Coyote_Seven

Yeah, I knew about and used all those strategies. I was actually kinda hoping he had some insight into the game that was never aware of. But, uhm... yeah.

With Nemesis Jaegers, I still have to be careful with my bots/traps MM, 'cause their DoT patches they lay down can shred my bots to pieces very quick if I'm not paying attention. Still learning how to use Provoke properly in all situations, lol.

This is the City of Gimmicks.

Why did the Rikti have to go to such lengths to turn off the war walls in the first place when they could have just as easily flown over them? For all their apparent technological superiority, they apparently forgot how to make helicopters (which you can see flying over the war walls in Atlas Park).

I'm with both you and Sam. I've played this game since May 2004 and I don't recall it ever having anything all that challenging in terms of trying to puzzle out what to do. It's always been about being super. It's always been about flipping out, yelling "Hulk SMASH!!!", diving in and killing... er, arresting stuff!

I've done the pulling tactic on my weaker characters. It's not as satisfying as barreling through and taking them all at once. So I'm not satisfied with those characters until I've gotten their builds right and IO'd them out.

I think the only times I ever had problems with timed missions were when they were a surprise (and I had to log out to go to work or something), or else when there was a single minion hidden behind a wall (in one of those cave maps, argh!) and I had already wasted my time going through the entire map multiple times trying to find him.

And what was the old vision? I don't recall any of my characters ever losing levels or getting deleted or whatever when they got defeated back when I started playing this game. About the only big difference is the amount of debt I used to accrue back then. I got used to that. It wasn't such a big deal then, and of course it's certainly not a big deal now!

So, then... what?

As someone else already stated above, CoH already has its own version of "rock, paper, scissors". It may not be in a package you like, or even wish to recognize. Doesn't mean it isn't there.

And it's still a gimmick. It's an artificial way of imposing fairness. That's why every AT has different initial and max levels of HP, defense, and so on.

My point there was that those things are not obvious when you use them. As opposed to some other games where it's painfully obvious that everyone is using the exact same gear because they're all wearing the exact same items. How very dull!

Here's where I disagree with you. There's plenty of choices you can make while playing the game that have repercussions on your character later on; the first ones being what AT you decide to play, and what primary and secondary power sets you choose.

Seriously, I'm not sure what you're expecting out of an MMO. I've let your apples-and-oranges comparisons of different types of games slide so far because I initially made a comparison on the RPG aspects of CoH with single player RPGs, but I think perhaps you've taken it a bit too far.

Most games give the choice between rock, paper and scissors. Only they all give different names to them. This is called "balance". If anything, that's the real gimmick.

You're saying you actually want things like "Cape of flying +5" and "Power Gloves of smashing +10" in CoH?

I... don't think I'd care to go there, seriously.

Doesn't this describe all content in the game to date? In fact, doesn't that describe how almost all RPG video games work? They force you down a single path while trying to give you the illusion of choice. That's not really a "gimmick" though, is it? It's a limitation inherent to the medium. The best they can do is maybe offer side quests, which I don't think applies to an MMORPG where you can have several story arcs running at once.

Fixed for extra awesome.

But that's the beauty of the Internet. Arguing tangents of tangents of tangents. It mirrors the flotsam of random thoughts that every person's brain keeps churning up again and again.

It's wonderful, and you can't stop it. Well, I guess you could on moderated forums. But that just means it will pop up somewhere else. That's why I loved the alt hiarchy on Usenet.

You forgot the part where Luke is an NPC ally, and you have to make sure his health never gets below 50% or else you lose the trial. And he has a penchant for aggroing everything in sight.

The colored patches turn us all into Incarnate Asada.

In other words, a sure fire way to ensure that no Peacebringer or Warshade with Incarnate abilities unlocked will ever get invited into a team or a league ever again!

I was thinking about your idea, and I thought maybe it could be expanded on, even. Perhaps there could be some "pre-incarnate" content, that teases the player about what's available in the end-game. Perhaps a new story arc every ten levels, much like what Kheldians get. They could be single player missions that take place on the trial maps. Maybe they could earn you a single Astral merit, even, way before you could even do anything with it.

Indeed! It was why I had my original idea in the first place.