Changes to the core game

Supersidekicking - I play this game primarily with a couple of friends who have fairly severe altitis, and it was always a pain to try to come up with three characters on the same server having at least 2 of about the same level so somebody could sidekick the third. Now any two of us can join the third doing anything and still all get XPs and not have to worry about it. Or, when our other friends join, or we join a PUG, or form a PUG, no level Tetris required.

Invention Enhancements - the "original" end game, with those the average online population of level 50s went from about 2% to more like 15-20% at times, since people now had things they could do to improve them. In my opinion that, combined with much wider availability of respecs, gave this game a lot of staying power, since you could now try your favorite blaster with THIS combination of powers/slotting, or THAT combination of powers/slotting, and so on, with the required accumulation of stuff to do that. There were some puzzling design decisions in this, like half a dozen snipe sets but only three regular AoE sets, but overall the debates over various build slotting on the forums show that there are different ways to legitimately do things.

The Market - tied to the above, not only does this provide a mini game within the game, and allow easy funding of characters when it was once a struggle to afford SOs on any new server until you had a high level character, but I also think they made some great decisions when they set it up, whether on purpose or by accident. Subtle things like common IO recipes selling for a lot, to provide a funding source, but set IO recipes selling for comparatively little to encourage people to put them on the market. After using a market system on a different MMO, where each *individual item* has a separate sale listing but they are all in a random order with no search function, and you can't put anything for sale or put in a bid lasting longer then 3 days, I appreciate how much better this one is.

Things that changed the game for me...

Getting Fly in CoH open beta.

Back in late 2004 realizing that Radiation Emission buffs and debuffs could stack and make a team sickly overpowered. That was the birth of Buffer Overrun and Superteams for me. I've done MANY Superteams since then.

/demorecord, and the fact that it produces text files that describe what is happening in the game. It let me figure out how Movement powers worked, and I published a big guide on it. It let me figure out animation times for powers, so I could develop optimized attack chains. It let me make a script to calculate DPS for every member of a team. It let me map mob distributions in game by level.

Red Tomax and City of Data. Learning the numbers behind the game.

Mids

AFK farming

Getting a second account

Global chat

CoV

PIGG diving

Ouroboros

INVENTIONS!!!

The Market

Getting my wife to play, and losing my second account.

Permadom on my Fire/Psi Dom

Incarnates

CEBR

The one-hour TF with Merits. The ability to jump onto the new-style TF (Katie, LGTF, ITF, etc...) that wasn't meant to go on for days (Synapse, Shard TFs) but could be done in an hour without the usual merry-go-round change of teammates that came from doing individual missions enabled me to have an enjoyable stress-free time playing that kept moving and was epic but not interminable. Then when the reward was switched from Crap of the Hunter drops to Merits which finally allowed access to the better IOs, then that brought about real advancement for my main toon. Fun times plus end game advancement.

That's why I like the Incarnate TFs and Trials which are the same deal but with more advanced end game advancement.

Global Chat.

Whenever someone is trialing/betaing a new MMO my first question to them is always about the chat.

Without a true Global chat I'm just not interested.

When the chat channels go down here. Its like we are pitched back into the dark ages.

Interestingly, I occasionally swap between CoH and a global cooldown based game, and mostly I find that I like global cooldown. I don't feel like I'm Not Doing Anything; I feel like I'm in the process of doing a thing that happens pretty quickly. I guess I acclimated. (It may help that the first thing I played in such a game was a character whose powers all took longer than GCD to activate.)

Mission Architect changed this game for me.

It's one thing making your own characters, designing their appearances, their stories, backgrounds, etc. But actually writing a story yourself and getting to see it all come to life right in front of you? Too awesome. I've made so many AE arcs for myself and friends to enjoy, that alone has justified my subscription. I just wish the devs would focus a little more time on adding cool new features to the AE.

Super sidekicking.. one of the greatest things in CoH. Level doesn't matter, no more playing around to get enough sidekicks or exemplars for everyone, no more worrying about a sudden net outage removing more then one player from your team. No worries about if a friend tries the game we can both play the game with whichever and at whatever level we decide to play at.

I love the ways to play the game.. I can street sweep, I can do endless missions(shard mission, warzone missions, Cim missions), I can do micro arcs (tips/scanner), I can do story arcs, I can do Task Forces.. I can create missions, make a supergroup base, go badge hunting, jump off the top of builds and splat into the ground for giggles (I do that WAY too often), and spend hours just bouncing around in the shadow shard on the geysers while singing The Gummi Bears theme song.

I enjoy the costume creator and have spent countless hours working on looks and concepts to get things right.

I love that building can easily be an extension of roleplaying or of powergaming and both as well.

I love the binds that we can make.. my first character was a teleporter and the teleport bind changed everything.

Even after all these years I am really looking forward to what is coming in the future.

Things that changed the game for me:

1) ED + Control Nerfs: These two things hit about the same time and drove me away from the game.

2) Inventions: These brought me back as I was able to not only recover most of what I lost to ED/Control Nerfs but to go beyond that in new and interesting ways.

3) APP/PPP's: These higher end power pools added what I always felt was missing for each archetype. The option to break the mold a bit and step outside the norm. These add a level of customization and variety that truly fleshes out characters.

4) Power Customization: This was a huge game changer. It didn't just affect the colors of my powers (and the odd alternate animation availability) it also affected how I designed costumes and developed backgrounds for my characters. I can only hope we'll finally see pool/APP/PPP customization soon. It's the last bit of customization I feel I need to make my characters cohesive.

5) CoV/Going Rogue: While these came at different times I lump them together because what I gain from them is connected. I've never been one to be the "bad guy" but I loved how interesting and unique the villain AT's were. Being able to change sides let me play the villain AT's as heroes and thus the way I enjoy the game.

6) Incarnate Content: This finally added what COH was always missing... progression beyond the level cap. Not only that it adds some seriously game changing abilities all on its own. That said... until I22 when we get solo incarnate content I've largely ignored it after the initial rush since I am not really fond of the trials.

7) The Alpha Slot: While this is technically part of the incarnate content, I personally feel it deserves special mention. This alone was game changing. As a global enhancement it affects so much about your character and at tier 3 or 4 is the only slot that actually gives you a level adjustment outside of the trials. To me, this slot has more impact than any other incarnate ability.

8) Freedom: While I still maintain my VIP status, Freedom has changed the game for me in huge ways. The amount of content the devs have given us since its launch has been staggering. And while I may not always like what they put out, the fact that I know I don't have to wait 3-6 months for something new is a huge change for the better.

I have to go with the invention system and the markets as number one .. I can recall when even attempting to battle a GM like Lusca required 2 and sometimes even 3 teams .. and even then if they didnt coordinate you spent more time dead than battling. Now with IOs some players solo giant monsters. Add the increase in overall wealth that allows us to slot early amd with the best enhancements available... I can still recall going back to revisit some older characters I had on another server and discovering that in the thirties they still were using double and even training origin enhancers because back then it was all most of us could afford.

Going Rogue, Vigilante, etc is way there on the list as well ... It opens up so much more content to a character and makes it much easier to find a team...... no one around on red side I simply head to the RWZ and go look for a team on the blue side. Tons more badges and missions to enjoy!

Newspaper and Radio missions .. Ive played long enough to recall when there was no such thing as ninja run or beast run and with no raptor pack a character had to RUN from mission to mission on foot. The only available content was from contacts that, blue side especially, delighted in send you off to other zones again and again. Worst part was if you made the mistake of soling constantly, which I did with my regen scrapper, it was possible to actually run out of missions before reaching the next level... at 19 I had done every mission from every contact and had to street hunt and run door missions in pvp zones to get to twenty so my contacts in Talos would speak to me.

Super Side Kick .. for me at least this was a real treat. Before if I missed a TF or trial I basically just forgot about it because the idea of spending several hours earning no xp just made it something I was not about to do. Now I took my fifty level badger and ran the new sewer trials just to get those badges and earned influnece at the same rate as if I was on a fifty plus Incarnate Trial. Most of my characters have the added advantage of Task Force Commander and even if I am just looking for a pug team.. if I cant find one my level I have no problem running twenty level missions with a forty level

Time Travel .. I had friends that were serious badge freaks years ago that would actively seek to hit the debt cap to make sure they didnt outlevel a contact before managing to coax a badge mission out of them. Now.. just head to Ouroborus and run it anytime!