Some questions from someone who never played CoH before

[SmallBrainEnergy]

Hi! As the title says, I never played this game before, I`m overwhelmed with a lot of information that I can`t tell if it`s useful or not, and have some questions that I`ve failed to resolve with FAQ and kinda outdated? guides from 2008.

 

Lets begin!

1) How solo-friendly game is? Are there any raids or anything like that that is strictly necessary for character development? First of all, I don`t have much time for regular online activity, and I can get distracted by real-life things in middle of dungeon, not that it happens all the way, but I dont want to be one of that constantly afking teammates, especially because I like to pick tank classes, thats not cool when your tank suddenly goes afking. Plus, I`m quite happy with slowly doing quests (oh yes, read all this npc blabbering, I even created a whole chat tab for this) at my own pace and not pretending to be best player ever. So, how far can I go on my own?

 

2) Are there a way to irreversibly make my character unplayable so that a regular PVE becomes unbeatable or/and everyone who sees him will make a loud EW and blacklist me forever, so I have to make a new one? What if I spend all my respecs given by level-upping (I don`t know if it`s possible, but I have to ask)? I`ve played old MMOs and it`s not uncommon for games from the 2000s to punish player for being a noob. I`ve also found Mids Reborn, but most of the information contained there doesn`t make much sense to me yet.

 

2,5) Are there a so-called meta builds that everyone running with, so you can create a really unpopular or entirely useless power combination weirdo and no one will want to take you on the team activity? I created my character in a "oh that looks cool lets go" way (its a regen+spines tanker) and at low-level (currently is 14) he managess pretty well, but further? To be honest, I`m not a fan of meta-builds aka clone army, I`m in love with the amount of power customization in CoH and its kinda silly if most of options are nerfed to ground and/or useless.

 

3) I`ve found how to make guild (supergroup) and even how to invite random player via chat command, but how can I invite my other characters from the same account? I tried with ingame emailing and miserably failed. Also, do guilds have any advantages besides creating your own cozy lair? Because I want to create my cozy lair without involving random people, lol.

 

4) How difficult is game in general, how much effort does it take to become something average? Above average? Are there mainly raids or similar sort of team events with tricky mechanics at 50lvl, or tricky things is entertaintment for few competition fans, while most players relax in a casual things and don't get penalized for not tryharding? I cant place much examples here, but I played Tera Online years ago and my best was up to date Dreadspire and Harrowhold raid, yeah, I was pretty skilled player, one of the few who could regularly clean up such content, but I quit after a year of this, cuz game turned into a second job and I burned out. Now I just want to relax and maaaaaybe, if its not too energy and time-consuming, poke some high-ranked activities.

 

Perhaps I will add something to this list later, sorry for the screwed up grammar and such, english is far from my native language, and thank you in advance for the answers!

 

[Lunar Ronin]

Welcome to Paragon City and the Rogue Isles!

 

1. Very, although some archetypes/classes are more suitable for soloing than others.  The most solo-friendly archetypes/classes are Brute, Mastermind, Scrapper, Sentinel, Stalker, and Tanker.  Others are still soloable, just less so.  No raid is necessary.

 

2. No.  You can't change archetype/class, character origin, and primary and secondary power sets, but every ten levels you get a free respec so you can change every thing else.  If you need additional respecs, you can buy them with in-game money.

 

2.5. There are meta builds, yes, but they only matter in advanced mode task/strike forces, which are only regularly ran by particular groups and are a niche activity.  Otherwise, you can pretty much play what you'd like.

 

3. Type /altinvite character.  No, there are no advantages to supergroups other than bases.

 

4. Hero side is pretty easy as it came first.  Villain side is a little bit more difficult, but not significantly so.  Gold side is a bit more difficult and is only recommended for people with some experience under their belt.  Over all, leveling content is actually more difficult than your average modern MMOG, but endgame content is significantly easier than the average modern MMOG.  There are raids, but they're optional, and most of them are pretty easy any more.  You only get penalized for not try-harding on advanced mode task forces/strike forces, and that's a social penalty, not game mechanics.

Edited Sunday at 10:38 PM by Lunar Ronin

[GM Impervium]

Welcome to the forums and the game itself, @SmallBrainEnergy! @Lunar Ronin pretty much answered your questions, but I'll just expand on some of them a bit!

1) What Lunar said above, though, I probably wouldn't put "Masterminds" as a newbie-friendly class. But yes, you can go all the way to level 50 without teaming once. There are some mission arcs called "Task/Strike Forces" which are designed to be played while on a team, and will lock you out of accepting any other missions until you either complete them or quit. These quests often have a high powered Archvillain/Hero (or several) at the end who you probably won't be able to beat solo, so be aware of who you're accepting quests from (most TFs/SFs are given by NPC Heroes/Villains instead of random civilians, so you probably won't run into too many on accident).

2) Irreversibly? No. While it IS possible to make a character that's barely playable, so long as you've selected an even number of attack & armor/utility powers, and keep them enhanced (this game's version of gear), you should do fine. You'd probably have to go out of your way to make a bad character by selecting random powers you can't use (like buff powers that only affect other players if you never team, or every single travel power), and never enhancing your abilities. Anything short of that, and you should be fine! And like LR said, there are ways to earn or buy more repsecs in game.

And of course, if you're ever stuck on anything else, you can always ask around; the community is generally pretty willing to help!

(And for what it's worth, your English is pretty good, so, no worries there, either!)

[biostem]

3 hours ago, SmallBrainEnergy said:

1) How solo-friendly game is?

A lot depends upon the particular archetype, powersets, and the way you choose to enhance your character.  There is certain content that is extremely difficult to solo, (though IIRC a few people have done so), but none are required, in a strict sense, in order to advance your character.

 

3 hours ago, SmallBrainEnergy said:

2) Are there a way to irreversibly make my character unplayable so that a regular PVE becomes unbeatable or/and everyone who sees him will make a loud EW and blacklist me forever

You get several free respecs as your character levels up, there are a few in-game trials you can run to earn additional ones, and respec recipes can be bought or earned, (also in-game - no RMT stuff), so you can always adjust your powers and enhancement slots as needed.  You canNOT change your archetype, primary, and secondary powerslots, however.  You get 1000 character slots per server, so I'd suggest trying out all sort of different ATs and powersets combos to see which are to your liking.

 

3 hours ago, SmallBrainEnergy said:

2,5) Are there a so-called meta builds that everyone running with

In a loose sense, perhaps - there are certain unique invention-origin enhancements which dramatically improve a character's performance, and there are certain powers which improve the performance of your other powers, (hasten, tactics, etc), but none are absolute "must have these or be kicked" sort of thigns.

 

3 hours ago, SmallBrainEnergy said:

3) I`ve found how to make guild (supergroup) and even how to invite random player via chat command, but how can I invite my other characters from the same account?

There is the /altinvite slash command that you can use for that purpose.  You can read more about the in-game commands here.

 

3 hours ago, SmallBrainEnergy said:

4) How difficult is game in general

If you're comfortable with keyboard and mouse control for PC games, it's not that difficult.  Getting to know the nuances of the game engine, the bind and other slash commands, or general other quirks of how powers and other such game mechanics work, takes a bit more time, but is definitely doable.

 

Hope that helps.  Cheers & welcome aboard!

[mechahamham]

Welcome to our city! The others are giving you great info, so let me balance it with some examples of stuff that might be difficult or more challenging.

 

1. The game is extremely solo friendly. Almost everything except for those Taskforces/Strikeforces and Raids will scale down so that a solo player can complete it. That said, it's ENORMOUSLY easy to jump on a pick-up team (sometimes called a 'PUG' or 'pick-up group' for a half hour or so and gain a tremendous amount of experience should you want it. Don't force yourself. Just be aware that it's there should you ever want it.

 

Now, a mistake I see people fall into quite often is that they boost their difficulty settings without realizing they have done so. If you talk to a Hero Corps Analyst or Fortunata Fateweaver, be aware that they'll very happily boost your difficulty settings to where you can't complete missions any more. There is also the 'Noteriety' settings in your chat command/emote menu. These will let you set those same team-size, level, boss, and arch-villain preferences.

 

When in doubt, change these back to a level of +0 or -1, a team size of 1, solo bosses off and solo arch-villains also off. Don't be afraid to ask for help in /chat if you think you've accidentally changed these settings.

 

When you get a bit more experienced in the game, you may find yourself wanting to increase the difficulty a bit. That's a good time to start experimenting. Be sure to take small steps, though, and find your own comfort level.

 

2. As others have mentioned, the melee oriented Archetypes, Brutes, Scrappers, and Tankers, are the easiest classes to just 'pick up and play'. You're fairly durable, whack your enemies at close range, and have lots of armor-type powers to keep you alive. Sentinels run fairly close. You have ranged powers rather than melee powers, but the same kinds of armors. Some other MMOs tend to make out 'Priest'-type classes to be strong soloers because they can heal and buff themselves. That's not necessary to solo here... AT ALL. Those armor powers are the solo-oriented buffs.

 

Healers, Buffers, and Debuffers can be significantly more challenging to play and are frankly much more group-oriented. These are Defenders, Controllers, Corrupters, and Masterminds. You end up needing to understand how and when to use their powers to get good use from them. That said, if you build skill with them, the right character with the right power choices can be surprisingly effective soloers. An Empathy/Psionic Defender is EXTREMELY team oriented and will likely struggle to solo in  a lot of situations. A Dark Miasma/Darkness Controller brings a tremendous amount of power to a team, but if played intelligently. can solo ridiculously well.

 

Again, other MMOs will have you believe that Healing is all-important. It is not the case here. This is a game of damage multipliers. If you stack enough positive damage multipliers on yourself or your team and enough negative multipliers on your enemies... they simply don't do anything to you that requires healing.

 

[Jacktar]

Hi and welcome 😀

 

It is the Journey not the Destination is a phrase often used ingame and is still true, no need to rush to level 50 when you are just starting.

Ingame money (Inf for Heroes) is very easy to earn and it is very easy to be a level one millionaire. (Zone explore badges are the answer, ask ingame how or many of us will show you ingame as well)

But be aware that you can also get a double XP boost buff free ingame that does make levelling up faster but also when used stops you earning Inf! So you could get the higher levels and then not have any Inf to improve your gear. It is a balancing act you can use to suit what you want to achieve.

As far as I know there are no cheat codes for our game. Fantastic!

There are a load of Mods that really are useful and are all available free and easy to install from the section of this Forum.

The Help channel ingame is where to ask for advise or guidance and we all use it and you will get sensible informed info from our fabulous player base.

Our SG (Guild) bases used to need special currency to build and keep but now the entire system is free and I have been in some truly unbelievable bases. But many of us just have a basic setup with all the teleporters to the zones and use them to travel about. Some bases will advertise the passcode they have so anybody can use it again for free, no need to join them.

 

Just a few random thoughts, hope it helps with your adventure, cheers 🍩🍩🍩👍

 

[Marine X]

If English is a 2nd language you might want to consider playing on Reunion, it is based in Germany and you may find some people from your language background there. It is not as populated as some of the other shards, but you said you were planning to solo a lot and it may provide a better connection if it is closer to you. Be sure to check out the free items and available for purchase items from the START vendor just west of the Atlas statue in Atlas Park, many good things there to get you off to a good start.

 

If you need base transporters on Reunion you can try my base.

Base Passcode: MMC-363

Good Hunting.

[SmallBrainEnergy]

18 hours ago, Lunar Ronin said:

Type /altinvite character

 

15 hours ago, biostem said:

You can read more about the in-game commands here.

Worked like a charm, thank you! And for handy list of commands too.

 

15 hours ago, GM Impervium said:

And of course, if you're ever stuck on anything else, you can always ask around; the community is generally pretty willing to help!

I see, I`m even honored with an answer from GM! It`s really cool, a great community is half the fun in gaming, IMO.

 

12 hours ago, mechahamham said:

Now, a mistake I see people fall into quite often is that they boost their difficulty settings without realizing they have done so. If you talk to a Hero Corps Analyst or Fortunata Fateweaver, be aware that they'll very happily boost your difficulty settings to where you can't complete missions any more. There is also the 'Noteriety' settings in your chat command/emote menu. These will let you set those same team-size, level, boss, and arch-villain preferences.

 

When in doubt, change these back to a level of +0 or -1, a team size of 1, solo bosses off and solo arch-villains also off. Don't be afraid to ask for help in /chat if you think you've accidentally changed these settings.

Really important note, thanks for spotlighting it! Diffuiculty settings are what you`d expect in single-player games, not MMOs, I was surprised to discover them.

 

8 hours ago, Jacktar said:

 

It is the Journey not the Destination is a phrase often used ingame and is still true, no need to rush to level 50 when you are just starting.

Ingame money (Inf for Heroes) is very easy to earn and it is very easy to be a level one millionaire. (Zone explore badges are the answer, ask ingame how or many of us will show you ingame as well)

Oh, I`m going to some badgehunting then, I was wondering why I barely scraping enoung cash for upgrading with quests only 😅 As for mods - thats cool, I like mods! I`ll save them for later, when I understand the base game better.

 

8 hours ago, Marine X said:

If English is a 2nd language you might want to consider playing on Reunion, it is based in Germany and you may find some people from your language background there. It is not as populated as some of the other shards, but you said you were planning to solo a lot and it may provide a better connection if it is closer to you. Be sure to check out the free items and available for purchase items from the START vendor just west of the Atlas statue in Atlas Park, many good things there to get you off to a good start.

Nah, I`m fine with reading, but when it comes to writing, especially to formulate some detailed questions... all these articles, declensions and conjugations, uh, I guaranteed mess them up 🤣 But thank you anyway, I`ll check that START vendor freebies.

 

Thank you all, guys, that information was really helpful, I`m glad this game have such a gold community!