End Game Content

Alrighty, I'm new and I'm hanging around CoH a heck of a lot lately.

One thing I've noticed is that there's only 50 character levels, for an MMO that's 7 years old that's.... not very much

So, considering the max level is so low, what's the end game content like and how long will it keep you busy for? As it's one area almost every past MMORPG I have played has let me down in.

Having a higher level cap isn't increasing the end game content, it is increasing the grind to get there...
Increasing the grind is a great thing when it comes to the company's finances but it isn't something the players should want.

Having said that, the end game content isn't very extreme. We have incarnate trials and hugely unsupported PVP and badging I guess.

If you are looking for end game content, find an mmo that focuses on PVP, it is literally the only way to ensure you have a limitless supply of content.

I so hate “end game content” crap that WoW has brain washed people into. I really whish WoW wouldn’t have screwed it up for all other MMO’s and tainted a generations brains to what it is to actually play an MMO’s through all levels.

Edit:

Sorry if I seemed annoyed, its just so frustrating to see so many AE babies power level their characters up to 50 and miss 1000's of things to do in the game, then scream there is no ”end game content”. They are so use to power leveling their guys for end game raids in WoW.

CoX is not WoW. The merits you get while leveling up and doing low level TF's can be applied to your character at anytime, even level 50 items. The game is designed that 1 – 50 is the experience and not just 50 that’s why they put into place a system that allows you to alter your level up or down to experience all the content in the game.

Taskforces and trials come to mind. Though City has always had more of an emphasis on leveling up multiple characters--hence all the character slots available to you. It's about the journey, not the end destination. I'd find more cheesy phrases to throw at you, but my brain ain't working right at the moment.

We do have enough variety that if you decide to stick around (hope you do, we do like new players, honest), you basically pick your own end game. I know people who play the market for hours, others who badge, others who only do task forces. It's all in what you like to do.

Guild Wars has a level cap of 20. Runescape doesn't even have a hard level cap; your level is simply calculated based on a number of your other stats, which AFAIK don't have caps, just exponential experience requirements (at the time I last played, the effective cap was around 113, but a dedicated player could push beyond that).

What CoH does have, though, is the Incarnate trials (the rewards of which can be used to increase your effective level), a couple task forces limited to the upper levels, and a couple raids. Rewards from Incarnate trials at the moment can give you +1 to normal content, and up to +3 during the Incarnate trials, but the whole Incarnate system is not fully released yet.

Also, once you hit 50, there's the Ouroboros system, which allows you to 'flash back' to content you may have missed along the way (based on origin or whatnot). If you missed storylines or missions, it'll scale you back to the appropriate level and allow you to play the content.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

In this particular game, the mentor/exemplar system cause levels to be halfway meaningless, anyway.

This game does not have the traditional end game of your favorite fantasy games, where every year you stack a new end game on top of the old end game and assign it a new set of level numbers.

Fifty is the top. If you think that numbers signify anything other than the number of powers you happen to have available to use in any given situation then you need to take off your fantasy game glasses.

An end game sort of like what you're used to does exists now, though for many years it did not. The "end game" was hitting the top and starting over with a new build or doing PvP. We built sideways instead - The inventions were added, and the Architect and other such things.

Incarnates are the current "end game". Your level won't go up but you can grind through various fantasy-game-style raids to earn credit towards giving yourself new power levels that exceed the level cap. Those power levels are primarily useful in the end game raids themselves, though if you think about it, that's not really so different than the same raids in the fantasy games.

If you power level through City of Heroes on the theory that "the end game is where the real game starts" then you will miss out on most of what the game has to offer. This is not one of the fantasy games where the lower level stuff is just there as a time sink to slow down how fast you get to the end game.

The journey is more important than the destination, here.

My end game content was creating a wiki site and, eventually, joining the Titan Network. I'm still not finished.

There is also Architect Entertainment. Despite its' problems, it is effectively infinite content (there are more AE arcs than you can play on any character, and indeed arcs are being created faster than you can play through them).

Sturgeon's Law applies.

I'm surprised people seem to have missed BADGES

they are like achievements from other popular MMOs (except they were here first)

Some open up nice extra powers or bonuses.

I don't consider badges to be "endgame content", since you can get almost every badge long before you're 50. Admittedly, it's rather unlikely for some (Empath), and requires help from a higher-level character for others (Multidimensional), but there are few badges where you must be high level to earn.

I didn't forget about badges, but I'm not sure they provide continued play motive on the same scale as what other games call "end-game" content. Most of the badges seem to be either something a dedicated player can knock out in a few sessions or something that takes so long you do it on the side of your other play over a long period. The former usually isn't enough activity to keep people engaged. The latter is often secondary to main play, so if the main play isn't sufficient to keep people engaged, the badges probably won't keep them around.

But maybe that's just me.

I guess it depends what the OP wants and expects but there's a huge amount to do here - from 1-50 and beyond. Many people have pointed out a lot of the stuff but apart from anything else there's what... 13 (I may have missed some) ATs to explore... and of those ATs there are many sub-variants. Once you've found one AT you like you'll probably have a lot of fun enjoying playing with the possible combos.

As many have already said, the journey is the important thing and there is some seriously outstanding content in the game. (There's also some dross but that's the minority these days and easily skippable.)

There is end game which isn't totally complete yet but while getting to that there's inventions, and plenty of trials and TFs and badges and all sorts. There's enough here to make you wish you had a lot more time!

Enjoy it all

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

I think the main thing to remember is that this game is fun starting at level 1. This is not a game where you have to go kill a zillion insignificant things just to make the faintest progress towards gaining power. At level 1 you are out in the streets punching enemies in the face. It doesn't take long at all before you can be flying through the air, or 'leaping tall buildings at a single bound'. You don't need to plow your way up to level 50 to feel like you are accomplishing something. The game is fun all the way through.

I'm going to create a MMO with a thousand levels and the End Game Content begins at level 5.