I know we have at least a few City of Heroes/Villains players on the boards here. If not currently, then at least in times past.

Been playing since November 2004 myself. I go by the global handle @Kellis, and I play mainly on Virtue (I roleplay when roleplayed at, but don't actively go out of my way to do so), with a few other characters scattered because I ran out of space. Yes, I upgraded with CoV to get all the goodies and twelve server slots, and I still ran out of space for alts. Currently I'm slowly filling up Infinity, Guardian, and Triumph as well. (I'm an altaholic with two 50s. This should give you some idea about my utter lack of anything resembling a life.)

Prior to playing this game, I wouldn't have called myself a superhero fan. In fact, even now, I can't call myself a fan of superhero comics, since almost everything I've read from the Big Two of Marvel and DC, I've come to dislike for all the plot holes and retcons and incessant angst and tragedy. The character creation in CoH/V is so awesome, however, that I'd probably not still be playing the game if it weren't for the sheer fun in making alts and new character concepts. Part of the fun is in making something like a Stalker named Guy In Real Life, strolling nonchalantly into a crowded area, and watching the various reactions on the theme of "oh dear lord..."

I've made more than my share of comments, mostly on the official boards, about the good and bad of this game (and it has both in spades). Anyone else? What servers are you on? Anyone here beat me to the punch in making "Elite Beat Agent", if only to see how long it'll last?

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@Hatman

From Victory - We're Better Than Virtue (TM).

I don't play anymore, but if I start playing again, I'll be letting you know.

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I'm going to get CoV soon, can't wait to beat the crap out of goody-two shoed, pencil pushing FREAKS OF NATURE known as HEROES!

*ahem*

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I've been playing City of Heroes since launch, and I still find it fun. I don't play as much as I used to, mostly because I don't have the the time to do so, but I still find time to play once in a while. I was in the City of Villains Beta, and got the game shortly after launch to combine it to my CoH account.


I love messing around with the character creation tool, and more often than not I end up keeping something I was originally just playing around with. I like the variety of things available, especially with the veteran reward costumes, most of which look very nice in combination with other things.


I know the game has its faults, and the Devs can't seem to get their act together sometimes, but I find the simplicity the game offers more appealing than the loot-themed elitism that comes up in other games. Of course, that simplicity is also a curse in of itself, but I don't mind all too much.


Protector is my home server for my main heroes and villains (six each), though I do have alts spread around the other servers. I don't remember what my Global name is, mainly because I never really use the feature all that much.

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I think you hit the nail on the head about the reason as to why I don't play anymore. It almost feels as though the developers have given up.

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I played CoH for a little over a month before cancelling my account. The thing is, the game really doesn't offer anything new after level 10 or so - even at that point, the missions still mainly just revolve around defeating certain enemies, and if I'm not mistaken, there are parts of the game that absolutely force you to be in a party to make any headway towards a level up. I don't really enjoy forced teamplay - that's why I quit Final Fantasy XI back in the day.

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Forced teamplay happens in two places in CoH:

- With certain arcs called Task Forces, which are never needed to progress through the game, but are occasionally useful for finding out the rest of the story. A player can go through the game without ever touching a Task Force easily.

- If you specifically build a character for team play. This is actually a lot more easily done unintentionally than not; certain powersets are just not suited for solo play.

Other than that, it's possible to solo all the way from level one to the level cap. In fact, that's what I did with one of my level 45 characters in CoV, and CoV is a tad bit more difficult to solo (since there's a lot of challenges which were meant to be team battles, but the devs, sometime early last year, allowed us to tone them down for soloers). I absolutely hate forced teaming as well, and I'm one of those weirdos who prefer to solo an MMOG, and CoH/V does help me with that. (I also quit FFXI because I hate to have to find a team. Well, that, and slow travel.)

Now, as for repetition, I agree completely. Taking out all the various story elements, it's really just "go into the instance, defeat enemies, exit, repeat". Sometimes the story makes up for it. Other times... not so much.



The ironic thing is that with the upcoming new content update, the devs are going to be introducing, well, loot.

Yes, the forums erupted in controversy.

Ever since the controversial changes to powers that happened in Issue 5 and Issue 6, I've taken a very blase attitude towards new changes to the gameplay mechanics, perhaps because my first 50 was a Regen Scrapper. What happens, will happen, and most likely break several things that previous patches had tried to fix. When a patch to fix pet names removes the doors from a zone, I have to imagine that the code is one big mess.

But I love the game anyway.

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I know.

I've only recently canceled, quite frankly. Their "loot" still doesn't change anything. Instead of "buying" my enhancers, I'll be making them. Still no new powersets, still no new thing to do... and if you play villains, it's the 2nd issue in a row where you get shafted.

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Around the releases of Issues 6 and 7, there were plenty of threads about Heroes getting "nothing" for two issues in a row. Around the release of Issue 8 and the upcoming Issue 9, there are plenty of threads about Villains getting "nothing" for two issues in a row.

It's mostly that what Heroes/Villains are getting may not be what the individual player wants. (Issue 9 checklist: Heroes get the Statesman TF. Villains get the Hamidon and a new zone area. Both get Inventions and an attempt at a player economy. If none of these interest, then "shafted" is about right.)

The thing about loot is that it's very divisive. Many people want loot in the game, and just as many don't. The Invention system is simultaneously too much and not enough like actual loot for players.

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Invention's system is fine the way it is, in my opinion. If CoX was more like WoW, it wouldn't be enough. If CoX was more of an action-based game than it is, it would be too much.

The only problem I have with the invention system is that it's too little too late. It should have been introduced back when ED was introduced. That way, people would have still complained, but they'd have been able to actually diversify their enhancers.

Plus, the Hami raid and LRSF (probably the STF too) are geared too much to standard MMORPG players rather than the hybrid action/RPG players, in a sense that it's not so much tactics than what set you picked at the beginning that determines your usefulness.

In a sense, I don't want to be shafted because the developers couldn't make a powerset worth a damn for the little endgame they came up with when I'm a decent player.

In so far as the rest of the game goes, I'm either burned out on it so severely, it'll either take changes to the core gameplay or some content that fits more the bill of action games than RPG ones.

Or new, innovative, powersets.

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My brother and I have been playing since COH Open Beta so I've pretty much seen it all. Couple that with the fact that I preffer to play lowbies (1-10, highest character I ever got was a 13 ) and you get a great big pile of "Doesn't care what the devs do, I'm in it for the head-bashing".

'Course, I could just be a complete noob and not know it yet

Considering you're cutting yourself from the best content (Faultline/Striga/Croatoa), yes, you are a noob :P

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