Need help sorting knowledge

Hello everyone :-)

I'm a new player to the entire MMO scene, and to CoH in particular. I come from Champions Online (my very first mmo yay!) but the game feels so broken that I don't know if I'd ever want to come back to it. CoH seems rich in content, and it was either this or WoW i suppose. I'm a very big fan of the superhero scene so i hope this works out better than champions, ANYWAY.

The wiki on CoH is pretty tough for me to follow, and I been digesting what these forums have to offer

but I'm asking you the community what is a good guide for new players to earn the mechanics of the game?

I'm not looking for an OP build or anything, just something that I can digest so I'm not throwing blind and re-rolling 4 times in a week.

Also if any group is recruiting new members its always nice to have players to play with right :P I'd love to join any CoH dedicated group when i get the first eligible chance :-)

Also, any word on server differences would be very nice :-)

Thanks everyone and anyway in much advance, and I hope to see you all in game soon!

Freedom is usually the most populated server
Justice has players on during all times of the night (unofficial aussie server)
Virtue has the most role players.
Triumph wears no pants.

I'm sure someone else can fill in the rest.

I'd recommend a scrapper for your first toon.
Noone expects you to hold aggro, you're not squishy and you get to flip out and kill stuff.

http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/The_Play..._to_the_Cities

The Player Guide to the Cities Section is meant as a replacement for the old style game manuals. Nice thick and Chuncky, but giving detailed step by steps for everything

CoH was my first (and only) MMO, so I can see where some of the confusion might arise as to the "mechanics" of the game - but really the system is pretty simple.

Target something and hit the attack - watch the orange numbers float up. If the Health bar of the bad guy in the targetting reticle doesn't go down all the way, hit another attack.

Scrappers follow this strategy pretty much all the time.

Blasters also follow this strategy, but with a healthy dose of keeping an eye on the baddie so you can beat a strategic retreat if necessary.

If you are teaming, I actually recommend Blasters as the best method of learning mechanics. Your team can help keep you safe, leaving you time to watch how others are playing their ATs and roles from the back of the party while firing off attacks. Watch the other players to see when a Defender fires off buffs and debuffs, or how a tanker takes and holds "aggro", etc.


Play one of those ATs until you get your feet under you, then start looking at some of the others. Defenders are a pretty good next step if you are planning on soloing (with the right set of powers, such as Radiation - not as easy if you choose Empathy or Force Fields). By taking a Defender set that debuffs enemies and/or has the ability to buff yourself, you can make up for lower damage numbers.

I don't find the Wiki all that difficult, but if you aren't familiar with how a Wiki is set up in general, I could see some confusion in finding answers.

Have you checked the section labelled "Player Guides"? There are some really well-written guides there to help you thru specific issues like how to use the Markets, or playing particular ATs and powersets. There are a couple of nice New Player Guides as well. Unfortunately, I have been playing the game for so long that I haven't kept up onwhich are the best guides.

Specific questions are something that these boards are great at answering, so please keep coming back. You may want to post above in the Player Questions forums, however, as there will typically be a faster response there (forum regulars kinda have a race to answer first, LOL).

What server and side are you playing right now? Post that here and likely someone will come find you to help.

Welcome to City of Heroes!

EDIT to add - Here is the best thread for seeking a guide to just about anything - ZombieMan's Guide to Guides

Explaining "game mechanics" in a single post is a bit daunting task... So, here are my random observations instead:

THE MAP IS YOUR FRIEND. Open it (A "Map" menu item under your compass), detach it from the compass (Click this: http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/a...ent/detach.jpg, then drag to place it somewhere near the edge of your screen.) and never ever close it. There's absolutely no resons to not to keep the map open at all times. The same goes for the team window (a menu over the "chat" option "team").


For the very first character Claws/Regeneration scrapper works very well. Basically, you just can take travel pool and all the "Archetype" (AT) powers as they become available, slot them using a bit of common sense (3xDamage/1xAccuracy/and either recharge or Endurance Reduction into the remaining slots for the attacks 3xEndModification in Quick recovery, and so on) and it'll work. It won't be the greatest scrapper out there, but it would be good enough.

For most other builds you'd need to cram in Stamina from Fitness pool by level 20. (you won't need this for Claws/regen because Regeneration has a similar power Quick Recovery, has just one armor (Integration) that constantly eats Endurance (a "toggle") and Claws attacks don't use much endurance.)

Slotting: You can't slot more than 3 enhancements of the same type in the same power after level 22 (or rather, you can, but they won't work) It's actually more complex than that, but it'll do as a rule of thumb. Look up "Enhancement Diversification" in the wiki.

Travelling:
Train stations/ferries:
Are marked with blue T (or F) on your map. Not every station can get you to every zone.

"Shortcut" buildings with exits to multiple zones: Vanguard depots, Pocket D, Midnighter Club branches and Ouroboros (wiki those to learn how exactly to get access to them.)

Travel powers:
Are the powers you would use the most in the game, choose carefully.
Flight: Pros: easy to use, useful prerequisite powers (Air Superiority is a nice melee attack, Hover adds a bit of defense for ranged types) Cons: VERY SLOW, no matter what you do.
Super Jump: Pros: One useful prerequisite power (Combat Jumping), quite fast and opens up Acrobatics. Cons: None, really.
Super Speed. Pros: useful prerequisite (Hasten), intrinsic stealth, very fast. Cons: no vertical movement (can be mitigated in various ways)
Teleport... Pros: the fastest one. Cons: Prerequisites are very situatiional, impossible to use in PvP, very clunky especially if there's any lag...
No travel pool: Some Kinetics defenders and controllers do that using their AT powers like Siphon Speed and Inertia Reduction instead. Saves you power -picks but is somewhat clunky to use.

Jetpack:
After you reach level 5 but before level 10 go to King's Row. You'd be directed to a Detective (If you lose track of where he is, he's marked on your map, click on him to get directions again). Talk to him. He would give you a police scanner that would appear at the top of your "contacts" menu. When you successfully do 3 missions from the police scanner, a detective would ask for your help protecting the bank. (This is a "Safeguard mission," wiki it.)

Now, this is a bit tricky... If you have team, it's important that everybody enters the bank mission SIMULTANEOUSLY. Then you all head to the bank (a $ symbol on the map) as fast as possible, do not fight on the way. Once you have entered the bank (the door is clickable, like mission enterance), defeat everybody inside, no one should escape (they will try) How exactly to do that varies by your own archetype/team setup, experiment.
If you've done everything correctly, you'd get "you have got a temporary power" message and a feather icon would appear in your tray and/our powers window. It'll give you a cool jetpack that can be used for 2 hours of flight. (and a different power if you do it in different level ranges, again, wiki it for full details.) You may exit at this point or try to do some side missions in the main safeguard map.

There's another, faster method of getting the jetpack now, but it isn't as straightforward (or fun, for that matter)

Market Teleporter. For each day a character stays logged out in the market building he/she gets one charge of a power that allows to instantly go to any zone with a market in it. Very handy.

Cheap market tricks to get some inf:
1) don't use inspirations you've got from the tutorial. Sell them on the Consignment house. Only huge inspirations are of any market value, though, so you can only do it once (by the time they'll start to drop normally, a few thousand inf won't be worth it). If you want to maximize the effectiveness there are a few ratherr obvious tricks to get as much as inf 100 000 if you're lucky. (much leess if you aren't but still a few thousands)

2) try to place low bids (5000 or less) on level 50 recipes no one seems to be interested in. They sell much higher to NPCs than they can be bought on the market. This is slow, but you won't need much inf before level 22 so you have the time for a few such bids to fill. If they don't you can cancel them and get the inf back. Be very careful though, no level 50 recipe sells lower than 5000 to NPCs, but recipes of lower levels do, and if you overbid and the bid fills you may end up losing inf. The best recipes to try this are the "common" ones (with the names like "Invention:xxx")

Getting teams, basics (for a non-trial account):

Search is available through the team window (which should be always open, I don't know why it's closed by default)
It's a bit clunky but it works. Now, if you want to join a team, look for people who are already teamed (they're displayed in a dull greenish color) and ask them politely via /tell. Be polite and patient.

If you want to start a team look for non-teamed players (brighter color) read their comment (mouse over it if it's long) and send them a /tell. (Not doing so and just inviting random player is called a"blind" and is considered extremelly rude by most players, and thus it's counter-productive.) Don't be either too shy or too aggressive. A simple "Hey, are you interested in doing <lvl XX missions> in <zone YY>" works. If the player agrees, invite them. Explain that you're recruiting more at the moment, if you still don't have enough players.

Once the team is assembled in the same zone (or before you started recruiting, it won't work if part of the team isn't in the same zone) open your missions window, highlight the mission you want to do, press the select button. The marker will turn RED, and everyone, not just you, will see it. Go to the mission.

It's that easy, social skills and thick skin may help, though.

There are other methods of getting teams too, chat channels, supergroups, etc.


Basic strategems
0) If in doubt, ask. If in doubt of a player, explain beforehand. Many teamwipes/failed TFs could have been prevented by a simple 10-second chat. If still in doubt, wait and see what everybody else does, and act accordingly.
1) Good tanks go FIRST. And grab as much mobs as they can. Bad tanks don't do anything useful. Then it's debuffers/blasters/scrappers turn.
2) One ounce of buffs is worth a pound of heals, but spamming heals is better than nothing.
3) Follow (F key) your opponents if you're a scrapper. Melee is much easier that way.

To the OP:

To write something to the Help Channel in-game, put "/hc" before your message. But before you do that, go into the Chat section of your Options and make sure "Show Villain Broadcasts" (or "Show Hero Broadcasts", if you're redside) is Enabled. That way you won't miss any responses.

Since I don't think it has been said, Welcome to the game!

Quote:

Originally Posted by 128shot The wiki on CoH is pretty tough for me to follow

We're always trying to improve Paragonwiki. If something is confusing to you, tell us! Ask a question about it here, talk about your confusion on the Titan Network forum, or make a mention of it in the talk page where you got lost. Or, if you learn what you wanted to know, edit the wiki yourself!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Corebreach If one player has a faster computer, connection, or character and rushes to the bank ahead of everyone else, the robber will still spawn before the whole team can tackle him.

Of course, I think the robber also spawns 5 minutes after anyone enters the mission. So if one person enters when the rest of the team isn't even there yet and just waits patiently at the door, the robber might still spawn

I didn't go to the paragon wiki, i went to this:http://cityofheroes.wikia.com/wiki/City_of_Heroes_Wiki

It felt clunky, to me anyway. I'm not a power searcher when it comes to wiki