How do YOU enjoy City of Heroes?

these days I don't have much time for gaming.
when I am able to log in I play the market and for the last few months hit MA, ticket cap a farming map and fill my inventory with bronze roll IO recipes.

The Goat just filled up his base storage with crafted set IOs (hoarding for the GR release Marketpocalypse), so I started running Oro story arcs for merits (difficulty +1/x3). He's mostly slotted with purples & PvP IOs so his set bonuses travel well.

It's an interesting contrast to MA in that you get SO MUCH JUNK from the 'real' game. I'd almost forgotten the slot-clogging flood of vendor trash you get instead of clean, energy efficient tickets.

And I've been so desensitized by the mammoth profits to be made in MA that rare salvage drops go unnoticed until my inventory turns red and I go in to delete the junk.

Last time I had a burn out period I started to remake our base. Took me long enough and it involved a lot of reading up on the forums as well as more than a few swear words when I was trying to get the base editor to work my way. But the challenge of it all made me stick with the game.

//Jack

I hardly ever plan a session - I just go with the flow - and I also multi-task quite often while playing

All you folks mega-multitasking while playing give me the huhs. o_O

I've got severe ADD; even medicated, I get overstimulated if there's too much going on. If I tried to watch videos, chat, etc. while playing, I'd get mega-brain-freeze and go into Shivering Fetal Ball form.

So I pretty much do the opposite. Shut everything out. Comfy chair in spouse's room, glass of iced coffee, fullscreen, no music... ahh heaven. Duo or trio at most, cuz large groups make my brain explode. Duo with spouse usually, or chat verbally while I'm soloing and she's doing big pugs. Every hour or so I go out on the porch for a smoke break even if I'm not niccing, to let my brain cool down.

So relaxing. I've been a gamer all my life and this game is becoming my all-time favorite.

This thread is driving home how much my set up sucks.
My Dinobots are on the older side. My Dell Craptop is about 4.5 years old, and my desktop is actually a rebuilt 2004-ish model that I've done all I can for.

Even through all of the tech limitations, I love City of Heroes.

I usually play windowed mode. Lappy the Craptop sits on my right while I use the desktop as my main playbot.

Lappy can usually only handle CoH with nothing running in the background, and it crashes for no apparent reason alot. There is a constant crash to desktop when I try to Quit to desktop for restarts.

Desktop is usually running Excel Spreadsheet, EditPlus Text Editor, the Ravenwolf Manor Vent, Internet (Maxthon/FF depending on mood), and one instance of CoH if I'm crafting, playing the markets or screwing around socially. If I'm actually running mishs and teaming I have to drop all the background stuff except Vent for the most part.

Generally I like teaming, but find myself soloing or Duoing (if you count it's me on both computers) most of the time because of my schedule.

My home office is actually a converted storage closet. I've got room enough for my sizeable corner desk and my chair. I keep my radio on and practically live in my little 6'x6' box.

If I'm on a team, no big distractions. I might have some music on if I'm not currently overstimulated, but that's pretty rare, since my friends like dragging me out and shouting inanely for six hours any time they get the chance. About the only thing I always have up is my IM client, so I can communicate with my second-in-command and snark about bad teammates. Occasionally speaking in a global channel or two, too, but if I'm able to fight and follow a ten-person conversation, it means the team's moving slowly enough that I'll probably abandon ship.

I'm about 50/50 for joining/leading teams. The people I know who still play the game regularly can be counted on one hand, so I pretty much solely PUG.

If I'm solo (which is not my preferred state of being unless I'm on a Brute or Mastermind) then I'm bored as hell and have everything I possibly can running to relieve the mind-numbing tedium (again, unless I'm on a Brute or MM.) Usually have a dozen browser tabs, my e-mail, an IRC channel, and something anime to distract me. I do not like soloing, Sam I Am. I've been playing this game for six? years. I can pretty much predict fights down to when the enemies are going to start running away, so I need other people around to mix things up or I'll just go mad.

- Always in full screen mode.
- Don't play music. Some of my work is from home at the same desktop. Music = work. I need that division to maintain discipline. Plus it interrupts my immersion a bit.
- In fact, I don't multi task at all when playing. I like immersion. And my mind gets a bit off if I try too much at once. That feels like work. Not time to wind down.
- I used to RP a lot more when there were more pockets of good RPers scattered about all the servers. I still pickup RP now and then with my redside stable on Virtue. Never scripted or planned RP, but just run and gun contextual in character quips mixed with the occasional RP conversation when waiting for someone to zone, shop, train, etc.
- I solo a bunch these days. Or on Triumph will jump on the occasional TF or raid via TW 2.0.
- I badge. For better or worse, don't have a main badger. I sometimes like badging earlier in each characters career and getting things like power and bonus based accolades prior to hitting 50.
- I sometimes level deliberately slowly. I'll turn off XP and see if I have the stamina to complete ALL the content available at that level range. Based on this, must say that the legacy blueside content in the 30-34 range is as tedious as laboring through a poor Dostoevsky translation. Upon finishing all this content, I'll then turn XP back on and it feels like I slingshot ahead a few levels. I'll also burn all those merits on recipe rolls in the mid level range.
- Speaking of which, since I do level slowly, I tend to do some invention work on mid level characters. It's a different face of the game than working to IO out a 50. At least I think so.
- I do concept builds and try to realize characters not uniform power houses. I don't care what level of difficulty I can run any given character at... I just want to see if I can make various characters work (these are often loosely inspired by classic characters or more often hybrids of classic characters).
- And lastly, of course, the look. Costumes, emotes, flyposes, the right travel power, costume change emotes. Getting these properly bound. Getting my HUD and chat channels to all work colorwise in sync with each individual character... all these things are key to making unique characters that each feel different. (IF they make CoX2, I hope they consider coming up with about a half dozen HUD skins to allow further customization beyond colors. But I may be in an extreme minority in terms of tweaking my HUD colors on each and every character...)

...all that said, I am playing less and less these days. Even when I have time. Just have other things in life I'm warming up to. Sometimes it's other games (I'll probably be AWOL from CoX for a few months once Civ V comes out... *sigh*), but lately it's other activities, mostly work related, that are flowing over into leisure time. I don't mind though. I'm enjoying my job a lot more again lately and find I have energy to put in extra time doing this other stuff.

-Edit to add: I also exemp with various 50's to do some PUG teaming now and then. Sometimes in the hopes of meeting some new players. Sometimes for lowbie salvage and badges. Sometimes just 'cuz.

I'm downright single-minded compared to some of you guys.

Game is fullscreen. I don't have anything else running, unless I need to look something up on the wiki.

I mostly solo, or duo with a RL buddy. If I get invited to a PuG, and I'm not in the middle of something, I'll usually join for a few missions. I've been trying to do more TFs lately, just to see what they're like, but most of them have not been very interesting, and I don't like being "locked in" like that (i.e., if I need/want to leave in the middle, it's gonna screw things up for everyone else). I do like teaming up for mothership raids, Rikti/Zombie invasions, and whupping on Giant Monsters.

I tend to play one character at a time. Start 'em, run 'em up to 50 (or until I get bored with 'em), and then move on to a new one. I mostly play straight-up damage types (Scrapper, Blasters), playing support is a little too much micro-managing for my taste.

I like getting badges, but I'm pretty lazy about it. I'll grab the easy ones (like Exploration and History), and I'll usually run whatever toon I'm playing at the moment through the Holiday Events and get those. If I see I'm getting close to one of the Defeat badges, I might farm a little to push it over the top. But I don't generally bother with the more involved stuff like Field Crafter.

I enjoy designing costumes, and I make a point to unlock all the extra slots.

Fullscreen game, nothing else running in the background (except stuff like Herostats.) My machine is in my "dining room" (we use it as my 'office', which is 'where I play my games'). My TV is about 15 feet away, visible over the top of my onitor... so I have, in order of preference, either a Yankees game, one of the Kill Bill movies, or a 22nd-time-viewed repeat episode of Law and Order on. [Baseball and Law and Order make excellent background for CoX.]

I'm often on Ventrilo with friends, on headphones (yes, I can still listen to the TV).

I like to level deliberately - I tried the Speed Leveling thing, but it was less satisfying, and gave me less understanding of the nuances of play. I do like to purple out my characters, and I play the market to have enough to do it. I like to plan builds on spreadsheets (Mids is great, but more a Final Step), and I also keep track of which of my characters is holding what enhancements/etc. that way.

The game is complex enough to keep my interest for 5+ years now, and with the continuous QoL enhancements, (like sending yourself stuff via email), it avoids the frustration that it COULD cause.

I play the game. If I think of it, I'll pop in a cd and play that while PUGing.

At one time I used to spend a lot of time playing the markets to the extent that I often was only logging in for that. Later I got bored of it and got back into playing to beat up the bad (or good) guys.

When AE was new I spent a lot of time creating and testing missions, then it became too much like homework so for the time being I'm letting that sit and going back to beating up my foes.

I imagine when I get tired of that I'll go back to the AE because I still have ideas yet unused and a few missions to update for the new settings.

Hope this helps.

Thank you all for this feedback. Given the earliest feedback, I tried to minimize distractions and to play with more purpose. I took a mid-level character I had forgotten and proceeded to guide him through story arcs. The only other thing happening within perception was Doctor Who (which I just recently started). This more deliberate approach to the game was surprisingly rewarding, and I greatly enjoyed it. As such, I suspect I'll pick up where I left off soon.

Again, thank you all. Keep posting your own methods and tips! It's fascinating to see the diversity in approaches.

Full screen mode...game sounds on (as I always prefere to hear the sounds of the attacks), but the game music set to zero, with usually one of my favorite shows on, or a DVD playing or music playing.

TFs! Lots of TFs! It's my favorite way to gain xp. Usually with PuGs with a few spots with people I know in game.

I only care to do a few of the story arcs.

I also RP with my SG, though I don't tend to RP with the PuGs on my main, as I really can't see RPing the same TFs over and over again or RPing with some of the other concepts out there (like the heroes that psychotic sociopaths who kill anyone and everyone )

I also like planning out new builds, and trying to find the one build that I enjoy playing more than any. Half way there! Now if I can only get a Dual Pistols/Armor AT going, then I'm sure I'd have it!

If I'm playing without my pals, then I usually 3-box canon foes in the AE. I like the lack of travel between missions. Otherwise, I'll get out whatever character fits my mood and do a mission or three.

When my pals are on, we jump on Teamspeak (yeah, yeah, Vent is better, I know, we all know). We will just shoot the breeze, debate on various character builds, and share funny internet links as we play. Sometimes we do door missions, sometimes we faceroll AE missions, and sometimes we do Task Forces (or the pre-req missions).

So basically for group play, Teamspeak is at the heart of it. Friends make the game more fun.

Lewis

Oh, also very important: Characters on the character select screen must be sorted by level, then alphabetically. I also try to make about an even amount of each origin, since Magic is way, way, way overrepresented on Virtue.