What are my options for challenging content?

[Illy]

After they dev team decided to get rid of prestige, it felt to me like there was nothing really to aspire to in CoH anymore. 

 

Then again, maybe there are task forces or trials that have been added by the team that I don't know about. Is there anything difficult to do in the game? I hear even the last iTrial is pretty easy. 

[Justaris]

Bit of a loaded question, but I'll take it at face value.    If you're trolling, congratulations on your success.

 

I find that challenge comes in different flavors.    Attempting badge hunts, particularly of the incarnate trials, can be challenging and requires coordination and skill.   PvP, while not my personal cup of tea, is also a place where some people look to find challenge.     You can run any TF solo now, so attempting to solo various TFs could also be a way to push your character - there was a blaster recently who posted about soloing a Master challenge rated +4/x8 ITF, so that's something.    There are also AE arcs written by players specifically to offer extra challenge, so you can seek out those and test yourself against them as well.

 

The only new TF that wasn't available on the live servers before shutdown (as far as I know) would be the Market Crash TF in Kallisti Wharf, level 40+.   It's relatively brief, but the boss at the end can be challenging particularly solo / with a small team. 

 

Edited August 10, 2019 by Justaris
Added a bit more to address the question about new TFs

[GavinRuneblade]

Solo GMs with a blaster.

 

Solo "master of" task forces. I hear a blaster managed this on the ITF.

 

Make a petless mastermind.

 

>.>

<.<

>.>

 

Get into a team as a tanker.

 

just kidding. Mostly. Are tanker tuesdays a thing again yet? 

 

Edited August 10, 2019 by GavinRuneblade

[Zumberge]

Step 1: Find a trainer and switch your build to one you don't use (this is easy, scant few people use multiple builds and you're probably not one of them).

Step 2: Respec it and pick your powers and slots to your liking.

Step 3: Slot it with SOs.  You heard me.

Step 4: Convince seven other people to do Steps 1 through 3.

Step 5: Do high-level content.

 

_{(This isn't me being flippant either, I kind of want to try this at least once.)}

[Murcielago]

Make a L50 hero with one primary and secondary power and don't slot any enhancements and don't die ever.

[Lunchmoney]

If you thought the acquisition of SG Prestige was the only challenge then you are missing out on the whole game.

[Illy]

So basically, you have to nerf yourself for a challenge. That's too bad. 

[reconfigureyourface]

4 minutes ago, Illy said:

So basically, you have to nerf yourself for a challenge. That's too bad. 

Troll...?

7 hours ago, Justaris said:

Bit of a loaded question, but I'll take it at face value.    If you're trolling, congratulations on your success.

 

Yes... grats to them I believe

[Illy]

Just now, reconfigureyourface said:

Troll...?

Yes... grats to them I believe

No, I'm not trolling. I've never done anything in City of Heroes I actually got stuck on and had to think about. Its pretty much just tank + zerg everything. I've done raid, trials, TF's at +4 and all that. Nothing in the game as yet has given me a problem. 

[Clave Dark 5]

Just play the way you want, stop min/maxing, never taking "that one power" because it's "hot garbage" (it probably isn't it's not not so uber-great as whatever else).  If you don't want to play, then don't.

[nihilii]

Trolling aside, the question has merit. In my opinion here's where you can find challenge in CoH:

 

Solo:

- +4/x8 missions against all factions (facing peacebringer PPD is a whole different ballpark than a fire farm)

- TFs, up to and including STF/RSF/LGTF for the strongest builds

 

Duo:

- itrials (requires extra dummy accounts due to DUMB minimum player mechanics)

 

Team:

- speedrunning content

- PvP

The game is meant to be stupid easy for full teams and doubly so if you pick the path of least resistance, so as a trend the obvious answer is to play on smaller teams and to venture beyond the best reward:time content.

[Heraclea]

Explore Shadow Shard without fly or teleport.

[Obitus]

As Nihilii mentions, this game actually has a fair bit of under-discussed difficulty, in the form of enemy groups that people don't often play against.  Try soloing Rularuu on +4/x8 with, say, an SR Scrapper.  For all of the talk about how overpowered we are, there is basically no build in the entire game that can easily solo at the highest difficulty indiscriminately. 

 

(The closest thing we have to a build that can solo all NPC factions more-or-less equally well is probably an Illusion Controller, or a tricked out perma-dom Dominator with a diverse Primary like Mind Control - but a build like that won't kill large spawns particularly fast.  There are always trade offs.)

 

In a good group, it's harder to find a big challenge at the high end.  Incarnate powers just scale absurdly well in teams - but there's still fun/challenge to be found in running random pick-up groups, which may not have all of their Incarnate powers, and probably don't have tricked out IO builds.  To me, one of the most appealing aspects of this game is the prospect of designing a build that can get a team through tough situations.  Exemplaring to do lower level TFs at high difficulty levels can be very interesting.

 

But the most challenging thing about CoH these days is trying to get a donation in before the window closes.  The game's doing something right.

[LaconicLemur]

I think what you mean to say, is: "What are options *that fit me* for challenging content? So you need to tell us why earning SG prestige was important to you. Is it about pointing to the SG Registry and saying "Me and my crew are #1" and all that means and feels? Was it about having a common goal for your SG mates? Was it about contributing to a common SG cause? Or is it about group-based challenges that need group coordination?

 

Your OP paints too broad a brush to be solvable. Alternately, maybe this incarnation of the game is no longer for you. I'm optimistic that people can creatively find ways to enjoy the same game in a different way, but YMMV. And if you're genuinely asking for options, you need to be both more flexible and specific.

 

[Myrmidon]

12 hours ago, Zumberge said:

Step 1: Find a trainer and switch your build to one you don't use (this is easy, scant few people use multiple builds and you're probably not one of them).

Step 2: Respec it and pick your powers and slots to your liking.

Step 3: Slot it with SOs.  You heard me.

Step 4: Convince seven other people to do Steps 1 through 3.

Step 5: Do high-level content.

 

_{(This isn't me being flippant either, I kind of want to try this at least once.)}

Old School, like some of us learned the game long before IOs.

[Zumberge]

6 hours ago, Illy said:

So basically, you have to nerf yourself for a challenge. That's too bad. 

 

The notion of self-imposed challenges is a concept as old as video games.  Even the hardest games will, inevitably, prove lacking for one group or another in some respects.

[Yoru-hime]

Simply put, CoH is a casual MMO, not just in population but in fundamental design. The carefully tuned balance needed to power the sort of cutting edge challenges you're asking about just isn't there. There is no Extreme or Savage version of content to push people to their limits, in large part because CoH is so bad at limits in general.

 

It's really, really hard to generate content that is finely tuned to be very challenging when character and group power levels are all over the place the way they are here. An encounter that will push a generic team to the very edge is going to get stomped into the ground by 8 interlocking characters with builds designed to work well together (who will then promptly resume complaining that the game is too easy). Design something to really test that group and you've started excluding players not running specific ATs or powersets (who will complain that they can never get the shiny for doing the Extreme content). Short of reworking just about everything about CoH or designing gimmick "challenges" that ignore character builds completely, there's no real fix for that.

 

In the end, the Live Devs decided that it was a no-win proposition that wasn't worth pursuing. The closest they really came was the "Master of ..." challenge badges.

[Kismette]

See how high of a vet level you can attain.  I've heard it goes beyond 999 so have at it. 😉

[jubakumbi]

8 hours ago, Illy said:

No, I'm not trolling. I've never done anything in City of Heroes I actually got stuck on and had to think about. Its pretty much just tank + zerg everything. I've done raid, trials, TF's at +4 and all that. Nothing in the game as yet has given me a problem. 

And?

 

At some point, it's all just hitting buttons and killing pixels, challenges in these types of games are getting humans to cooperate for 5 minutes or setting personal goals.

The point is playing and relaxing, it's a hobby not a life-commitment.

The challenge in all of these types of games lies with the player, not the game.

Look inside, not outside.

 

Raid-progression based games are no different, it's just learning the dance and the key-sequence, it's never a challenge when all the rules are known, just a repetitive task.

 

Try the stock markets if you want a challenge.

[Hedgefund]

OP isn't trolling, s/he is right.  You basically have to manufacture your challenges here.  It's very apparent to me after playing games that do present a challenge.  No need to deny it, it's clearly not a deal breaker to me, I'm in it for the long haul, sometimes I just want to press 1-2-3-4 (maybe even 1-2 depending on global recharge) and rake in some loot.  

[Apparition]

The biggest challenge in this or any other online multi-player game is to successfully herd enough cats for long enough to successfully complete a raid or iTrial.

[LaconicLemur]

4 hours ago, Hedgefund said:

It's very apparent to me after playing games that do present a challenge.

 

Out of curiosity and perhaps to try -- what challenging games are you referring to?

[Illy]

I wasn't trying to make a point with the post, but instead I am interested in playing CoH again and was wondering where I should look for enjoyment (which for me comes from challenge). 

 

When I play chess for example, I derive fun from challenge my opponent gives me. I wouldn't have so much fun at all if I knew I would win every game. That's just me. 

 

I brought up SG bases because its something to "work toward", and it can take a really, really long time, and was quite fun. I don't see badge collecting or IO stacking in the same way personally, but that's a nuanced point. That can all be done solo-- to really deck out a base required a feat of social engineering (it was more of an MMO endeavour, not a single-player-RPG endeavour, in the way IO's or badge collecting is). 

 

I could say my standard for difficulty comes from playing EVE online, but really it comes from the boardgames I played as a kid, which I always had a chance of losing. From my experience, you really can't lose in City of Heroes. If that's your kind of game, then cool, I didn't make the thread to deride anyone for that. Its less than satisfactory to me, but a thought occured to me that maybe I wasn't aware of every bit of content in CoH and there might be some difficult content that was hidden from me. I made the thread to find out. 

[Redlynne]

[Coyote]

Make a character who solos every TF. Then, at +4/x8. Then, at Master level. Then, with a level 50 but non-Incarnate character.

Then do it with a melee character.

 

If you want to look for challenges, there are some out there without having to gimp your build. There most certainly are carpet marks in the shape of characters in CoH maps, so clearly characters do die. But the game doesn't really punish you for dying other than a hospital trip, so the question is what do you consider a challenge... a story arc where you are likely to die? Many times, even? But in most missions, even if it takes multiple deaths, you can usually wear out the mobs on the map. The only "real" challenges where you might fail are:

-AVs & GMs, because if you can't beat their regen or special tricks, then it doesn't matter if you keep running back from the hospital with multiple inspirations

-timed missions. Especially timed missions with a "kill AV" in them.

-escort missions where the NPC can be attacked. Or "protect an item" missions. Or the Croatoa "prevent Fir Bolg from escaping" mission.

-PvP.

 

Otherwise, all content is generally not "fail-able" except when real-life forces you to log off before finishing the mission, just because you can always come back again and again with a fresh set of inspirations and knock off some more mobs. I remember one mission in First Ward where I triggered about 5 ambushes, and due to my settings I had about 50 mobs waiting to kill me when I came back from the hospital... at the entrance. They fired before I could even target. Eventually I wore them all down by coming into the mission with 4 Lucks running, but had to do that 5 or 6 times. Does that count as success, or failure? If it's success, it's only because CoH allows you to fail over and over (die and teleport to hospital), and still eventually succeed at the task.