Why I Can't Convince My Friends to Play CoX
By
Acanous_Quietus,
Posted on: 2008-03-05 24:25 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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a lv 2 corruptor with Snipe
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In other words, a Dark Blast Corruptor.
Current main:
Schrodinger's Gun, Dual Pistols/Mental Blaster, Virtue
Avatar: Becky Miyamoto from Pani Poni Dash. Roulette roulette~
Welcome and believe me when I tell you that I feel your pain.
My first toon was a Blaster back before Defiance was the sparkling gem that I see it as now (ok, it's hoky but i really like Defiance 2 vs the old way). I joined because someone had two copies of the game and gave me one. I started out on villains so my adjustment to heroes was slow and painful.
I play at odd hours and on low pop servers so teaming was tough. Soloing as a beginner on a Blaster in the Hollows can be too painful for words and more than once I swore off heroes.
My only advice is to come to the dark side...we have cookies lol. Seriously the devs took what they did wrong with Hero-side low content and fixed much of it Villain-side. Mercy Island can get you to lvl 7-8 with no additional zoning, two trainers for your convenience and no Hazard Zone to mess with. Then you hop over to Port Oakes, three Newspaper missions and you get the Mayhem...easier than a Safeguard IMHO because you can rack up 20 minutes in bonus time breaking stuff. The little side missions after robbing the bank can be fun too.
I have a SG on Triumph and would be glad to have you there. We do an all-Mastermind thing every Monday night and as long as you can hit level 6 or better (to be able to get into the zones) we can SK you with us (villains call it Lackeying). The server is not the most crowded but there always seems to be someone to team with during prime-time (after dinner before midnight and weekends).
Also, the Villainous ATs are designed more around independence and being self-sufficient than the heroes IMHO. Stalkers have some growing pains right now but the others ATs are a blast to play.
Come join us and see for yourself. If you really like it talk to your friends about the chance to be a villain for a change. Might draw them in as well.
Send me a PM if you want to chat. Good luck either way.
"Comics, you're not a Mastermind...you're an Overlord!"
It's been awhile since I've actually used a level 5-10 contact, even on my new alts, but don't they make it very clear in bright orange letters that you don't have to do Wincott's missions and can return to that contact and do other missions?
Don't they also send you straight to the police guy in KR, and explain, in detail, how you use the radio and what it's for?
Also OP, did you ever ASK other players for advice or help? I assume you knew what an MMO was when you bought into it (although back in 2004 when I started I didn't.) It helps a lot to be able to say in Broadcast or Request "Hey my mission door is really far away and there are some enemies I can't beat blocking it, what shoulfd I do?"
I bet a nice high level character would have cleared them for you, or at least someone would have told you that you could run right past them.
Seems like a lot of your complaints OP are not so much about how the game is set up, but how your own inexperience and/or unwillingness to try to get help impacted your gameplay.
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It's been awhile since I've actually used a level 5-10 contact, even on my new alts, but don't they make it very clear in bright orange letters that you don't have to do Wincott's missions and can return to that contact and do other missions?
Don't they also send you straight to the police guy in KR, and explain, in detail, how you use the radio and what it's for?
Also OP, did you ever ASK other players for advice or help? I assume you knew what an MMO was when you bought into it (although back in 2004 when I started I didn't.) It helps a lot to be able to say in Broadcast or Request "Hey my mission door is really far away and there are some enemies I can't beat blocking it, what shoulfd I do?"
I bet a nice high level character would have cleared them for you, or at least someone would have told you that you could run right past them.
Seems like a lot of your complaints OP are not so much about how the game is set up, but how your own inexperience and/or unwillingness to try to get help impacted your gameplay.
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As of 2 months ago (my last hero alt) no they did not. You run missions in AP (assuming you didn't get a sewer team and as a starter why would you?) and at some point you get Winncot (I think his name is) as a contact and are TOLD to go there. King's Row is never mentioned until and unless you get the contacts there or go there yourself. Then the Police contact to give you the scanner missions pops up IIRC.
I strongly believe that the game tutorial needs an overhaul. A lot of experienced MMO players can probably figure things out as they go along with a little bit of help text and a bunch of hands-on experience. But relatively new players might feel a bit overwhelmed or confused. The wall of text you get relating to Enhancements and Inventions, for example, is very intimidating IMHO. You just started a new game...who wants to sit and read War and Peace halfway through the Tutorial?
It's like going to the movies and watching the opening credits. Sometimes they're spaced in between actual scenes or background text in the film. You don't notice them as much because you're focussing on whatever else is going on. But the films where it's just a blank screen and white text? Yeah, kinda like a commercial. Sorry but I see enough of those now.
Some players are not terribly out-going. They're fine with friends but meeting new players and making new friends in-game is tough for some. It was for me and I can meet people standing in line at the checkout at the store.
The game (both sides but CoH in particular) needs a new Tutorial and a new way to ease players into the world IMHO. I don't like the idea that a prospective player might leave just because they had a tough time the first 10 hours of the game.
"Comics, you're not a Mastermind...you're an Overlord!"
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It's been awhile since I've actually used a level 5-10 contact, even on my new alts, but don't they make it very clear in bright orange letters that you don't have to do Wincott's missions and can return to that contact and do other missions?
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No, I didn't recall seeing that. However, I just recently got a hero high enough to be asked to go into Dark Astoria. From the police chief that wanted to send me into a mission there, I was handed a pamphlet of information about the zone. Reading this pamphlet through the "Clues" menu, I saw in bright orange letters something to the effect of, "You will want a team of other players." I suspect something similar might have been done for being introduced to Wincott, but it was a long time before I ever learned what that "Clues" menu was really for.
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Don't they also send you straight to the police guy in KR, and explain, in detail, how you use the radio and what it's for?
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Yes, absolutely. But the explanation still made me a little nervous. I didn't know if these radio missions were soloable, or what kind of events were involved with the promised Safeguard mission. Rather than diving into a new system of missions, we decided to stick with our other contact while we continued figuring out the game.
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Also OP, did you ever ASK other players for advice or help? I assume you knew what an MMO was when you bought into it (although back in 2004 when I started I didn't.) It helps a lot to be able to say in Broadcast or Request "Hey my mission door is really far away and there are some enemies I can't beat blocking it, what shoulfd I do?"
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1. That wasn't an obvious question to ask. In no other MMORPG that I've ever played has it ever been necessary to ask for help at level 2. My analysis was: I'm supposed to work my way towards the mission by stopping purse-snatchers on the streets -- that's what they're there for.
2. I was also still getting used to the basic controls for movement, powers, targetting, etc. Mastering the chat functions wasn't one of my high priorities at the time -- I would deal with that later.
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Seems like a lot of your complaints OP are not so much about how the game is set up, but how your own inexperience and/or unwillingness to try to get help impacted your gameplay.
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I was an experienced MMO player still trying to get accustomed to the game on my own so I could be a better contribution to a team when I finally joined one. I'm more than willing to be a team player, but I just think level 2 was a little early for that extra help to be necessary.
NVM.
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To be fair, my preferred solution would be revamp the whole leveling system to function more like it does with giant monsters & rikti.
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After trying to do an Invasion on a level 14 last night, I'm kinda having my own personal little doubts about how well designed that system is. In my experience, it's fairly likely that said level 14 tanker is going to get dead to a solo minion long, long before he does even 25% health, and that's assuming he's hitting fairly consistently with his attacks.
Dawncaller - The Circle of Dawn
Too many blasted alts to list, but all on Virtue.
Well they're never gonna try the game if you keep [censored] about it all the time.
To the OP: Very cute icon! And all valid points. There is more:
Positron Task Force
No way of avoiding the mission to see PvP zone contacts and the Hero Corps agent in KR (mainly an issue for second and later toons)
Fitness power pool
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...rowcontact.jpg
So in a bout of insomnia I took a new alt through level 5 on Justice.
As you can see by the image above, it's not orange as I thought, but they do tell you that you do not have to do Wincott's missions.
But it is kind of vague, so maybe you miss it. They thought of that, as seen here.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...ottwarning.jpg
Wincott himself makes it very clear that you can go back to King's Row anytime you want.
To the OP, I don't want this to seem like some kind of "Ha I'm right and yo're wrong!" attack, it just really struck me that some (some, not all) of your complaints were not really the game's fault.
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1. That wasn't an obvious question to ask. In no other MMORPG that I've ever played has it ever been necessary to ask for help at level 2. My analysis was: I'm supposed to work my way towards the mission by stopping purse-snatchers on the streets -- that's what they're there for.
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I'm more than willing to be a team player, but I just think level 2 was a little early for that extra help to be necessary.
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Also, I don't think it was NECESSARY for you to ask for help, but when faced with a tough decision (Do I fight these guys who can kill me easily? Do I run past them? Do I need to gain more levels?) I find it silly to arbitrarily make one of those decisions with no outside information and then complain about your decision as if it's inherently the game's fault.
But that's just my opinion. I hope that despite the rough start you enjoy and stay with us for a very long time.
I know the feeling... I've got 3 different situations concerning friends and CoX..
One friend I got to join the game, she even got to level 50, but is now going to be quitting due to the game not being balanced enough. Most of her reasons were dealing with her level 50 not being able to do anything outside of Newspaper missions. (Level 50 Dark/Dark/Soul Corruptor) I've tried to talk her into maybe making a new character, or joining hero side with me, with no dice. She doesn't want to play a Hero. Peroid. And nothing I can say can change that.. 
Second friend is not in the game, and doesn't seem to want to play due to both not having the internet speed for the updates, and wiery about the monthly costs and how to go about doing it..
Third friend already plays WoW, and while he sounds interested in CoX, it doesn't seem likely that he'll be playing any time soon as WoW probobly begins to make improvements.
Not to mention I really can't promote the game, when even though there's alot of things I do like about it, the cons are still out weighing them in a promotable view.. Especially when it comes to balances between some Power combinations, and how things can be for the new player at times.
All in all it is extremely depressing... Especially with how wonderful the Dev Staff has been, and how enjoyable alot of the updates to the game so far have turned out. I can only hope things continue to improve.
Biggest reason i cant sell CoH to some of my buddies simply is that they are not willing to pay two monthly fee to play online games.
So, since they could only afford one monthly fee then they decided to play WoW because fantasy-medieval setting was more appealing to them. It's that simple. I was tired of AD&D and such, so i started playing CoH for a change. But like my buddies, i am not willing to pay two monthly fees so i will not play WoW for as long as i keep subscribing to CoH.
The SuperHero theme seem less popular than the fantastic/fantasy/medieval theme overall... That cant be helped..
I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
Voltaire
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To be fair, my preferred solution would be revamp the whole leveling system to function more like it does with giant monsters & rikti.
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After trying to do an Invasion on a level 14 last night, I'm kinda having my own personal little doubts about how well designed that system is. In my experience, it's fairly likely that said level 14 tanker is going to get dead to a solo minion long, long before he does even 25% health, and that's assuming he's hitting fairly consistently with his attacks.
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In the case of the Invasion, the baddies are level 30 baseline as far as build goes (what powers they have, etc) and the most common problem a pre-level 20 character has is with the huge amount of mezz protection from the crowds and the fact that a level 30 drone has higher defense modifiers than you'd find in most pre-25 enemies.
One dev once explained the "giant monster scaling" as essentially turning OFF other parts. The damage multiplier (higher levels do more damage for the same base attack), the accuracy multiplier(higher levels hit lower ones easier. lower levels get -acc), and even the hp multiplier, I'm told, are actually "added on" to the baseline system. Giant Monsters and Rikti essentially just turn off these features so (barring powers) you take proportionate damage and accuracy across all the levels.
Thus, your attack's damage and accuracy may be mitigated a bit by the powerset of a foe, your 'baseline' attack values are equivalent to a foe of your level.
It's not the mitigation.
It's the fact that I couldn't actually do significant enough damage to get credit (in a team of six, no less) for pretty much -any- kills during the entire thing.
There is no "proportionate" damage, in other words. I'm doing 8 damage to an even critter, I'm doing 8 damage to the level 30-baseline Rikti.
Dawncaller - The Circle of Dawn
Too many blasted alts to list, but all on Virtue.
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http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...rowcontact.jpg
So in a bout of insomnia I took a new alt through level 5 on Justice.
As you can see by the image above, it's not orange as I thought, but they do tell you that you do not have to do Wincott's missions.
But it is kind of vague, so maybe you miss it. They thought of that, as seen here.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...ottwarning.jpg
Wincott himself makes it very clear that you can go back to King's Row anytime you want.
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Yeah, I guess that makes sense. I'll own up to that one -- no excuse on my part for missing those statements.
I really did have the feeling that was where we were supposed to be, though. First, another contact specifically referred us to him as a mission instead of being simply introduced like any other ordinary contact. Secondly, this is the first point in the game where you can actually receive missions from more than a single contact, so that part wasn't blatantly obvious to me quite yet. At that point, I just figured we were being guided there for a reason. My initial guess was simply, "The Hollows must be the best place for leveling after level 5." We found out soon that wasn't the case, and eventually gave up after realizing we could go back to King's Row.
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Also, I don't think it was NECESSARY for you to ask for help, but when faced with a tough decision (Do I fight these guys who can kill me easily? Do I run past them? Do I need to gain more levels?) I find it silly to arbitrarily make one of those decisions with no outside information and then complain about your decision as if it's inherently the game's fault.
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No, I really do think the game could be a little more intuitive here. The decision I was faced with seemed blatantly simple: Do I fight these guys who can kill me easily, or do I need to gain more levels? Running past them wasn't even a consideration -- I'm a hero, I don't ignore injustice, right? So I made my decision, not arbitrarily as you imply, but by going with what seemed the obvious thing to do. Leveling off of street mobs wasn't really that difficult (if a little boring after a bit), but finally fighting my way to the mission door only to discover it's filled with mobs now 2-3 levels below me -- that was a surprise.
Granted, had I asked a question like "Am I supposed to level up on the streets before continuing my next mission?" on Broadcast, I probably would have been set in the proper direction. But it didn't seem like a question that needed to be asked. Call me silly, but I thought the concept of sprinting past a mob of purse-snatchers I can't defeat yet to take on an entire hideout of said gang of purse-snatchers seemed even sillier. Who knew?
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I hope that despite the rough start you enjoy and stay with us for a very long time.
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Thank you. I hope to stay awhile, too. But probably the single thing that would improve this game for me would be if I actually had another RL friend playing alongside me. Unfortunately, none of them are interested, and my one friend is still bitter from his "City of Hospital" experience. So I miss being able to chat about game stuff with them like we did when we all played WoW. If I ever quit CoH, it will be because I choose to invest more time into my RL friends, whatever they're playing.
Maybe the upcoming issue 12 will have some sort of enticing hook I can snare them with. We shall see! 
Edit: Okay, that was spooky. I just saw the new info up on issue 12 after submitting this post. I'm excited to see how the Hollows turns out, and the new Contact organization is nice too. Way to go!
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Thank you. I hope to stay awhile, too. But probably the single thing that would improve this game for me would be if I actually had another RL friend playing alongside me. Unfortunately, none of them are interested, and my one friend is still bitter from his "City of Hospital" experience. So I miss being able to chat about game stuff with them like we did when we all played WoW. If I ever quit CoH, it will be because I choose to invest more time into my RL friends, whatever they're playing.
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One thing that I found very helpful after my RL friends all went on to play other games was finding a good global chat channel for my server (Liberty in my case, the LBx Channel). It allows me to have conversations on various topics as they come up, and it's always full of people wanting to do this TF or that Trial or just looking for a few more to team with. I solo most of the time personally, but it's nice to know I have an easily accessible place to go to when I want to or need to team up.
Pfft. a lv 2 corruptor with Snipe and the GvE jump pack can get to the rooftops at the base of the starting fort, and kill mobs (that can't get up there or in range to shoot back) untill lv 4.
Then you move towards Fort Darwin, just sniping merrily away untill around lv 8. Hit Port Oakes and do it from the top of the cliffs near the dock untill lv 14, then hit Cap and go for non-gold brickers from the rooftops south of the market. Move areas every level. The XP comes to you, really.
Heck, there's even a bind for it, $targetcustomnext power_exec (your snipe here) or somesuch.
You can't spell Slaughter without laughter
All your gonna do is just farm behemoths anyways.
My thoughts on November 30.