Make City of Heroes free to play and make leveling faster

So when these toons of yours hurl towards 50 at lightning speed.. where will you get the inf from to even slot SOs? Then you would complain because you couldn't afford this shiny set or that shiny set...

NO THANKS

I'm not gonna spew forth about content and stories (frankly I rarely read them)... If you want to get there fast... find a farm (they are everywhere). This game levels ridiculously fast as it is.... get on a farm and you could easily go from 1-50 in a week with just a couple hours play/farming a day.

I'm not saying I wouldn't LOVE to have a toon fast track it to 50, but I could only imagine the idiocy that this game would become with people "playing" toons they had no idea how to play.

So yeah gonna have to /unsign this

Hey HeroJunkie
































Ok, that was a little mean. Maybe it's just time to move on. Seriously.

I'm sorry but I'm going to say no to both ideas.

especially making levelling easier. Right now, my belief is that level advancement may be too quick as it is.

Make leveling faster? Meh. I don't mind what it's at now.. but if they make it faster, I won't mind. Besides, if you make a toon on Freedom, and hang out in Atlas, you'll find the latest AE exploit quickly.

F2P? Hell no! Honestly, CoH/V/GR is going to have a hard time keeping me once SWTOR drops, but if they go F2P, I'd just vanish altogether. I've tried F2P games before, and I don't like them. I played LotR before it went F2P, and it lost my interest before that happened. It going F2P did not draw my interest back to it. It didn't make me think that I could enjoy it now that I didn't have to pay for it. It made me think that game was even less desireable now that all the GOOD stuff would be blocked from me until I paided for it.

This is an MMO, not a console game, and your definition of a "casual gamer" is not the same as everyone elses.

I note that even in CoD, there's "leveling up" - they don't hand you all the guns and scopes and perks right out of the gate, you have to unlock them by rising in rank. Or did you skip that part somehow?

To play the devils advocate somewhat, I'd be tickled if there was something that let you start a level 1 character with all power choices (Or maybe just half of them... something, I don't know) available at level 1 (They'd all start with the default 1 slot and you'd still get slots at the same normal rate as you level up, or they could be spread out thinner to cover the loss of powers at certain levels). That way everything would be scaled as it already does in the power selection screen (ie "Show detailed information"). You'd still have to level all the way up to 50, but you'd still get a huge benefit of being able to use better powers right out of the gate even though they're weaker than they would usually be at the level you'd normally get them.

Would it be an advantage? You bet, but I do agree to an extent that the first 15-20 or so levels feel very sluggish. Could you make the argument that new heroes shouldn't have a ton of things at their disposal? Sure could! But I'd much prefer to have 5 very weak attacks at my disposal rather than 1 okay attack and brawl so I'm not just standing there getting wailed on and feeling helpless because I have no other powers to use.

Looking back over the past year, I figured that there were a month or two where I might have logged in for a brief time to move some alts around to different Day Job sites, or to keep an alt current as leader of a SG...and that was pretty much it. Now, do I feel gyped out of that $15 (which with the conversion rate was closer to $17 CDN for a while there) for those months? No, not in the least.

Grant it, that was around late Spring/early Summer, when I was busy with a number of RL events I was involved in, but I still found some time to keep an eye on things. Plus, keeping my subscription current keeps me on track for vet rewards. In fact, before my RL friend finally moved on from COH - he found something else more to his liking, and because of RL financial issues, couldn't justify two subscriptions to two different games at the same time - he had let his account lapse much like you, to the point that I had surpased him on the vet reward ladder.

And as to being a grind? Yes, it does feel like a grind, at different rates for different ATs and power combos, but I was finding I was outleveling content and contacts years ago when the grind seemed much harder.

Now, I've been playing for 4 1/2 years, and only have 1 lvl 50. Is that because I'm too much of a casual gamer? Is that because I have too many alts - some of which are just because I had an idea for a new costume/power set combo that I just had to put together - across too many servers? (In fact, I have one alt that I built for the sole purpose of entering the 'dress up as your toon' costume contest they had 2-3 years ago one Halloween.)

Or maybe it's because from time to time I'll just stop and hang out in AP or Pocket D or whereever, and talk with other players. Trust me, I've had some good conversations - and more than a few funny moments - that were far better than just leveling through content and mowing down baddies.

So, in short, HELL NO! to F2P for COH. I have to agree with just about everyone else here, the microtransactions would kill off a lot of the game for me.

(BTW, I stopped playing one 'free' Facebook game when after saying that we didn't need the special in-game cash - that you bought with real money - in order to be able to play the game, they created new content that you could only play if you had that in-game cash.)

Hey there! If you REALLY want to lvl up fast in game...team up. Thats all there is to it. Set the difficultly level as high as you can take and have at 'er. I mean really there is no reason you can't hit lvl 32 in a week or so, even if your a casual gamer. I'm one too, and i struggle NOT to out level content (thank god for ouroboros). As far as F2P...have you EVER gone into one of those games? Your crying about $15 a month....F2P means the ONLY most basic parts of the game are free, EVERYTHING else you pay for...wanna run a tf?.. $5, wanna run a diffrent tf?...$5, want to be able to craft?....$5, how about use the invention system?....$5...you'll lay out far more than a lousy $15 a month with a F2P system in place. I USE to play DDO & LotRO (which reminds me...wanna pvp?....need a gold plated electrum pass.. $20 ;p) as well...both are F2P now, both will kill your (or your parents) CC. Before you cry for a F2P system....go out and play one.

You can count this post firmly in the "O HELL NO!" camp

To the OP:

I would like to congratulate you on the worst idea posted on these boards in over 6 years.

Well done.

I'll gladly pay my $30 a month for my wife and I. We spend more hours online during the month than we do going out to dinner. Why? Because I can't take her someplace nice for $30. So we go out once a week for $50-$70 and spend an hour and a half together. Movies are $20 for 2 tickets, give or take a bit, and you don't talk with someone during a movie. Spending 4-8 hrs a week playing City and laughing about our, and our teammates, antics for only $15/month? Shoot yeah! I'll take that.

As I have said more times than I can recall (all on other boards to this point) $15 a month is an incredible value for the entertainment dollar. And I don't mind throwing down $10 4x a year for the (not lame) boosters either, I've seen where the money goes and get a huge return on THAT investment as well.

Make City F2P? CoH, one of the very few 3rd Gen MMORPGs out while other people are making WoW clones (2nd Gen), and you want it F2P? Begone! Back to Runequest or elsewhere. Shoo! Scat!

As for leveling speed, go run a monkey farm. I don't know why Posi gets his iron knickers in a twist over people PLing. It's not something I'm interested in, but as long as I'm not bombarded by tells asking me to farm, fill, bridge, etc. I'm a happy camper. I'll play my way and get my characters to 50 at my own pace, and happily let others do the same.

...There. That just about sums it up.
Oh, and in case that wasn't clear enough;

How's about SMEG NO?!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

LOL and I thought I was eloquent.

You forgot:

I think the OP has also missed that "all future content for level 50s" would almost certainly require real money to access, at an overall price equal to if not greater than what he's paying in subscription now (especially if he's taking months off between issues).

Want to be able to go to Cimerora and run Imperious' TF? How about Apex's or Tin Mage's? Unlock that Alpha slot? Let's see your credit card. Heck, even dinging 50 (rather than being frozen at 1 xp short) might require a "small additional fee."

You didn't think "F2P" was actually free, did you?

Subscription MMOs have "F2P" too. They're called "trial accounts." That's what you'd get.

Just gonna say No.

Don't aggree with Free to play, nor do I agree with making levelling faster. Lot's of ways to level up in game.

Techbot, you made me laugh so hard, I seriously almost fell out of my chair.

Made of win.

You guys might be right. It's true that I have never played a free-to-play online game. I'm imagining a game where certain areas, such as The Rogue Isles, Praetoria, Cimmeria, Shadow Shard and such cost an extra $10 to $30 to access. And we've got those $10 costume/power packs where I got Ninja Run and such.

But it's entirely possible that this would not generate an acceptable return on investment for NCSoft and that they would have to start charging extra for every little thing in the game. It's not the way I'd like to see things done, but I'm not in charge of any online game companies, so I can't say for sure what needs to be done to make money.

This game has had many good improvements lately such as the inherent Fitness powers (should have been done ages ago) and the alternate animations and coloring of the powers (should have been built into the game from the start). Still, the game is not growing in certain ways that would make me want to play more. Most missions are static; the enemies just stand in clusters as you move from from one to the next. There are few cutscenes and no voiceovers. Playing a solo blaster after level 30 is still frustrating. I could go on but there is not much point.

If there is ever a City of Heroes 2 that modernizes and improves the game I will definitely check it out. Take care, heroes and villains!