Feeling lost

Hey all,

I apologize in advance if I sound vague, but I've been feeling a bit lost lately in playing CoH. Basically, I'm having trouble finding a new AT or powerset to enjoy. My problem seems to be that I only get enjoyment from minmaxing, but I've already purpled out the heroes that satisfy that urge. For example, every time I try out new damage powersets such as demon summoning, warshades, or SoAs, or even SS/fire brutes, I inevitably feel dissatisfied because they don't measure up to my gold standard (my plant/psi dom). So then I try rolling a single target char to challenge AVs and such, but every new toon I try just feels weak compared to the ill/rad I've already finished. Same goes for tanking, buff supporting, etc.

So i'm beginning to think that my dissatisfaction is stemming from my over-reliance on min-maxing for my enjoyment. So my question is this:

How do you all find enjoyment in your "lesser" heroes? How do you escape that niggling feeling that you could be killing/supporting/tanking/etc better with one of your mains? I guess I just want to figure out another way to look at playing this game so that I can be perfectly happy just playing an interesting powerset (like /poison or dual blades) rather than the most efficient or powerful one.

It's kind of a philosophical dilemma but I'm hoping some of you might be able to provide insight into how you enjoy this game.

Try min/maxing a character within certain self-imposed limits. I've had some success with this.

My MA/SR Stalker deliberately skipped Practiced Brawler, and instead relied on lucks (early on)and break frees to get by. This was based on the idea that she was only human and couldnt take whacks to the head by Freakshow Smashers and shrug them off. She trained hard (at Wentworths) and built up defence to satisfy my min-maxing instincts. She often survived using Crane Kick and the various stun powers to deal with enemies with status powers.

I made a Force Field Defender with the aim of playing her like a telekinetic ranged tank, once again building up on Defence. I gave her the limitation of taking no status powers (stuns, holds etc) and instead relying on knockback and defence to survive. Hard work against Paragon Protectors, for example, but definitely left me feeling tannky and tough when I survived.

I have some similar ideas about a Gravity/Force Fields Controller skipping their single target hold, but I'm not sure if that ones going too far.

Both characters were fun to solo, had well-defined build goals as they levelled up, could contribute on teams, and made it to level 50.

I apologize for the pretentious tone of the following post, I'm sleepy and I get pretentious when I'm sleepy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Little_Whorn How do you all find enjoyment in your "lesser" heroes? How do you escape that niggling feeling that you could be killing/supporting/tanking/etc better with one of your mains? I guess I just want to figure out another way to look at playing this game so that I can be perfectly happy just playing an interesting powerset (like /poison or dual blades) rather than the most efficient or powerful one.

Maybe it's cliche but I enjoy each of my characters for what THEY can do rather than what other characters in my stable can do.

To give an example I have a Crab Spider and an AR/Dev Blaster, both have top end builds including purples/PvPIOs and incarnate abilities (mostly T3s). Now by an objective standard the Crab Spider is "better" than than the Blaster, he's a lot tougher, has equivalent AoE damage, and has a large squad of robotic spiders to back him up. Yet even given that I still enjoy playing my AR/Dev. Why? A variety of reasons, part of it's the thrill of playing a Blaster riding the edge and seeing how far you can push it before you face plant. Part of it's the feel of the character, the simple animations of Assault Rifle really appeal to me. To some degree it's the character himself, Adeon is my special character, he is the me that I wish I could be and so playing him is something I enjoy and if he wasn't AR/Dev he wouldn't represent me.

At the end of the day it really comes down to whats important to you. CoH is not a perfectly balanced game there is a huge range of power between different sets and powerset combos. Therefore if your only interest is in the numbers then only the best sets will make you happy and playing anything else is a waste of time. On the other hand if you can look beyond the sets and enjoy a character for who they are and what they can do then any powerset is open to you.

Another idea. Build a SR scrapper and skip the melee defence passive (or toggle if youre very brave). Build for passive run speed and slot sprint for speed, and fight on the move by kiting enemies, like a superspeedster or feline character might.

I totally understand the OP.

I just can't get into other scrappers after purpling out my fire/fire and going tier 4 in all incarnate slots with two separate tier 4 Lore pets. He is just that fun and crazy powerful.

I am just speaking on the one archetype on purpose.

I try to remember the most efficient way to earn rewards in this game is, for normal stuff, the market, for incarnate stuff, large team content in which the difference between my worst character and my best character, outside of poor leagues, isn't enough to matter significantly.

To be fair, one thing that helps is the powerset combos that I consider to be best in this game just won't fit with any "serious" concept I have. If I could mix RP and power in just one character, most likely I wouldn't play much of anything else.

I can kind of understand. I go from playing my maxed out Mind/Kin, then decide to play my level 10 Ma/Invuln.... and it just feels LAME.

"Okay, kick! Kick again!... wait.. gotta recharge... ok, KICK! ... waiting for recharge again... There we go, kick... boy, my mind/kin woulda been halfway through the map by now. Oh, my power's back. Kick... oh, FINALLY this guy's dead! Great, now I got two of his buddies to deal with. Sigh..."

When you're used to flash and explosions and stuff flying everywhere, a low-level toon with only ST attacks even looks boring. Some of the more recent powersets have tried to avoid this, but I'm sure you can get sick of looking at gun-fu spinning and flashy swirling fists all the time, too.

Anyway, to help solve your dilemma, I second what Dr. Harmony suggested, and will even expand on that idea. Select a character and build them within a self-imposed limit. Or maybe do something else to purposely gimp yourself just to see how you do. Can an Ice/Kin controller who skips most of his primary and fights in melee with Box, Kick, Jumpkick/Air superiority and Sands of Mu while self-buffing with his secondary survive and prosper?

...wow, i wanna make that in mids and see how viable it looks...

Another way to do this is to do what is recommended of table top Game Masters when a player starts to excessively min/max: intentionally put the min/max'ed character in situations where the min/max is no longer as ideal and different choices would have resulted in something better. As powerful as some characters get, you really can't have it all.

For example if it's a melee character, try running missions where you have to save or protect an ally, or stop escaping enemies. Or try missions where ALL of the enemies have mezzes, and are able to bust through stack through normal melee immunities.

I had the same problem as the OP. I made a thread about needing a slump buster. What I discovered I personally needed, was a change in venue. I left Liberty, where most of my lvl 50's are, and I've went to Virtue. I've taken nothing with me. Basically, I'm starting from scratch as if I were a new player. After a few nights of playing, I have to say, I've found new enjoyment in the game. Meeting new people, teaming at low levels (something that NEVER happens on Liberty), and looking for a new SG to call home. I've also decided to try a different AT I normally wouldn't have. This has really helped me break out of my funk.

First... if you don't feel the way the OP feels, don't belittle the guy or attack him. Just don't respond, ok? There's plenty of people out there who frequent these forums who choose to play the game the way he does because thats what we enjoy. We don't need you to tell us we're playing the game wrong any more then you need someone telling you that you're not choosing the right powers.

To the OP: I run into this myself a lot. What I tend to do is what Dr Harmony said. I select a self impossed limit... I may preselect a pair of powersets and just say, ok.. i'm going to min/max THIS toon and not compare it to the level 50 maxed out toons I have already.

Also, I don't just min-max at level 50 where there are some toons that are just going to perform better then others. I look at min/maxing toon at level 12 (using lvl 15 IOs)... then again at 22... and again somewhere in the 30s. I often find somewhere about that point the toons that I don't really feel like playing at level 50+ tend to get parked and I move to new alts.

This helps me enjoy, for example, options such as a controller or low damage dominator. I feel a whole lot more useful and important in the level 10-35 game where my controls are helping keep other players alive... whereas at level 50 most players can keep themselves alive without controls and I feel like all I'm doing is keeping myself alive while everyone else does the killing.

(And I know there are controllers and dominators soloing STFs and GMs, etc etc... I'm not a fool. Those people are using 2-3 powers unique to their powersets to do something, but outside of those powersets, the usefulness of a control power on, for example, a typical ITF, BAF, or Lambda run is pretty low.)

Another thing I look for is just some unique power concept to exploit. For example an electric/ninja stalker can use build-up>lightning rod>caltrops and then assassin strike without every having to placate (assuming they don't get hit)... that's kind of a unique little toy to try out in a power combination I probably would never look at due to it's lower damage output using normal means. I've made other toons who focused on sapping endurance from the spawns they attack as a survivaiblty technique... or a sonic blapper that sleeps a spawn then beats down 1 at a time with air superiority in it's chain go keep the 1 waking target from fighting back.

There's lot of little gimmicks like that to toy with in this game.. most of which aren't real practical to use at level 50, but they're still good for some enjoyment in the earlier stages of the game.

I have no lesser heroes, they all contribute to the same vision. Could be time for the OP to find new pastures until writers block passes.

I know exactly what you need to do.

This is why I have a purped out 50, it was designed it from lvl 1 to do this:

Exemplar down and run regular conent with lowbies.

You won't be bored anymore.

I find this post kind of fascinating, as I'd say I'm somewhere around the exact opposite in playstyle.

I'm not sure if there's a way to simply 'turn off' or get over your desire to play the 'best' character, because in comparison, I don't think I could ever enjoy the playstyle you describe. I personally find my fun in seeing how each powerset combination plays, and I absolutely love seeing what I can do with the 'weak' powersets. Since my motivation is more of an 'exploration' driven one, it would drive me nuts to ignore powersets that are available to me. There are plenty of levels of play below the min-maxxed always-most-uberness, and personally I'd never give them up to try it. I think being the 'best' would make me grow bored of the game, while I revel in struggling to survive on a solo defender through the low levels, or trying to figure out how to make a sloppy PUG work through the teens. Of my fifties, only have even have IO sets, and maybe one has a purple set. I've never had a PvP IO, and I only have an Incarnate ability on one character.

Though I can't say I can truly understand where you're coming from any more than you could me, I think the best advice I've seen in this thread is to either take a short break from the game or try starting anew on a different server. Another idea... maybe try making one of each AT that is as uber as possible? I'm not sure if you'd be able to enjoy the 'lesser' ATs enough to get to that point, but it's a thought.

Hope you find your fun again!

Here's another thought to add to the suggestions to play lowbies, or new server, or SO-only. Some of us play some of our characters "hardcore," where any defeat (or in my SG's specific in our case, any defeat after attaining level 10) means the character "dies" and is deleted or retired. ANY defeat, even if it's not your fault (log in amid a zombie invasion, giant monster trained onto you at PI, you accidentally hit self destruct, etc.).

This does not lend itself to rapid leveling -- we generally play +0 or +1 normal door missions -- and it definitely doesn't encourage highly-polished builds with expensive IOs.

What it does bring to our gaming experience is a renewed interests in our teammates and our teamwork, a welcome re-emphasis on defense and survival powers from the AOE-offense-heavy standard game, a sense of accomplishment, the occasional burst of stark terror, and, of course, the all-too-frequent opportunity to make new alts. :P

It's certainly not for everybody. But if your interest is piqued, check out the Iron Eagles channel (Justice server) or see our thread in Player Events.