Is the game harder to learn today than back on live?

[Intermipants]

Ahoy everyone.  I was on a few PUGs tonight and there were lots of new players - which I love and think is a brilliant thing.  I always try to encourage new players as much as possible and compliment their costumes etc. because it’s great to add new people to the game and I don’t want them to disappear, and also because it’s dawning on me that this is probably quite a difficult game/world to jump into the first time around.  I think it’s much more intimidating than it was when I first started on live.

When I first started playing ages ago on live I didn’t even know what an MMO was and it blew my mind that the players with blue names were real people (that’s really quite embarrassing to admit – I think I was in my late 20s at the time!)  Needless to say, with that starting point it took me a long time to learn a lot of nuances of the game.  I play loads and got back on in 2019 and even today I’m still learning new things – I did a 100 badge run challenge thing recently and learned two weeks ago that blarf is something in Pocket D!  Who knew?!

Today I can’t imagine what it must be like to jump into this where lots of us know all the travel tricks, have fifty different TPs, understand IOs, can race through TFs etc…and where it’s easy to get overwhelmed.

Having said all that, although the pace has changed I think the one thing that’s stayed the same is the kindness and generosity of this community and I’m pretty sure that’ll keep anyone new hanging in once they get into it.

So anyway, just a bit of random musing tonight.

[Lunar Ronin]

That's the nature of MMOGs.  As they age, they get more complicated as new systems and new currencies are introduced and pile up.  It's not insurmountable though, and it sounds like you're doing a good job of encouraging new players.  People just have to take bite-sized chews of game knowledge, and let it accumulate over time.

[MTeague]

I concede there is considerably more for new players to learn. 

 

And yet, past lvl 20, I can't remember the last time I felt in any real danger when levelling.  Team wipes feel far rarer than they used to be. The need to coordinate feels greatly reduced vs what it was in some early issues. Maybe some of that is having stronger enhancements right out of the gate, instead of having to make do with Training Enhancements and Dual Origin enhancements. Maybe some of that is people spending at the START vendor for status protection, or other temporary powers that weren't even in the game until the Veteran Rewards came along after the first several years of Live.  I remember being delighted when a Force Fielder joined the team in the early days. Now, it's ho-hum, sure that'll help some. 

 

It is what it is, and I can't say I haven't leveraged the heck out of low level SO's, I can't say I haven't stacked the heck out of set bonuses after lvl 25. But teams being in no real danger makes it much easier for new folks to rapidly level up compared to the old days, too. 

[Snarky]

which version of live?

 

the ending version?  very very similar to today's game.  (thx to HC staff)

 

Major changes: 

1) Some more difficult content, some "challenge" levels that take a while to learn.  But that is a small percentage of the game. 

2) A significant movement to more speed runs.  Really fast.  That takes a minute to learn.

[Intermipants]

Thinking of the very starting game in 2004. 

[Snarky]

3 minutes ago, Intermipants said:

Thinking of the very starting game in 2004. 

Yes.  A lot of stuff. The hard changes were in the first few years with enhancement diversification, invention sets, and agro rules.  That would be a lot to absorb

[biostem]

1 hour ago, Intermipants said:

Today I can’t imagine what it must be like to jump into this

If you are at all comfortable with WASD and tab-targeting controls, then CoH is quite easy to pick up.  Heck, you even have a convenient map marker telling you where to go, (the fact that sometimes leads you in the wrong direction is another issue).  What I think messes people up is the relative freedom we have with regard to AT, primary, secondary, and pool selection, that we have;  People expect a fairly streamlined experience, where there is no real bad option when it comes to selecting what powers and when.  Further, the "under the hood" mechanics, like ED and what some of the power terminology means, are never well explained in-game.  IMHO, CoH is like only a tiny bit removed from an actual pen & paper RPG experience, and a good bit of "book knowledge" is required to really master the various game systems & mechanics...

[ihatethewind]

Learning how to move and kill skrulls?

 

Easy.

 

Understanding all of the different factors of procs and area factors and global vs local recharge and target caps and ranges and radii, AT inherents and what actually makes a decent build?

 

No way in hell. 

 

It is borderline impossible to understand. You cant even really tell what a power ACTUALLY does without deciphering city of data entries.

[Water]

When the age of MMORPGs was born there were fewer entities vying for your attention. It was OK to devote time to spend in your activity/hobby of choice. Be that doing Macramé or playing CoH. You knew that you were going to spend time learning and practising and socialising and conquering. Some studies show attention span has decreased by more than 50% in 20 years (within their parameters). Why read the wall of text in a game when you can just click next,next,next,next...

 

If you want the original CoH experience - read said text, have a clue, learn all powersets (over time). If you don't have the time to immerse yourself in this fantasy world it's important to have a time sink in which you can commit. Be that in real life or in a complete fantasy.

 

Is it harder, likely not. Is sharing your attention more difficult - without a doubt YES.

 

[GM Crumpet]

I find new players manage well if they play the game as intended and do things like Twinshot/Dr Graves and the low level arcs. I told a friend who was utterly new to the game to play that way and they had had a blast. Avoid power levelling, make mistakes, die a lot. After a week or so he started doing DFB and posi 1, and I explained how the auction house works and how to slot enhancements. All stuff most people will explain on help if they ask.

 

The difficulty is people are now conditioned to believe the lower levels are a waste of time and only the end game matters. I've been playing Diablo 4 and it's as shallow as a puddle. Race through the very short story in a few hours then it's just a tedious grind for better equipment and torment level. It's fun, and blasting through endless hordes can take a little bit of skill, but it's not exactly the most stimulating thing to play. Here the journey is the game. When you hit level 50 it's the same trials and raids every time.

 

One thing that does stand out for me is the vast array of powers and the fact you can pick all of them and they are all used. Modern games use the WoW model of 5 or 6 powers on a tray and that's all you can use. Last Epoch has the same problem. I have a dozen or more powers to choose from, but can only ever use 5 of them. For a 20 year old game CoX is still breaking the mould and daring to be different. 

[Scarlet Shocker]

30 minutes ago, GM Crumpet said:

I find new players manage well if they play the game as intended and do things like Twinshot/Dr Graves and the low level arcs. I told a friend who was utterly new to the game to play that way and they had had a blast. Avoid power levelling, make mistakes, die a lot. After a week or so he started doing DFB and posi 1, and I explained how the auction house works and how to slot enhancements. All stuff most people will explain on help if they ask.

 

The difficulty is people are now conditioned to believe the lower levels are a waste of time and only the end game matters. I've been playing Diablo 4 and it's as shallow as a puddle. Race through the very short story in a few hours then it's just a tedious grind for better equipment and torment level. It's fun, and blasting through endless hordes can take a little bit of skill, but it's not exactly the most stimulating thing to play. Here the journey is the game. When you hit level 50 it's the same trials and raids every time.

 

One thing that does stand out for me is the vast array of powers and the fact you can pick all of them and they are all used. Modern games use the WoW model of 5 or 6 powers on a tray and that's all you can use. Last Epoch has the same problem. I have a dozen or more powers to choose from, but can only ever use 5 of them. For a 20 year old game CoX is still breaking the mould and daring to be different. 

 

I agree with most of this but I genuinely believe that getting rid of XP Boosters would do a lot to encourage people to play the game rather than race to 50.

 

The thing about them is they are now almost ubiquitous (or seem to be) and they encourage faster levelling rather than playing the game through the levels as intended. A few DXP boosts and a couple of hours in a Pocket D farm and you're almost at 50... an afternoon if you're slacking. I don't see any scenario where that's good for the game and we've all seen players who arrive at a TF on a freshly minted 50 with no clue how to play or what to do, and those players aren't gonna stick around because they skipped the parts that got the rest of us into the game in the first place.

 

I'm sure this isn't a popular choice nor do I imagine it would ever be implemented. However, imagine this; Offering a DXP weekend over a holiday - remember how that worked on live? A sudden influx of older players who'd moved on, a few newbies who enjoyed the content, it would bring a shard to life and that would have an ongoing effect for quite a while.

 

Reducing XP gains from the AE would also help greatly. AE as conceived was for player generated content - and there is some amazing stuff in it - but it's overshadowed by farms. Yes, they provide utility and can give a character a boost but again, they detract from the game itself.

 

Making changes after this length of time would get the torches and pitchforks out I'm certain but it would improve the game's health longer term.

[Snarky]

6 hours ago, ihatethewind said:

Learning how to move and kill skrulls?

 

Easy.

 

Understanding all of the different factors of procs and area factors and global vs local recharge and target caps and ranges and radii, AT inherents and what actually makes a decent build?

 

No way in hell. 

 

It is borderline impossible to understand. You cant even really tell what a power ACTUALLY does without deciphering city of data entries.

Fully agree.  with 1

 

2, can be done  but the build you get may not be optimal, because

 

3....  There is so much truth to this.  The power codes and how they interact with the game is almost never simple, or well documented.  Most have changes 1, 2, 10 times and the revisions make it hard to follow what you are truly doing sometimes

[The Trouble]

6 hours ago, GM Crumpet said:

One thing that does stand out for me is the vast array of powers and the fact you can pick all of them and they are all used. Modern games use the WoW model of 5 or 6 powers on a tray and that's all you can use. Last Epoch has the same problem. I have a dozen or more powers to choose from, but can only ever use 5 of them. For a 20 year old game CoX is still breaking the mould and daring to be different. 

This is the part that blew my mind when I first started playing twenty years go.  I was so impressed that powers from level 1 continued to be useful through the entire character's journey.  While CoH isn't the only game designed this way, I wish way more RPG's (and especially MMO's) would adopt that philosophy.

 

As for CoH being more difficult to learn than in the first years? No.  It's easier to grasp, not just due to streamlining, but also thanks to players like you, @Intermipants.  Veterans have peeled away all the layers, and can explain the denser mechanics to new players in a holistic way.  NPC text tends to half-explain a thing in a vacuum.

[Aracknight]

Way, Waaaaaaay more "currencies" than we had In The Beginning.  Back then it was Inf, and then Prestige.  Then came salvage, recipes, and just.....all the merits.  It's arguably worse now with threads, aether, etcetera etcetera etcetera.

[Forager]

There is certainly more stuff to understand... and most of it is not explained well... or at all

but I don't think that is what makes new players feel defeated.

 

The feeling of being lost as a new player in a game like this doesn't come from the fact that you don't completely understand the game. It comes from the fact that everyone else does.

 

If everyone on your team was as clueless as we all were in 2006, everything would just feel like discovery and progression. But if you're a true brand new level 25 and join a TF, you might end up getting to the missions as they're ending, getting yanked around by TPs and then being literally left behind. Not very super.

 

Nobody explains what you need to do because they don't need you to do anything. If you joined a team of 8 dudes slotted with DOs who all took the medicine pool, you have a chance of feeling super. 

 

Edited Monday at 03:40 PM by Forager

[Troo]

It is a big game.

 

The number of zones, missions, power combinations.

 

The gap between new player and vet player is massive. (yes, @Erratic1 a gamer can pick it up and catch on to what is actually happening)

I love/hate when a clearly new person asks for help coming up with a character or power suggestions and an experienced player invariably shares a build that is totally optimized, costs a billion and includes tier four Incarnates. It makes me laugh and cry at the same time.

 

The wheels do start to come off with Incarnates. <-- Trooism

[Erratic1]

50 minutes ago, Troo said:

The gap between new player and vet player is massive. (yes, @Erratic1 a gamer can pick it up and catch on to what is actually happening)

 

Hey! I started in Beta.

[lemming]

Is the game more complicated? No.  (well, maybe with IO sets, etc...)

Does it have way more information to absorb, yes.

 

I'm constantly needing to recheck stuff because my brain will hold onto some knowledge gained in Beta that has long gone away.

[Troo]

7 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

Hey! I started in Beta.

 

Sorry I just wanted to randomly include you. You do seem to be a defender of 'the game and it's exotic mechanics aren't that hard'.

(at least that's what I took from the thumbsdown above regarding procs and stuff are hard. Maybe you are thumbsdowning Skrulls.. which they deserve)

[Erratic1]

Just now, Troo said:

 

Sorry I just wanted to randomly include you. You do seem to be a defender of 'the game and it's exotic mechanics aren't that hard'.

(at least that's what I took from the thumbsdown above regarding procs and stuff are hard. Maybe you are thumbsdowning Skrulls.. which they deserve)

 

There are definitely games where getting going and understanding the basics is harder. Here you can do well without getting into the more esoteric aspects (unlike say...Path of Exile).

[AboveTheChemist]

On 6/6/2025 at 9:55 PM, Intermipants said:

Thinking of the very starting game in 2004. 

 

Back on live 90% of my playing time was during the first year after launch. I quit MMOs for a while at that point and (foolishly) deleted my characters. I came back briefly a few years later but struggled finding the same spark, partly due to the changes and partly because my old characters were gone.

 

Fast forward to when HC went public and I jumped on it instantly but I found the learning curve quite steep due to all the changes from when I last played regularly. It took me a good few months to figure out all the new mechanics (auction house, inventions, incarnates, enhancement sets, etc.) but the forum community was invaluable in getting up to speed.

 

TL;DR: Yes, I think the game is harder to learn now than in 2004 simply because there is more to learn

Edited Monday at 06:21 PM by AboveTheChemist

[Ironblade]

I'm really not sure.  On the one hand, the game has more complexity.  More systems, more things that have to be figured out.

On the other hand, we've gotten a lot of 'Quality of Life' improvements that really make a difference.  I'm not sure which side wins.

[BasiliskXVIII]

On 6/6/2025 at 7:50 PM, Snarky said:

Major changes: 

1) Some more difficult content, some "challenge" levels that take a while to learn.  But that is a small percentage of the game. 

This is one of the things I think Homecoming could improve on. A lot of the post-HC content is notably more difficult than default, and doesn't come with any particular warning that engaging with these arcs means a more difficult experience which may require you to have a cleaner build or a team to play with. This combined with the fact that legacy content still occasionally adds warnings like "This mission will be tougher than usual, you may want to bring a team" and is otherwise trivially easy by modern standards means that signalling is an absolute mess. It would be nice to see an effort to clean these warnings up and communicate the expected challenge of a mission better.

[Snarky]

4 minutes ago, BasiliskXVIII said:

This is one of the things I think Homecoming could improve on. A lot of the post-HC content is notably more difficult than default, and doesn't come with any particular warning that engaging with these arcs means a more difficult experience which may require you to have a cleaner build or a team to play with. This combined with the fact that legacy content still occasionally adds warnings like "This mission will be tougher than usual, you may want to bring a team" and is otherwise trivially easy by modern standards means that signalling is an absolute mess. It would be nice to see an effort to clean these warnings up and communicate the expected challenge of a mission better.

As you have pointed out this mid-messaging is all through the game.  The DNA of the game was for the mechanics to be hidden from players.  trying to change all of that would be a gargantuan task.  

[BasiliskXVIII]

21 hours ago, Snarky said:

As you have pointed out this mid-messaging is all through the game.  The DNA of the game was for the mechanics to be hidden from players.  trying to change all of that would be a gargantuan task.  

Is it really, though? We're literally talking about finding and editing text strings. It's always at the end of the mission dialogue, almost always in a mission arc or badge mission, and for the most part should be findable with search. I'm not sure how contact dialogue trees work, but if multiple contacts are referencing the same dialogue sheet, then changing one should change them all. Sure, it's not *no* work, but I doubt it's nearly the amount of work that writing a story arc is. It seems like it should be at least feasible. In theory, it shouldn't even be necessary to get rid of all of the warnings all at once, just sneak changes to a few missions into each release as you find them. Maybe throw together a thread on the suggestions board asking players to submit missions with unnecessary warnings.

And honestly, if bringing in new players is part of the intended goal of this server, then filing down pain points to getting them enjoying the game should be a fairly high priority.