[Ommamar]

I wish there had been more developed in the game then fight,kill/arrest,repeat.  There are many different ways to do this but in the end that is the ultimate goal of any content.  A couple instances say I am a stalker who is heavy in stealth and get a mission to recover an item, I can't just go sneak in and take the item I usually have to literally defeat all the opposition.  Or say I am a Villain who gets a contract to steal money from a bank I can go break into the vault and take the money all day but until I fight the Hero and their minions it doesn't count.  Maybe with the base building and player made missions they where headed in the direction to allow for more variety but as it is the goal is to fight and defeat opposition.

 

As to the original post:  Any faction that is heavy mess or with the ability to totally negate your damage.  I really hate tunnels especially if I have a large Hero/Villain (any more I just seem to make them all 4 feet tall). 

 

Oh one last thing is pet collision detection particularly as a healer/support nothing like trying to use a targeted heal and being knocked around a corner or off a ledge totally blowing your line of sight.

[srmalloy]

Enemy group: Honestly? Vahzilok. Some groups, Carnies, Malta, Circle of Thorns, etc. can be problematic, but for the most part by the time you face the worst parts of them you have the tools to deal with it. Vahzilok are a low level enemy group that, in the time you face them, you are almost guaranteed to not have the  tools you need to face them since they deal one of the two least resisted damage types in the game (toxic), and have pretty intense recharge slows, at a level when you have so few attacks you might not even have a full chain without recharge debuffs.

 

The Vahzilok are the reason I abandoned Science as an origin back when you got an origin-based first contact, because you got thrown up against the Vahz right off, and then forwarded to Henry Peter Wong for more of the same. And I will still avoid picking up a new contact if they're described as following the Vahzilok, unless I have no choice. I'll go into City Hall and talk to the Magic, Tech, and Natural contacts (Prince Kiros Nandelu, the Mutant contact, makes you run back to him to tell him about the Council you found; the others chain a second mission directly on completion of the first without your needing to talk to them again) to get a wider variety of forwarded contacts, but I avoid the Science contacts until later in the game, when the Vahz get replaced.

[DocRadio]

There's this one Arc That has you fighting this Archnos boss in Faultline. And all he does is summon force field generators and throw smoke grenades. Sureeee…. once you've faced him once you know what to do. Get accuracy boosting inspirations and rick roll his dumb ass. But the first time around is frustrating because you can't hit him, and let's say you're lucky enough to do some damage.... he tosses smoke grenade and you can't target him. Then he pummels you to death. Also in Faultline you get a preview of the Malta group. In the form of a boss who just spams missiles none stop. So many that it obscures your vision. And heaven help you if you don't have knockback protection. You won't be able to stand long enough to mount an offense. Once again you have to rely on inspirations. Lucks, and enough damage boosters to fry the fool before he dances on your grave. Very humiliating defeats, and yet I'm glad to able to experience them.

[Heraclea]

There's this one Arc That has you fighting this Archnos boss in Faultline. And all he does is summon force field generators and throw smoke grenades. Sureeee…. once you've faced him once you know what to do. Get accuracy boosting inspirations and rick roll his dumb ass. But the first time around is frustrating because you can't hit him, and let's say you're lucky enough to do some damage.... he tosses smoke grenade and you can't target him.

 

This guy never bothered me much, and doesn't bug me now all that much.  At those levels, Accuracy is literally the only thing, and Endurance Reduction if you run toggles.  Have one of your level 50s spend maybe 500,000 inf on Luck Charms and Boresights.  It will be a trivial expense for those characters, especially now that the price of salvage is capped.  They can make it back with half an hour spent arresting ancient Romans. 

 

This is also why in i25 you don't start worrying about inf until level 25 at the earliest.  Having the powers  is more important than having the slots for them; the one thing you never neglect is accuracy, and you don't waste it even on SOs that will expire.  You get the important stuff like the Numina and the Miracle and the Performance Shifter as early as possible with those merits you got on Synapse and Penny Yin and Citadel, and give them a shopping list.  Once endurance is not a problem, you can go back and start slotting for stuff like damage.  Eventually, as the recipes drop or your crafter memorizes them, you can start replacing your 15s with 30s, and eventually the 30s with 50s, but thanks to ED two 30s are good enough for any purpose.

[DSorrow]

At low to mid levels, any enemies that excessively debuff recharge, ToHit or Endurance. These are all pretty trivial issues to solve at 50 with liberal use of IOs and inspirations (the tray of 20 really helps). However, even with IOs I still dislike enemies that summon boat loads of minions/pets so that tanking is effectively impossible because of aggro caps (looking at you, Lamp people in Night Ward).

 

As for missions and maps, mostly defeat all missions and the intricate multi-layer caves that are a pain to navigate.

 

Having said that, a lot of the Praetorian enemy groups are a pain in the ass before 50. I don't mind fighting them too much, but many of them seem to be tuned for IO'd out 50s rather than 20s with generic enhancements. Currently playing a 35 duo with a friend that's planned to be synergistic (Defender + Brute) and even only at +1/x4 Night Ward goons sometimes come very close to whooping our asses when we can effortlessly clear vanilla enemies at +2/x8. The challenge is fun when I'm playing with an experienced friend, but I probably wouldn't do that content with a bunch of randoms until 50.