Should CoH have themed content 1-50?

It used to be you started with themed content. Magic characters got a magic contact, Tech characters a tech contact, etc - and they faced appropriately themed enemies. After the initial contact you could in theory choose contacts with enemy groups of your origin type.

The new tutorial and starting missions (which I like) got rid of that. Everyone has the same story - kind of like CoV where everyone had the same destined one storyline.

Add in First Ward which is neither heroic nor villainous but post-apocalyse emo, and the roleplaying seems to be largely gone from CoH. You play a character in whatever story and theme the devs choose. They choose your motivation, your words, etc.

I was hoping long ago that CoH would move the opposite direction - the comic book direction.
The Defenders did magic things, fought magic foes, went to magic dimensions
The Fantastic Four did science things and went to science places
Batman fights gangs and robbers, the mob, etc

I wish CoH had a "planned" arc for a variety of themed content from 1-50. Start a magic character and you can run through magic storylines - Hellions, CoT, Midnighters, Tsoo, Banished Pantheon, etc. Most likely create zones for it.

Imagine Hollows, Faultline, Striga, RWZ, is science/tech
Perez Park, Croatoa, Dark Astoria, Cimmeroria is magic
Atlas Park, Steel, Talos, PI is the Heroic storyline
King's Row, Brickstown, ??? is the Vigilante storyline
Praetoria, First Ward, ??? is nihilist rebellion storyline

Content could be filled in where missing, so that you would not just jump around randomly. You would play through content that matched your character.

I'd love thematic content for player origins, which right now chiefly serve to restrict SO and DO options.

I must be mis-remembering, because it seems to me the contacts pretty much tell you what kind of origin theyr'e into: Science/tech, magic/science, that sort of thing, as well as what kind of enemies you'll be battling against (Tsoo, Nemesis, etc.)

Now, I admit, that the enemies to a new player could be not-obvious. But the fact that "This guy I want you to mee handles Science stuff" pretty much plonks it down into your face on what you'll be gettin into, I'd say.

And... what fun is playing just one side of a 5-7 sided die? You should know how to beat anything, not just Magic or such. Diversity is awesome... even if you don't get the right drops.

But... maybe I missed something here.

I'd love this too. It would sure give some more options for leveling during the game as well as some much needed variety. Although, some players might be a bit cheesed to get stuck with CoT ghosts constantly.

Yeah this exists to a degree, it's just not very noticeable and for first time players pretty incomprehensible.

All the enemy groups are fairly well grouped by origin by what kind of enhancements they drop. This is sort of important, especially if you don't have the cash to buy DOs/SOs reliable (ex. Freems/Preems. No auction access, no easy cash flow). So it's a smidge more cost effective to go up against foes that drop stuff you can actually use, and the zones are generally varied enough to put you up against a group that drops your origin. it's just a matter of getting the right contacts.

Really, the intro content is probably *less* important for specific origins since 1-12 is TOs only. But obviously more important for thematic reasons.

I'd certainly like to see more 'origin matters' stuff, contacts, arcs, etc, would be kinda nice.

To be fair, the new arcs, blue and redside do cement a more firm heroic and villainous roles IMO than some of the old origin based starting content.

But, that being said I did at one point originally want to pick arcs around an enemy group and go all the way through the world. My daemoness dealing with CoT, my big bruiser of a hero dealing with clockwork. Granted this was in the first few weeks of release. And experience curves and limited content REALLY got in the way of this plan.

But lately, I've started revisiting AE... and no, not for the pictures. I read it for the stories. Honest.

I've thought about jumping back into the AE and doing some new arcs for silver age style vigilante's. You know, like the stories in Daredevil and what not.

I wonder if the AE, despite its problems, couldn't fill in some of the content gaps a little more.

(And to the OP, I share your angst about the angst-inducing post-apocalyptic arcs of First Ward. They are very well done. Just too far afield from spandex heroes for my tastes.)

Personally I would love for a Magic character to go through the entire range doing little else but magic themed missions... Or Science characters the same, etc... Throw in the occasional side mission that is still connected to the storyline but introduces you to other groups (Say the Tsoo used the Family to illegally import some whatevers... etc)

I'd also love it if there were storylines one could level on where they focus on one specific villain group... Say my hero wanted to spend their life fighting the Family and pretty much focused on them entirely... Or another had special cause for hating Malta. Whatever.

I think this second one would be tougher to do as each villain group would need to be reworked to run the full range of levels but it would still be cool.Though thinking about it, that would pose further issues, as my characters reason to be out versus the Family would likely not line up with whatever that particular story line was... But you could probably keep it vague enough for people to adapt it to their own internal stories...

I would like to see themed content as well, but I don't think it will work.
We have too many origins to make it a realistic design goal. While some of them already exist, others like mutant end rather quickly once the character is done dealing with The Outcasts. There are no actual mutant groups after the outcasts.. everything beyond them are either tech or more then likely science.

The devs are also under time and money constraints on the art side of things just in costume piece design they must be in similiar constraints for the story design.. which needs to deal with Who Will Die, zone revamps, new zone additions, incarnate storyline(s), and new TF's and SF's for players to run, as well as new arcs in general.

I think that the AE is our only answer for getting themed content like this, without having to lose in other areas (new zones, revamps, TF/SF's). Its something that is left up to the players to solve using the tools we have available to us. We can do this far easier (and most likely faster) then the devs can because we simply have the numbers on our side.

It could be interesting to get a group of AE builders together, design an overall group(s) and take the character(s) on an adventure from level 1-50 all dealing with a specific theme.

I miss the old origin-based story arcs we did at the start and find the new scheme is limiting my desire to create new hero alts. One of the main reasons (but not the only reason) I have many more heroes than villains is simply the repetitive nature of villain starting arcs. When they introduced the Mercenary contact I created a few new villains but soon got bored and I am currently enjoying the new villain start. I don't know if it is more varied but its holding my interest at the moment

So yes, more variety in the starting arcs is vitally important. Beyond the starting levels I find the choices okay. I personally wouldn't want to do single origin stories from 1 to 50.

I agree with the chrorus.

Specifically themed content is something I would very much like to have happen.

The idea of an exclusive AE team for specific origin stories is a fantastic idea, as well. Should post on the AE forum.

I do miss the content that was removed, but content assigned to you based on your Origin is something I'm against in general. I'd have preferred that they gave us a choice of which of the original 5 contacts we wanted originally.

Yes, certain heroes fight villains that have the same origin. But some fight villains that have opposing or different origins, such as tech vs magic. I'd be quite happy if they modified existing contact acquisition methods to allow a choice of all available contacts (it's usually 2 or 3, or just one if you're introduced by a previous content) when we acquire new ones, so that we can choose to make a hero sorcerer that takes down evil sci/tech corporations, or a Natural villain that hunts mutants because he/she thinks they're an affront to humanity.

So, if you were presented with the option to pick the origin-theme of the content, I'd be all for the idea of Origin specific content. I'm against it if you are forced into a specific content path based on your Origin.

It would be pretty cool to have starting arcs for different origins again, to go along with the other choices to do.

I... I think I miss Azuria. Looking sadly at her phone contact, thinking of asking her out for coffee, then bashing my head repeatedly on the keyboard.

This is an idea who's time has come. Every character in every comic starts their career within the category of their origin. Dr. Strange didn't do crossovers until he was well established in the realm of magic, or The Fantastic Four the areas of science even before Doom started leaning more on magic. There is something to be said becoming established in your area of expertise.