"It's too repetitive."

I've been playing our fair game off and on since about a month after launch. I love the many aspects of this game, especially the customization - both the costume editor and the amazing enhancement/IO system. I really love that there are Archtypes for any playstyle I feel like at a given moment. I *really* love Knockback with ragdoll physics. Needless to say, with my gaming friends I am a bit of a cheerleader for CoX. I've convinced several of them to try it. Unfortunately, none of them stuck with the game. When asked why they canceled, the answer was always the same:

"It's too repetitive."


Of course they don't mean the 10 ATs. Or the huge variety of powerset combinations per AT. Or that you can go weeks without seeing two PCs that look alike. Or the different challenges of the assorted enemy groups.

They've all told me that the basic act in the game - "Get a mission. Enter the mission. See that enemy group there? Kick their butts." - is to them the same thing over and over again. I only sort of agree with them, though I do see their point: The groups of enemies tend to always be standing in a similar little huddle (certain Nemesis and Council formations we rarely see in missions notwithstanding) and the players always initiate the fights bushwhack-style (berserker pets and ambushes also notwithstanding). I don't really see this as a problem but obviously many people do.

What do you think? Is the basic gameplay of CoX overly repeated? Would it help if Going Rogue had an AI upgrade that made for more dynamic combat starts and enemy placements inside missions? Would reworked and increased enemy ambushes and placements make CoX more interesting or just more frustrating?





(Disclaimer: You and I both know that if one gets out and does TFs and mission arcs, or even well-made AE stuff, that the game has more to offer than bushwhacking loiterers... but all of the friends mentioned above were casual players that never got 'hooked' by the game long enough to get that far. I for one won't ever get tired of ganking Luddites and Clockwork by the bushel.)

Had they ever played MMOs before? All MMOs are repetitive... that's the nature of the genre.

ive played other MMOs before and CoX is the only one that i feel is NOT a grind. almost every other MMO ive played is a ridiculous grind to get anywhere in the upper lvls of the game. and whats worse about the other MMOs is the fact they have an ever-rising lvl cap.

It's a problem with instanced indoor missions. Until somebody comes up with a reliable method or randomly generating maps with the existing "tile sets", a game where you are forced to roam around in the open "world" to find and bash vorpal gray squirrels (and not the vorpal red squirrels) while avoiding the deadly firebreathing wombats will seem less repetitive than however number of fixed instanced maps are in this game.

And even with the tile sets in the game, the spawn points within the tiles for mobs are relatively fixed. I can walk into a room and instantly know exactly where the bad guys are. The best thing they added to this game were patrols and ambushes. But now even ambushes are predictable. At least having a patrol wander into an active fire fight is still exciting.

It would be nice to see some non combat type skills added and utilized for missions. Things like actually hacking computers with a computer skill, disarming traps, finding secret passageways, being able to use detective work skills to get a different mission in the arc where you got the drop on the badies, etc.

father x gets a good bit of it. all mmos are repetitive, but instancing, while it solves a host of other issues, does highlight that the maps are drawn from a pool that is realistically limited. Honestly though, fed ex, kill 10 rats, get 10 rat tails and the ocasional kill micky the rat are the building blocks of most mmos out there, and while some do clever jobs covering them up, they still break down to those 4. I still say that i have yet to have as much fun in any mmo as i have here in a mayhem mission, something about engaging a bunch of cops in a littered alley, slamming down foot stomp and watching them fly AND the entire alley explode with debris is something i have yet to see in another game.

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

So is work,get over it.

I would love to see mini gambling games in the Casinos of St-martial and Pcket D,

this would change from the normal mob hunting.

Have et site down with 3/4 buddies en let the battle of poker begin :-)

I think Father Xmas hit the nail pretty much on the head. I left the game for almost 2 years because I got tired of running through office buildings and caves that looked pretty much the same doing exactly the same things. Some zones aren't fantastically distinct either, but a lot of that is constrained by the fact that all cities tend to look like alike to a great degree. They've done a good job trying to make them distinct, but it's nothing compared to the freedom a more fantastical setting (ie: WoW) allows.

All MMOs are repetitive by nature, but the ones I enjoy the most are the ones which find creative ways to break this up. I think WoW's instanced dungeon/raid system blows the pants off CoH's TF in this area. TFs to me just feel like a series of regular missions with a higher difficulty and some unique content. The WoW instances feel like a totally different animal - large, unique maps, bosses that feel like bosses, greater need for strategy, unique rewards, etc.

I think getting together groups for some of the more unique content like TFs is hit or miss as well. I've been "meh" about WoW for awhile now, but I do have to give kudos to Blizzard for the new cross-server dungeon queue, as it makes accessing the best content of the game easier. CoH can't exactly copy the cross-server element, but I've always been surprised that they didn't have a LFG system for TFs and EB missions and such.

My personal experience with CoH has been that I tend to create new alts and power them up to level 20 or so having a great time, and then by the time I grind out to the 30s I get bored and start another. Part of this is because I prefer to solo - which takes a long time once you get up to those levels. Groups are obviously a faster way to level but I hate them. You wind up with 7-8 players spamming damage en masse against a million mobs in a confined area and missing 90% of the actual mission content in the confusion. I've had many times where we got to the EB or whatever and I didn't even notice him - just another face in the crowd. Rinse and repeat until you level. Faster, but less fun. Personal opinion.

Its easy here.. youre right in some aspect.

This game needs a larger pool of instance maps or one that randomize builds them. For the immersian its also neccisary that the mission door fits the zone scren and that descides the pool of maps. So that it is not possible to enter an office building... get a rikti zone scren and a COT cave map.

This game is repititive. There's no way to deny that. In fact, as has been pointed out, instanced missions do a good job of highlighting repitition.

I think another thing is that CoH is all about the combat. Things like Archetype selection, power set selection and hell, even power customisation are just there to make combat more interesting. Combat isn't just the main draw to CoH, it's pretty much the ONLY draw.

And you know what? I like it that way. As far as I can tell, many other MMOs try to distract you from the combat parts, such as using elaborate crafting systems, but I've also been more interested in using the +1 Sword to stab stuff than making said sword. It's why I love that the Invention system isn't just simple to use, but not necessary to play the game to begin with. I can just fire the game up, go in and beat villains (or heroes) up, and when I get bored I just go do something else. Then, soon enough, I'll feel like beating baddies in CoH again.

The way I see it, many other big MMOs want you to commit to the game, get all the uber-loot, to get said loot you need to be part of a big guild that requires mandatory bi-weekly meetings, etc etc. CoH, meanwhile, you're just friends with benefits. It's a fun relationship with no strings attached.

I think that's also one of the reasons why CoH is known for its nice community, or at the very least nice compared to other MMO communities. Sure, like about every community there's bad eggs and there's flame wars and such, but how many MMOs do you know where vets give newbies a few millions worth of currency just because they happen to have some spare money? CoH gives you no reason to compete with other players, so instead you can feel free to just help people out for no other reason than because you can.

CoH may or may not be more repititive than most MMOs, but the difference is that I enjoy CoH's repitition, and that itself is quite an accomplishment already.

Maybe you should try targeting friends who like repetitive gameplay? No question, a lot of CoX can be repetitive, and especially on big teams where it's all just a big soothing zen steamroller of flashy lights and explosions. On the other hand, there are people (like me) who happily played Minesweeper or Solitaire over and over, and now happily fireball bunches of Cimerorans over and over instead. Non-challenging and repetitive can be a selling point, too.

Another thing to keep in mind is that as the game stands today NS Soft has prodived some ways to make the game more of a challenge and at least make the repetitve nature more enjoyable. I can go and up my difficulty and face villains as high as +4 with at least one boss in ever mission. Creative players come up with their own ways to find differnt things to do as well.. for proof check the forums for the players attacking Rikti pylons solo in the RWZ, or spending MILLIONS to IO their character so they can tackles a giant monster solo. Hey I even tried a challege where you went to the RWZ and found a trio of 54 level Rikti bosses and tried to beat them solo... Okay so my Regen Scrapper isn't quite as tough as I thought she was I put up a good fight and enjoy it. I think the original idea with the Mission Archetect was along these same lines.. Tired of fighting Council, Crey and Nemesis troops all day? Head to the AE building and take on a host of custom designed villains your fellow players have created. The trend toward farming which eventually led to a huge nerf in that area put a damper on this but I played some pretty good, and pretty funny, missions that you would never see anywhere else in this game or any other. Those do still exist just don't expect to level from 2-50 in a few hours.

They have always had minor diversions, like the Paladan Construction site I mentioned in my previous post here, and those offer a change from the norm as well. Fact is there are countless players that ingore them completely unless they are the serious badger types. The Ghost ship in Talos and / or IP, fighting the arson fire and Hellion Arsonists in Steel, tackling the Troll Ravesin Skyway, or capturing ghosts in Port Oakes.

Hey even Wentworths and the IO crating sysytem offer ways to occupy time in game that has next to nothing to do with running from door to door aside from using those missions to obtain some of the recipes and salvage you may crave. Some players spend as much time and energy playing the market and crafting as they do playing the game itself. Last I checked Wentworths didn't even have a door to click on. Rikti raids provide a diversion rom the norm along with a decent accolade power. And once again the players found a way to make that more challenging and interetsing by attacking Drop Ships. Banner raids now offer another diversion along with temp powers and the Zombie raids open another costume piece. The tailor shop and power customizations can also be viewed as ways to break the grind for a bit. Okay how many players out there did not rush of to change the colors on their powers when it became available? Those of you that do not have a hand up, and why do you have one up answering a rhetorical question on the forums?, while you were busy changing color on X number of characters powers.. How many door mission did you run? When you acquire the needed Halloween salvage did you rush to Croatoa to give it to Annah and then to the Icon to add another outfit to your character? Diversion!

Yeah even with the vast number of different villain groups to battle the missions and the maps all tende to blend after a while. I recently got a friend hooked on COH and we team together as a duo. He often comment.. boy you always seem to know where to find the bad guys. LOL Yeah after four years of playing on the same maps over and over I can pretty much tell.. Okay around the next corner there should be another mob. But I do TFs, I do Trials, I will leap at the chance to battle a GM, my first 50 is a Taxibot and from helping other players earn one or even two of them.. she has all three of the firefigher badges you can earn in Steel, has stopped a Troll Rave, been on a Hami and Mothership raid or two, defeated ghosts that drop from the Ghost ship in IP, is the base archetect/designer for her SG, and finds a host of other ways to keep the game fun

3 missions does not a TF make...that's more like a short story mission.