Excitment... and FEAR.. about new "End Game" content..

Seeing as we know nothing and taking into account the "end game" they've added in the past, I am just uninterested and apathetic.

Lemme just say this,

I know some of you refuse to admit how awesome IO's are. You fear change. You fear not understanding "complex" mechanics. And that is fine. There are other people like you, so don't think "you're the only one". It's ok to just use SO's. We get it. And that is "ooooooooooooook".

As for myself, and my family and friends...

WE REALLY HOPE GOING ROGUE BRINGS THE UBER LOOT!!!!!! NEW PURPLES PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!

Because we, and yes I can speak for all of them, LOVE to grind for awesome stuff.

:edit:

Nothing is wrong with you people who refuse to adapt... Its ok to still love the 90's.

Some of us like the 90's and purples.

I really don't think the new end game content will be designed around uber fully tweaked builds. I am pretty sure that one of the devs stated that they did not expect players to FULLY IO builds. So to make content that requires it, goes back on the casual gamer statements they have made for the past 5 years.

The Devs tick me off at times, offten here lately, but I still trust them to make this game fun for everyone. Not just the elite who have the time, or stored inf to make uber toons.

I want more power to be the reward for end game content, not the requirement. Based on the game so far, the Devs feel the same way.

All of the new content should not require extra-ordinary builds, tactics, or teamwork, but I look forward to at least some content that does require some or all of those.

Just like we have now with Hammy raids, Ship raids, STF and RSF -- there is nothing wrong with having somethings be a little more difficult than running in and clicking buttons mindlessly. In fact, I'd be disappointed if none of the new content had an element of difficulty greater than anything we have seen so far.

And if they did make something that hard, I would expect a commensurate reward in merits, HOs, or some other new shiney.

It all depends what your definition of 'the game' is. Mine includes inventions, and if it's content that anyone can do on SOs it's not End-Game content, it's just more level 50 content with (perhaps) disproportionately good rewards.

I'm not a power-gamer or a min/maxer. I pick powers for concept and fun, not to make my characters uber. I slot IOs that drop until I hit 50 then I might, just might, try to collect the rest of the sets. Nonetheless, at some point the devs will have to start balancing some higher end content around IO'd power levels, because as it it at the moment I've been on plenty of moderately IO'd teams who will walk over anything short of multiple AVs without breaking sweat.

If doing the new end-game content results is rewarded by increasing the power of your 50s, then it should be designed to challenge those who've already put in effort to increase the power of their 50s within the current game.

And Sam, I'm the last person to advocate forced teaming. Okay, I got a bit carried away with the idea of roaming GMs (I'm not looking for Monster Island II) but I'd sooner see at least some of the end game revolve around a high risk zone or two that anyone can (at their own risk) enter, teamed or otherwise, rather than the 8 man minimum TFs/SFs that I fear we're more likely to get.

I may be looking at this from a slightly different angle then a lot of the core forum community here. Since I have been away from the game for a long time. But in any case here is my .02's worth.

I started playing CoH when it first came out. I played until a few months after CoV came out and switched to WoW to play an MMO with some real life friends. I enjoyed WoW and despite what many say about the WoW community met a lot of great people. I was lucky though, what many say about how bad WoW players can be is all to true. But despite the friends I made I burnt out on WoW and decided to give CoH another try.

What made me quit WoW and come back to CoH wasn't the people. It was the whole raiding end game that burnt me out. I was in one of the top raiding guilds on our server for awhile. My main was pretty tricked out in epics. I definitely felt a sense of accomplishment in raiding, but eventually it turned out to be a second job for me, not a game to play and have fun with. Not only was I obligated to a scheduled four hours a night, five days a week raiding schedule. I was also obligated to all the farming that was required for the high end enchants, gems, flasks and consumables you needed to raid. It got to be to much for me.

Well I came back to COH and saw all the new shiny IO's and thought "Oh great, here we go again...". Luckily I was wrong. The two 50's I currently have still do fine when I play them. (a FM/FA/Pyre and an Ice/Rad/Fire). I am also having fun leveling up a couple of new toons with power sets that are new to me (Plant/Storm and a Elec/SD). I can still join TF's with any of my toons and make a decent contribution and have never been turned down from a group because I lack in the way of set bonuses. I plan on getting IO's eventually but am pleasantly suprised I do not feel rushed to do so because I "have to" to be able to keep up with everyone else.

COH is a game I can play for a few hours at a time here and there and actually accomplish some things of worth. Which is something WoW can't say. Whatever new endgame path the devs take with this game I hope they remember that and stick to the same kind of philosophy that brought me back and is keeping me here.

Sterling's WoW anecdote sounds exactly how I felt when I quit original EverQuest - raids were an obligation but not much fun. Imho raiding endgames aren't that challenging either, except organisationally for the raid leader - raiding is repetitively procedural with little room for initiative, reactive tactics, and very few chances for individuals to excel. It also adds gear grinding and I don't want to see "build elitism" here (like raiding MMOs have "gear elitism") - I say that as someone with four fully purpled-up builds and more in progress. Tons of existing MMORPGs have loot-grind raid-heavy endgames, so it's available if people want that - I don't want it here.

I also agree with Sam - I don't want any endgame content being off-limits to any L50s - it really irked me in WoW that some quest chains needed a raid to complete them and that I couldn't witness the climax of expansion storylines unless I joined a serious raiding guild. Dev teams of raiding MMOs spend most of their time and innovation adding content that the majority of the playerbase never get to see - I don't want that here.

Mental_Giant's point about team composition is well made too - existing hard content leads to teams of Defenders/Corruptors backing up a few Brutes/Scrappers - players of the other archetypes shouldn't feel like they're fighting for 1-2 "pity spots" because the way the content is designed doesn't let them pull their weight. I've had to quit playing fun but "raid-useless" characters in other MMOs to level something else my guild needed that was useful on raids - I don't want that here either.

I hope CoH's endgame doesn't require more than a single team of 8 players (that would be harsh on low population servers) - not unless it's for a few Mothership/Hamidon style challenges that any L50 can pitch in with (as they're great for community building) - in fact I hope the endgame caters for soloers/duoers and small groups. Forcing lots of big raid gameplay into CoH from other MMORPGs would likely mean a decrease in pick-up group availability as more people would only have time to raid with their supergroups, and less time to PuG or play alts, dividing the playerbase (and some of you think CoH's servers are quiet now?). CoH has always excelled at bringing people together - lets not damage that by adding a raiding endgame that divides people into tiers by supergroup or the IOs in their build - I don't want that here.

I do like a challenge - I just don't see how challenge equates to larger team/raid sizes (quite the opposite in fact). CoH's strength has always been customisability, not just in costumes and builds, but in difficulty - we can make missions harder or easier to suit us, and they scale to level and team size - I see no reason why endgame content should be any different (except that it will be restricted to L50s). Give players choices, so that all content is available to all players to tailor the difficulty as they wish (like existing content is) then surely we all win - except for those who want gear-grinds and raiding guild gameplay, as in their case I'd have to say that this really isn't the game for them and it never has been.

CoH is a casual MMO - I hope it stays that way.