Sharing a bit of Old School CoH
By
afocks,
Posted on: 2012-02-20 15:40 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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I have spent thousands of hours on-duty in Eastgate, watching hundreds of heroes coming up through the ranks, so trust me when i say; alas, It was the ultra hard mobs (but more specifically their sheer numbers and placement, on the map) that made old skool Hollows what it was, a real hazard-zone.|
Originally Posted by Dr Harmony
The Hollows!
My first character ever was a Fire/Fire Blaster. After terrorising the criminals of Atlas Park I got directed to the Hollows, and nearly quit the game. It suddenly seemed to jump from manageable encounters to taking on groups of ten trolls (including bosses) at once, and thus dying repeatedly. I was so relieved to discover Kings Row. It is one of those cool arcs, along with Striga, Croatoa and Faultline, that tend to get forgotten about. It's always cool to run one of these after a long break. But I do miss the old ultra-hard Hollows, in a kind of perverse way. |
Old skool Hollows taught you patience and persistance, and my goodness! - when you did eventually reach your destination after falling 10ft from the mission door time and again that felt like an accomplishment in itself!, you literally had Heroes congratulating their team-mates on making it on their arrival!.
Old skool Hollows taught you aggro distance (down to the Sq Ft), it taught you to look before you leap, and now sometimes it feels we have a whole generation of Heroes on-duty with less appreciation of and sense of aggro-distance.
Wouldn't happen back in my day!.
*mumbles away to herself*
Appreciate what was attempted with The Hollows redux, but in repositioning and thinning the mobs WarWitch did neuter the very element, the sadistic thrill, that made The Hollows so very much fun in the first place!.
Give it back it's sadistic thrill, upgrade the Igneous to use the earth powerset, redux the rewards and (enviroment-wise) the crater to make it a little more interesting and dangerous, but most importantly increase the mobs numbers again and their tricky placement - forcing Heroes to watch out or be caught out!, and I'm sure it would be fun again.
Since the last issue hit every character I've made on Live or Beta has done 1 DfB run, then hit the find contact button to go to Wincott and run through the completion of Flux.
It has been fun... but, a tad lonely.
City of Heroes was my first MMO, & my favorite computer game.
R.I.P.
Chyll - Bydand - Violynce - Enyrgos - Rylle - Nephryte - Solyd - Fettyr - Hyposhock - Styrling - Beryllos - Rosyc
Horryd - Myriam - Dysquiet - Ghyr
Vanysh - Eldrytch
Inflyct - Mysron - Orphyn - Dysmay - Reapyr - - Wyldeman - Hydeous
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I sorta miss doing speed katies, heck if it weren't for itrials shifting the endgame away from reward merits/tables I'd probably want them back. I miss doing them in 14 minutes, and everything that entailed getting such a time. And I miss duoing/trioing them with friends, each of us logging in 4 accounts, and getting ridiculously disgusting amounts of rewards.
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Originally Posted by Sylph_Knight
Remember when we used to do Katie Hannon TFs for our IO jollies?
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Nipples and 'Camel Toe' on the female toons.
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Add Katie Hannon!|
Originally Posted by Infernus_Hades
The trouble is the old Hydra xp was severely nuked from space.
So many people were doing the Hellion/Hydra and ding 7-14 in an hour that they completely nerfed Hydra XP. Now Hydra are one of the most ignored creatures in the game. Many of my favorite things the Devs in their infinite wisedom have nerfed so badly they are unplayable. Abandoned Sewer trials - Nerf Kraken XP and stop you from Mezzing the Monster = Dustbowl. Perez Park - nerf Hydra XP = Dustbowl Respec trial reduce difficulty to -1 or less on the spawns and it becomes a snoze festival = Dustbowl and one of the most boring things in the game now. Eden - never fix the walls enabling 10 minute trials and thus some of the most epic maps in the game become Dustbowls. You know so many things that were FUN have been nerfed to suck the life out of them. I really have to wonder if sometimes they even play this game. |
It used to be so much manic, crazy fun to do speed Katies! Why, oh why, did change it in that gawd-awful huge map to: "take her back to the entrance. And by the way, she gets stuck in the wall on a regular basis."
The R-merit "nerf" was enough to discourage the lewt-mongers. Why couldn't they at least have left it FUN?
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I remember the hollows days well, back in the day we did a x8 Atta run that took several hours of hard fighting, not just to complete the mission, but to fight our way there!!!
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Originally Posted by Mothers_Love
Old skool Hollows taught you aggro distance (down to the Sq Ft), it taught you to look before you leap, and now sometimes it feels we have a whole generation of Heroes on-duty with less appreciation of and sense of aggro-distance. Wouldn't happen back in my day!. *mumbles away to herself* |
In-game and now on Twitter @Tsumiju Zero "The Nightmare of Dra'Gon"
"The flow of battle can only be influenced, not by realtime tactics, but by strategy."
Proud resident of the Union EU Server.
B.A.F. Trial Guide
To this day all my characters will only take the back elevators ("lifts" for our UK players), thanks to the Hollows.
*shudders* *holds churning stomach*
I come from old school as well. I still remember how TERRIBLE the original Hollows was. People would actually create characters called "Taxi-Bots" that would teleport people around that zone out of sheer compassion on the Liberty server. I had a high level FF teleporter that would offer free rides for an hour every Saturday, just because of how horrible that zone was.
9 out of 10 players would die multiple times on their way to the first door mission because the zone started at level 6ish, and the first door mission came at level 7 and was invariably in the middle of Grape 14's. Trolls and Pumicites and Pain, oh my!
I had several friends nearly quit the game because of the Horror of the Hollows.
You'd hit level 5-6 *DING!* great! I have access to a new pool power... nah, I need 1 more attack to round out my cycle... Oh, hello new contact...
What? What's that?
You won't talk to me until I go talk to this David Wincott? Okay... <chugging off to Hollows>
Hmm... this is neat, large police presence here... Hey! Look at all the people here at the entrance!
Lemme talk to David.
Okay, I clicked on him, skim-read his spiel.
Hey, I have a new mission objective... lemme try that.
Ow, that hurt, but I made it.
What's next?
Ow! That hurt MORE... but I'm game... I'll try this door mission, that will be better, no mobs of 7-12 badguys to beat me up!
<Death>
<Death>
<Death>
<Death>
<Death>
<Death>
<Death>
<Death>
<Death>
<Death>
<Death>
<Death>
<Death>
Wow! I die instantly before I get to the door. Why are all these guys purple and there are always 10 of them and they all have super speed and holds and hit me instantly every time with every shot?????
<Death>
<Death>
<Death>
<Death>
<Death>
<Death>
<Death>
This game stinks! I quit!
... the Ballad of the Hollows.
The stupid thing, that still makes me nauseous is the fact that you as a "new player" didn't know that the mission from Wincott was optional!!! It LOOKED like it was the next line in the story arc.
People who didn't know any better would never realize that Kings Row was a much less frustrating alternative!
... I still get headaches thinking about it.
I do have nostalgia for some things in the game... Kraken hunting in Perez, the old sewer trials, crazy fun of your first task force, some of the upper teen, lower 20s story arcs... were AND ARE amazing.
... just not *gulp* the Hollows.
Happy gaming!
-SunderX
Sset - 50 DM/Regen Scrapper - 8 years of out-tanking any tank but Granite, with 5x the DPS.
**Making Altaholism a socially acceptable disorder**
"Scrappers are just like chainsaws. Somewhat hard to handle, EXTREMELY dangerous, and by far the most fun when wielded by the slightly insane." -Alissara
Running around the Perez Park swamp fighting Hydras was fun. Especially with multiple teams hunting them down almost faster than they could respawn. The best part was when the Devs froze over most of the water in Paragon City and fighting Hydras on ice. Especially since my main at that point was a FF/Rad and playing Hydra hockey with Force Bolt was hilarious.
The early Hollows wasn't bad except that for a while it's all anyone did, so it was harder to get people for some of the fun badge missions in the lower levels. Well, that and the wonky spawning of mobs in the Hollows that would sometimes have 10-12 purple mobs suddenly appearing around me without warning. The most memorable was when my WS paused to rest on a rooftop while flying around nuking groups from orbit in Nova form and having a large group of Outcasts materialize next to him about ten seconds into starting Rest. That was a quick trip back to AP.
The addition of the Jet Packs made the Hollows a lot easier, but it's the revamp that fixed the general progression and timing of spawns that really made it easier in my opinion.
Still... Hydra hockey. i wish the Devs would freeze over Perez Park again just for that. It was great fun when you had multiple people with KB powers because you could actually play hockey with them. Of course you had to occasionally replace the puck.
Dr. Todt's theme.
i make stuff...
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Actually, one of the things that hurts The Hollows is how tough it is to get around in some places without decent travel powers. Yes, that's LESS of an issue now than it's ever been before. But it's still an issue.|
Originally Posted by Scarlet Shocker
What struck me most were two things: How empty the Hollows was and why is this great content now not played any more (I know why, curse you AE and DFB) and how much easier it was than when I started. I'm a long time vet I know, damn near six years but to do that in the old days at level 10/12 with only two characters would've been a feat for the annals of CoH.
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Additionally, with the XP curve and the way it's been smoothed, it's INSANELY easy to outlevel the content. I emerged on the far side of the Twinshot arcs above max level for The Hollows.
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There are plenty of good reasons why that should be so... there's so much to do the time sinks have been removed - rightly so - I reckon Frostie is good for a speed run these days. Now you kids get off my lawn!!! |
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Some interesting reminiscing in here - I like it! 
As a Day-1 vet, the Hollows never really had any impact on me, but my friend
(who is also a Day-1 vet) used to run Frostfire several times a day.
For me, the Hollows was the first place I level-locked a toon (an Empath Defender
at L22 with SO's), for RP-ish purposes to aid all the angst ridden newbies in-zone. 
It made that toon (a pacifist) feel quite heroic to save some lone player, when they
were on the verge of a hospital trip, with a well-timed heal, or RA, or fortitude.
Fun Stuff. Alas, there's nobody in there anymore... 
As for me, I learned the aggro ranges and how to run through zones safely,
by avoiding Outcasts, 5th Column, and Tsoo in Steel Canyon.
Back then, the zone to hate was Perez Park... Getting lost on the twisty paths
in the forest (not marked on maps) with huge mob groups 3-5 levels higher
than your toon was definitely risking life & limb.
In fact, one of the more fun things I've done in this game, netted me not a single
inf or XP point. When my I-1 toon hit L50 (by I-3), I went back to Perez Park and
crispy fried every mob I could find for about an hour... Talk about cathartic
It still makes me smile now as I think about it... D*mn Mages... Take THAT! 
Cheers,
4
PS> The first 3rd-party addition I picked up for the game was the Map
Patch that marked out all the Perez Park trails...
I've been rich, and I've been poor. Rich is definitely better.
Light is faster than sound - that's why some people look smart until they speak.
For every seller who leaves the market dirty stinkin' rich,
there's a buyer who leaves the market dirty stinkin' IOed. - Obitus.
When the world first ended I went down fighting in Founders Falls.
I remember the Hollows as being like boot camp. You would learn how to navigate a zone filled with hostiles by the time you got out of there.
I've been red side since CoV launched, mostly due to arcs being more compact and Mayhem missions being much more therapeutic than Safeguard missions.
But I was playing a few nights and realized how much I missed Eden. I spent a good bit of my 30's on my tanker there back in the day, and nothing in the Rogue Isles is quite like it.
Heroes of Justice: Geratron - 50 FA/FM Tanker
Villains of Infinity: Psychotron - 50 FM/FA Brute, Operative Gerald - 50 Arachnos Widow
Rogues of Exalted: Peanut Butter Fairy - 50 FM/FA Brute
I'm really enjoying your memories on this. I think the general consensus seems to be the Hollows isn't as much fun and I guess that's borne out by its emptiness.
Given how much easier the game is these days I wonder if it couldn't be put back a bit the way it was on the outside at least? Well I'm sure the Devs have more interesting things to do os I'm guess it's academic but hey... I can dream right?
Thelonious Monk
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I silently curse players who don't do this. I always take the rear elevator, and say to myself to those who take the front ones, "Don't blame me when you get killed."
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Originally Posted by Nylonus
To this day all my characters will only take the back elevators ("lifts" for our UK players), thanks to the Hollows.
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@Johnstone & @Johnstone 2
ediblePoly.com
All my characters
I remember having the gamer-equivalent of PTSD from the Hollows back on my first characters years and years ago. I used to quit teams if there was a mission that led us there (I'd just claim my cat was on fire or something, I at least said bye).
But man, they have made it *so much* nicer. Hospitals in zone, trainer in zone, I have a faster loading time, missions closer to the entrance, phone numbers early, travel powers early. Now I run the missions to keep myself busy when I can't find a time.
Also, it is really pretty now. It was niceish before in the horror days, but the changes they've made look pretty nice.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
I run through at least Wincott and Flux on every single heroside character I create.
Some of them I run the whole shebang on, depending on how quick of a pace they go through it at.
You get 39 merits by level 13 if you do the whole Hollows arc.
Afterward I usually start on the TFs starting with Positron and then getting Synapse the hell out fo the way as soon as possible.
I still run Striga and Croatoa as well.
I'm growing to despise DFB. There is an entire crop of new players who don't even realize there is anything else to do at that level.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
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Fantastic idea! Go repost it in the Suggestions area.
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Originally Posted by dugfromthearth
I did the hollows with a character a month or so ago and it was fun.
It occurred to me that the devs should have a zone of the week, like tf of the week. The zone content that week would have double xp, double drops, or something. You could do hollows, striga, faultline, the PvP zones and others. Rotate them around so they would be busy for one week every few months |
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This. Oh, so very much this. I see players now taking the front elevators and just shake my head.
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Originally Posted by Nylonus
To this day all my characters will only take the back elevators ("lifts" for our UK players), thanks to the Hollows.
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Same here. It's such a habit, I didn't even realize that I do it now. All thanks to the Hollows missions. |
Originally Posted by NekoNeko
This. Oh, so very much this. I see players now taking the front elevators and just shake my head.
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I find your lack of signature disturbing.
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It was also a good place to go hunting green CoT bosses for arcane salvage; Luck Charms have always been a pricey item at the Auction house, and with a little care you could enter the Hollows from the Skyway City door and hunt CoT until your salvage filled up, then go back to Skyway City and then to either Talos or King's Row to dump anything you didn't want on the AH, repeating as necessary. The rework made it much harder to get a decent return for your time, as it thinned out the CoT -- replacing virtually all of their spawns east of the river with Trolls, and many of the spawns west of the river with Outcasts and Trolls -- and made bosses much rarer. And bosses became much rarer overall; the Hollows used to be a decent place to hunt Outcast, Troll, CoT, Lost, and Igneous bosses for their respective badges.
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Originally Posted by DreadShinobi
Even with no travel powers, the hollows was incredible xp back then (when xp was alot harder to come by normally). Frostfire and Atta were farmed all the time and the risk:reward was balanced. You did have to use your head when getting to the mission, but once you got there the xp was great. Then when safeguards came out, it hit pretty much a perfect state - go pick up your raptor pack in KR then clear out the hollows. Then War Witch nuked all the flavor and prestige of the hollows and (imo) ruined the zone compared to what it originally was.
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"But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses."
-- Bruce Leverett, Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers
The trouble is the old Hydra xp was severely nuked from space.
So many people were doing the Hellion/Hydra and ding 7-14 in an hour that they completely nerfed Hydra XP.
Now Hydra are one of the most ignored creatures in the game. Many of my favorite things the Devs in their infinite wisedom have nerfed so badly they are unplayable.
Abandoned Sewer trials - Nerf Kraken XP and stop you from Mezzing the Monster = Dustbowl.
Perez Park - nerf Hydra XP = Dustbowl
Respec trial reduce difficulty to -1 or less on the spawns and it becomes a snoze festival = Dustbowl and one of the most boring things in the game now.
Eden - never fix the walls enabling 10 minute trials and thus some of the most epic maps in the game become Dustbowls.
You know so many things that were FUN have been nerfed to suck the life out of them. I really have to wonder if sometimes they even play this game.