It's funny, but the things I find exciting in this game have nothing to do with its actual gameplay

[temnix]

Call me strange, but I find beating up on legions of largely identical enemies with few interesting attacks and very primitive scripts, spread around mostly generic and confusing maps, a chore. It comes down to clicking on buttons 1-5 in time and keeping Inspirations stocked up. What I find exciting is a different occupation entirely. Here is what I did with my latest 1st level character. I got a steam jump back from a S. T. A. R. T. vendor, thankfully they are free, and decided to go and collect the more remove Exploration badges in the area. I had no gratis jet pack yet, but I timed the jumps to the top of the City Hall and the Atlas dome, then made very long jumps north for that house balcony badge. To a complete rookie going around Atlas Park's harder zones can be dangerous, I could have landed among some high-level Hellions or Clockwork, and jumping is not as safe as flying. But I was smart and lucky and got the badge.

 

Then I went for the Vanguard badge, past the portal to the Vanguard compound, picked up the badge there, getting an anchor in that area, and ventured out through long tunnels that I hadn't traversed before, emerging on the surface to the southeast, near the Eden entrance. I thought about trying for a badge in Eden with my jump pack, but I didn't remember where they were too well and instead headed over the rooftops of the War Zone back to the base, getting a fresh look at that part of the map. I thought I was fairly safe on a round warehouse roof, despite some Rikti monkeys milling at a distance, but I had forgotten that they could throw psychic arrows... Stepping out of the hospital, I went back through the portal, but not to Atlas, to Founders Falls. The compound does not exit to anywhere safe there, but I was fairly certain no Crey snipers sat on the rooftops of the skyscrapers I was going to try on my way to that badge at the obelisk.

 

I got to some obelisks, barely missing a group of Circle cultists conjuring up their green fire. Any one of them could have killed me with a look. It turned out to be the wrong place, though, and I hoped some more across the water to the real location of the badge, demons not too far away. Then, again timing the jumps and waiting for the power to recharge, I reached the Williams Square, the university, steering clear of a right close Fifth Column band. But even with all these badges the Long-Range Teleport would not yet unlock, because I had skipped the easy badges in Atlas. All of the transportation and exits - to Talos Island, to the monorail - were far away and blocked by powerful enemies. I was on my own. My best option for getting out was to try for the Pocket D entrance. I again timed the jumps, sat on a cornice for a while, landed, ducking another group of CoT on the way down, and quickly ran for the tunnel. No police bots or anything else were guarding the manhole, in which I jumped.

 

All of this was a lot of actual, not pretended, fun. I was really exploring, not completely remembering or knowing every detail of every map; I was using a power to do it; it was a cool power I had not paid attention to before; it had definite limitations with consequences; it physically changed my relation to the environment; there was serious danger along the way; and I did it all for a profitable purpose, to establish anchors in several zones. It was an adventure and it made sense. The rest of the game, though, what I am supposed to be doing, lacks that. It sends me away to save abstract innocents in one stupid warehouse after another, and when alien dimensions take the place of warehouses, they are still the same dull setup that does nothing whatsoever for me.

 

Edited June 7 by temnix

[baster]

Go play Division 2 if you are bored. Or the Survival DSL in Division 1, both main games are excellent with sophisticated AI that will challenge you, push you surround you and kill you if your not on top of your game. Game is much more co.plex, builds are much more complex. Etc..

I spend more then 3000 hours playing it. And still do.

[Ghost]

10 hours ago, baster said:

Go play Division 2 if you are bored. Or the Survival DSL in Division 1, both main games are excellent with sophisticated AI that will challenge you, push you surround you and kill you if your not on top of your game. Game is much more co.plex, builds are much more complex. Etc..

I spend more then 3000 hours playing it. And still do.

Damn Division was such a great game, with a concept that could have seen many sequels set in various cities around the country.

I loved playing it.

 

Division 2, not so much.

Gsmeplay/action was still there.  I just couldn’t get over completely changing up everything else.

 

As for the OP.

Another 50k word essay about why he/she doesn’t like the game.

What else is new 🙄

[Octogoat]

When the game lost diantane another stepped forward to take up his mantle...

[Forager]

On 6/8/2025 at 8:09 AM, Ghost said:

As for the OP.

Another 50k word essay about why he/she doesn’t like the game.

 

Whoops... you mistimed your leap.

[Billbailey96]

Honestly good on OP for finding their own fun. Sometimes old games like this allow for spaces to make the game your own in interesting ways, just look at all the challenge runs people still do for old school titles. For me a lot of fun in being a hero is roleplaying being the hero, if I see a text balloon from a NPC in peril, I will stop what I am doing and swoop in to save the day. Being a villain, I enjoy doing missions that fill my personal story for my character. At the end of the day find your passion, and if CoH lets you do that, then thats all the better!  

[temnix]

On 6/9/2025 at 7:04 PM, Billbailey96 said:

Honestly good on OP for finding their own fun. Sometimes old games like this allow for spaces to make the game your own in interesting ways, just look at all the challenge runs people still do for old school titles. For me a lot of fun in being a hero is roleplaying being the hero, if I see a text balloon from a NPC in peril, I will stop what I am doing and swoop in to save the day. Being a villain, I enjoy doing missions that fill my personal story for my character. At the end of the day find your passion, and if CoH lets you do that, then thats all the better!  

 

I used to protect girls from purse-snatchers too, and I still sometimes do, out of habit, but neither the game world nor the gameplay satisfy me any longer. Part of it is simply knowing them too well, though not exhaustively. I couldn't tell you where every badge is as so many others can. And that still allows me short periods of discovery, what I described in the head post. I'm not responsible for idiots seeing a complaint in that, when in fact I was celebrating a good time. But most of the freshness and mystery have long since rubbed off, and more than that: I outgrew this game. I outgrew the intellectual level on which those talented but pretty ignorant 20-somethings stood when they made it. They outgrew it too and went on, one hopes, to better things. And finally - the world in the which the game takes place no longer exists outside the computer. It never did literally, but still, there were buildings like that, offices like that, cars like that, suits and pants like that. Computers with tube screens left turned on and showing Windows desktops. You could hear music such as that playing in the areas on the radio, in clubs.

 

Not anymore. That past is gone, though it has not been not outgrown, it was only discarded... humanity does not progress, it rolls sideways. And I miss even older ages represented by some relics for circa year 2004, most of all the tugboats and steamers. When I zoom over the Nerva Archipelago or Striga, I look with adoration at those wonderful little ships, like rusty wind instruments lying on the waves: part memories of real ship designs and part imagination of Cryptic. I think back to the 1920s, 1930s, 1950s and other eras that I know from gangster films and Chaplin films and not only from them, and I miss those times: their fashions, their bustles, their newspaper hounds... The suits of the Family. All of those are Echoes, one within another. And now the present of this game world is an echo too. The War Walls are still turquoise, the monorail is gayly trundling along, but it is impossible to continue all this, to pick up and develop that music, those fashions and architecture in some direction different from where they were pushed by the consequences of September 11th and the Iraq war, the financial crisis of 2008, algorithms, social networks and their moron spawn, the dumbing-down of society as a whole, climate change... So I can't get in character any longer. It would be to do quite monstrous violence to myself to pretend that I can still live the reality I find in CoH as I viscerally did in 2004.

[WumpusRat]

While it's not quite the sense of euphoria I had the very first time I picked flight and lifted off the ground into the air, I still get a little giddy when I grab flight as a travel power.

Floating up into the sky and looking around, swooping through the skyscrapers in Steel Canyon, landing on top of buildings and looking around at the view in the various zones.

Reminiscing about playing "punt the minion" off the top of buildings in Kings Row...

 

I'm still having a ton of fun, 20 years later.

[temnix]

6 hours ago, WumpusRat said:

I'm still having a ton of fun, 20 years later.

 

It's nice for me too, it's just that nothing is happening. It's like being in the dead past in Stephen King's "Langoliers."

[Neiska]

Sometimes my favorite things to do are just goof off and do silly things.

 

-Swoop down as a Full 50+4 incarnate demigod to save that hot dog vendors tips from some level 2 never-do-wells.

-Fly around with a Knockback power and try to blow npcs off of buildings.

-Use a -fly power to try and make enemies fall.

-Hop a top some random car and see where it goes. (Most of the time they just drive in circles.) Honestly Wish there was a full-on mission (or even a mini story) where you are on a Train or something with enemies attacking it from the sky and you have to defend it. 

-I might see some hero out in the world and just buff them to the gills as much as I can without explanation.

-Fight some giant monster.

-Spend hours (and I mean hours) in the costume editor. I might have 100+ costumes that will never see the light of day.

-Muck around with the power customization options.

-Ski Slope! Honestly, wish we had more stuff like this. Like an Asteroid-hopping game where you are in an area with flying disabled and jump from asteroid to asteroid. Or a swimming one with goals and jumps and obstacles.

-Once for funsies made a scavenger hunt with friends. Each of us made a list of 3 things we had to locate in the open-world game. Some of them were downright mean.

 

On a side note, I do kind of wish there were more "down to earth" kind of missions. Not everything has to be some grand epic struggle to save the world from a global threat. Why not stuff like breaking up a bar fight in a super hero bar, finding a lost puppy, so on.

 

[Scarlet Shocker]

Well each to their own. If not playing the game whilst playing the game is what floats your boat who am I to argue?

[Billbailey96]

On 6/14/2025 at 3:24 PM, temnix said:

 

I used to protect girls from purse-snatchers too, and I still sometimes do, out of habit, but neither the game world nor the gameplay satisfy me any longer. Part of it is simply knowing them too well, though not exhaustively. I couldn't tell you where every badge is as so many others can. And that still allows me short periods of discovery, what I described in the head post. I'm not responsible for idiots seeing a complaint in that, when in fact I was celebrating a good time. But most of the freshness and mystery have long since rubbed off, and more than that: I outgrew this game. I outgrew the intellectual level on which those talented but pretty ignorant 20-somethings stood when they made it. They outgrew it too and went on, one hopes, to better things. And finally - the world in the which the game takes place no longer exists outside the computer. It never did literally, but still, there were buildings like that, offices like that, cars like that, suits and pants like that. Computers with tube screens left turned on and showing Windows desktops. You could hear music such as that playing in the areas on the radio, in clubs.

 

Not anymore. That past is gone, though it has not been not outgrown, it was only discarded... humanity does not progress, it rolls sideways. And I miss even older ages represented by some relics for circa year 2004, most of all the tugboats and steamers. When I zoom over the Nerva Archipelago or Striga, I look with adoration at those wonderful little ships, like rusty wind instruments lying on the waves: part memories of real ship designs and part imagination of Cryptic. I think back to the 1920s, 1930s, 1950s and other eras that I know from gangster films and Chaplin films and not only from them, and I miss those times: their fashions, their bustles, their newspaper hounds... The suits of the Family. All of those are Echoes, one within another. And now the present of this game world is an echo too. The War Walls are still turquoise, the monorail is gayly trundling along, but it is impossible to continue all this, to pick up and develop that music, those fashions and architecture in some direction different from where they were pushed by the consequences of September 11th and the Iraq war, the financial crisis of 2008, algorithms, social networks and their moron spawn, the dumbing-down of society as a whole, climate change... So I can't get in character any longer. It would be to do quite monstrous violence to myself to pretend that I can still live the reality I find in CoH as I viscerally did in 2004.

I will admit the second paragraph made me tear up a bit. 

[tom76]

On 6/9/2025 at 7:04 PM, Billbailey96 said:

Honestly good on OP for finding their own fun. Sometimes old games like this allow for spaces to make the game your own in interesting ways, just look at all the challenge runs people still do for old school titles. For me a lot of fun in being a hero is roleplaying being the hero, if I see a text balloon from a NPC in peril, I will stop what I am doing and swoop in to save the day. Being a villain, I enjoy doing missions that fill my personal story for my character. At the end of the day find your passion, and if CoH lets you do that, then thats all the better!  

Sometimes I go into the game not for the action, but just to "live" in the world. I had a character who did not engage in combat on principle - only helped NPCs and collected stories. This did not break the game, on the contrary - it added depth.

[Captain Electric]

I'm not gonna throw any shade at the OP, nor do I see any insult in his words, which are eloquently written. And to the person who called four paragraphs and probably 800 words "another 50k word essay", welcome to a forum discussion lol, TikTok is thataway.

I've experienced this death of immersion in other games, including my very first MMO (not City of Heroes). I just can't see in that game what I used to, and it sucks, and I know it would just injure me more for one of its present fans to mistake that fact for some kind of shit talk, so I sympathize with the OP. 

The magic of City of Heroes, for me, now that I think about it, is actually that I always had to meet it halfway. Considering how neck-deep I've been in this game in the past, some of my old friends would be surprised to hear this, but there was never a point when the game delivered complete immersion without any effort on my part, especially considering the original dev team's abundance of campiness (no shade here either, just pointing out the obvious).

City of Heroes still works for me because my imagination really likes the work, the magic is still there because I'm still able (and willing) to meet this alternate reality three quarters of the way; and I'm still invested in my roster of characters, enough that I'm probably still more fond of them than any other roster of comic book characters out there (I know some of you can relate!). I grew up playing pen-and-paper games, text adventures, sandboxes and CRPGs with truly shitty graphics, so it's just another Tuesday for me.

But this isn't gloating, it's gratitude. One day I might feel exactly like the OP and not be able to help it. I'm not better than them, just luckier.

Edited Wednesday at 12:40 AM by Captain Electric

[Captain Electric]

On the other side of the coin, I've dragged probably two dozen new people (willingly and unwillingly-at-first lol) young and old into City of Heroes since it became officially licensed again, and to my pleasant surprise (shock almost) absolutely every single one of them loved it, and many of them have continued to include it in their MMO haunts. 

We talk a lot about rose-colored glasses, but the inverse exists as well. How surprised I was by fresh eyes seeing this old game. Turns out, it's a really good game. And it probably doesn't deserve my tired and old, backhanded compliments on a day like today, with the arrival of this huge Kallisti Wharf update. Our own OG opinions are probably the least valuable here, deal with it. That goes for me, too. If you really want to know how good the game still is, bully and cajole some fresh meat to try it out.

[Seed22]

15 hours ago, Captain Electric said:

On the other side of the coin, I've dragged probably two dozen new people (willingly and unwillingly-at-first lol) young and old into City of Heroes since it became officially licensed again, and to my pleasant surprise (shock almost) absolutely every single one of them loved it, and many of them have continued to include it in their MMO haunts. 

We talk a lot about rose-colored glasses, but the inverse exists as well. How surprised I was by fresh eyes seeing this old game. Turns out, it's a really good game. And it probably doesn't deserve my tired and old, backhanded compliments on a day like today, with the arrival of this huge Kallisti Wharf update. Our own OG opinions are probably the least valuable here, deal with it. That goes for me, too. If you really want to know how good the game still is, bully and cajole some fresh meat to try it out.

When the game relaunched I tried getting buddies into it, they took one look, said nope and I never pushed em to try it again. 

 

I personally now would never try and get someone to try CoH who never tried it before, but if however someone was already familiar with CoH and played it in the past, I'd try as best as possible to give them an overview of the server, the current dev team and their patch history, and let them decide themselves. 

[Captain Electric]

Hey fair enough, that's as worthy as getting new people to try it out. And yeah I know some people that I wouldn't have bothered with too haha. I don't think it's blind luck that I've had so much success getting positive results from fresh newbie eyes, most of these people are either older gamers who appreciate the slower gameplay and focus on stories, or younger peeps in a community I'm in where crapping all over other people's favorite things is highly discouraged (thus it's become sort of a haven for more open-minded types who like checking out each other's games; terminally unimpressed folks kinda weed themselves out over there lol).

[temnix]

@Captain Electric I think that the strongest point of this game is its astounding area design, the attention to detail everywhere. When you see a dirty box left between two road signs on a safety island - which some designer had to put there - that is superb quality. I have very rarely seen this kind of dedication in any game, multi- or single-player. Newcomers should be able to appreciate that right away. They also, no doubt, subconsciously react to the more natural scale of architecture and landmarks here than the find in the real world nowadays. Though the tallest skyscrapers in Steel Canyon and Port Oakes may be higher than any real-world buildings except the record-holders, most buildings are much more approachable and friendly than the current cityscape of a place like the New York City, gigantic, inhuman and sleek. These modern erections have only been made possible by the same capitalist technological concentration that destroyed the fabric of society, they are monuments to dehumanization. Paragon City, on the other hand, looks like it would be a pleasant place to live - and so does Praetoria, let's not forget it. I wish I could get an apartment looking out on the People's Park. (For that matter, I wish Praetoria was an entire developed dimension and not three zones.) The textures that new players encounter should also pleasantly surprise them: all that rust, grime, peeling wallpaper... Poor Gen-Zers, they grew up among plastic.

 

As for me, there is too much that puts me off in CoH's world now and not enough to draw me in (certainly not Homecoming's additions). I can no longer tolerate the Rikti or the Devouring Earth. They are really the worst two factions. I didn't care for them even in the old days, but did not run into either so often, and I paid attention to the good and ignored the bad then (which is the way to meet everything, but it only works if the thing is new). Now I feel short-changed of some alien faction I could respect and research and I refuse to spend my time beating walking mushrooms. On the other hand, I delight in running through the Council's fortress on Striga. That is the real deal.

[ChzBoi]

2 hours ago, temnix said:

- which some designer had to put there -

......good designers are everywhere............