TaraWatt

As someone has already pointed out, this analysis is incorrect. The Nazis were socialists. And, in literally every way, they are quite similar to the Soviet Communists.

The Nazis and Fascists (Fascism and Socialism are the same, as I'll demonstrate) hated the Soviets and the Communists not because they were socialists. They hated them for the same reason liberals hate religion and conservatives in America - they hate competition. And Hitler's own views naturally coincided with his own extreme nationalist goals. As a socialist himself, he agreed with the tenets of communism except for one or two critical things. He was interested in GERMANY ruling the world. Communism is all about Communism ruling the world. Hitler dreamed of a thousand-year Reich where only Nazi Germans ruled, and the communists represented a competitor in that goal. Communists want to ensnare the world in their own breed of totalitarianism which is virtually identical to what the Nazis achieved. You might think that the communists were more egalatarian in their goals, but that's not really true, and in order for both systems of totalitarianism to grow and thrive, they must endeavor to separate the masses into class, race, ethnicity, religion, and whatever else in order to pit one group against another. For the Nazis, it was "the Jews and non-Aryans against the Aryan races." For the Soviets, it was the "rich capitalist stooges versus the workers."

The common thread of socialism, communism and fascism (all of which are the same) is the primacy of the state over the individual.

You don't understand. It's not fair that some ATs can solo and other simply can't. It indicates that some ATs are superior to others in every way. They did this, I suppose, on accident in their effort to force us to team together. And yes, it's force.

It's not an abrupt force, mind you. It's insidious. They purposely create tactical gaps so that you seriously consider teaming with others like they want you to. For most ATs, particularly Defenders and the Khels, teamwork is almost the only solution to rising in level. They offer little in the way of alternatives to doing so. And if you go solo, you do not receive a greater reward for the risk you incur. You get greater rewards for being in a team because of the paradigm they've instituted into the game. In reality, teaming together should make missions less risky.

At some point, all heroes should be able to take on AVs on their own. No mission, with the exceptions of TFs and Trials, should be required to have a team. Why? It's the reward for hard work. Most people who play this game are really working to try to get their hero to be as powerful as possible so that they don't need to work in a team if they don't really want to. This is done either consciously or unconsciously. By triumphing over AVs mano-e-mano, you can say, "Yes! I did it! I did that!" In a team, you can't say that without coming across as a braggadocious arrogant fool. When you reach L50, you still can't just take on anything alone, but you should! If you have to ask for help, it's a sign of weakness. It says you, for all the work you've done, aren't any more powerful than the riff-raff you're fighting against. You've wasted all of your time.

By virtue of ATs that can take on AVs, it only makes the situation worse. ATs that can take on AVs alone are far superior to those that can't. Why make a blaster anymore, when you're only going to peter out as a soloist in the 40s?

I'm sorry if you've bought into their paradigm, but it's the truth.

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You know it gets really and truly old to hear this line that everything needs to be able to be done solo for this game to be fixed. Just deal with it and ask for more solo content instead of changing ALL content to be able to be done solo.

I think you all need to realise this game is marketed towards a wider variety of consumers than just people who want to solo. I enjoy team play almost exclusively. So I demand Team Only content just like you demand that everything in the game can be done solo. I want everything in the game to be team only.

The sooner you accept that this game must market to both those who want to solo and those who do not, the sooner you will be happier. If they did not include content for both, then this game would flop even faster. It's not killing you or anyone else any that there is stuff you cannot do solo. Its just content for those other people who play the game that you do not want to interract with.

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At no point did I say that the game shouldn't do anything to discourage teamwork. The point of my assertion is that their focus is squarely on FORCING us to team up rather than CHOOSING to. There's a huge difference. The fact that they force us to do so by giving us ATs that practically have to team up at some point due to abilities that they lack or due to tinkering with them from time to time has led to many of the problems CoH players experience.

It wouldn't be so bad if we weren't forced into it. But it's almost required to, especially for defenders and blasters (at the high levels). This forcing puts me off. Not that I don't like to team, but I don't like to have to resort to this. It just kills the entire experience.

You should team up because you WANT to not because you HAVE to. TFs and Trials aside (those are the biggies), no mission, even if it involves an AV, should require a team in order to be successful.

Especially at the high levels. Because you want a reward for all your hard work. At some point, you want to be powerful enough to take on AVs toe-to-toe no matter what AT you are..because you earned it by virtue of all the training, all the sacrifice, all the time you put into it. Should you be victorious all the time? No. I'm just saying that this game is too focused on teamwork based on the devs values.

I believe one of the greatest weaknesses in this game is the fact that there are missions that cannot be accomplished solo. This is called an Inflexible Paradigm, requiring the use of multiple heroes to accomplish a mission, which is limiting in another way and discouraging for those who wish to play all the way up to 50 solo. Teamwork should not be a straightjacket.

What makes this paradigm even worse is that there are certain combos of archetypes that can solo against AVs and thus can solo all the way to 50. The stories may be apocryphal, but I've run into Fire/Ice Tankers who say it's quite possible. This makes that particular archetype exceedingly more powerful than the others even if they can't dish out the damage like a blaster or a scrapper. The fact that they don't die on the first attack against a typical AV is indicative of this. I may be wrong, and these players may be bragging to capabilities they don't possess, but then again I take their word for it. Controllers have pets that enable them to do likewise (fire controllers and their imps, for instance).

To fix this paradigm, it is necessary to create parameters that allow for any soloer to tackle any mission and still be on their own. Teamwork is highly overrated, and gets really old really fast, especially if you've played with a group of people who get you killed a few times in one mission.

The argument that City of Heroes is an MMO is irrelevant. Lots of games could be considered MMO even if they weren't really designed to be, yet they can and often are played solo.

Players should want to join forces with others not because they have to but because it's fun. If you have no choice but to team up with another just to defeat an AV or a boss or whatever, then it's force, and force isn't always fun.