On Character:

I've been thinking a lot about you, City of Heroes, for a little while~
Going back to you for a little while is seeming kinda nice, but I've been wondering about a few things, mostly pertaining to characters.

1) What makes playing these characters fun for you?
-I've noticed that a lot of attacks kind of seem underwhelming and kind of recycled. While that's not the case with a lot of the newer stuff, a lot of the old stuff just kind of feels... And later on game play still kind of feels like juggling cool downs. What keeps you in the game?

2) What makes other characters fun for you?
-Missions seem to be filled with huge blocks of text. Environments seem recycled. Animations for cut scenes are sometimes odd or super plain looking. How do you deal with it, if at all? I've heard the phrase, "It's not the destination that counts, it's the journey", but is it really?

So, what do you guys have to say?

Note: This thread isn't about me complaining or raining hate on this game. If you feel about making a distinct point about arguing against the things I've said on this thread, please leave it at the door. I'm honestly just looking for the answers to questions 1 or 2, the text below is just to designate my stance and why I may be asking these questions in the first place. Thank you.

For number 2 - Yes, It's true, though maybe you need to answer the question of just what you think your destination is?

For number 1, old stuff is old. Don't do old stuff. In fact, a whole raft of old stuff got pretty much deleted when Atlas Park got revamped.

If what you what is an action arcade game (I don't mean that sarcastically) then there are competing products that provide that experience.

I'm curious about these walls of text you're complaining about. Most of the time, you only get something like that if you deliberately seek it out by reading mission text and/or souveniers. I'm puzzled how it could be something that's reducing your fun unless your idea of a wall is significantly smaller than mine.

Okay. Maybe I wasn't clear.
Perhaps I'll try and put more words in the original post that may or may not denote what I'm not looking for.

I didn't make this post to complain or argue.
I didn't make this post for the sole purpose of being judged.

I want input on what gets /you/ past these things, whether or not they're problems for you (and/or why or why not).
I'm not looking for negative slants either.

I ain't a troll (and I also ain't a he, but I forgive you ), I'm just asking questions.

It wasn't my intention to treat you like a troll, honestly. If it came across that way then I'd have to attribute it to the vagaries of text communication and apologize for the misunderstanding.

From my perspective, I don't see these things you mentioned as something to "get past", as if they're obstacles.

Now, old-fashioned kill-alls on giant tunnel maps; that's something to get past.

What I was curious about, and perhaps did a poor job of asking, was what it is that you LIKE to do in the game? Then we could help you find more of that (Like, for instance, doing mayhem missions or alignment missions.)

And, if your seriously favorite activity is to beat things up with a minimum of fuss and then go back and do it again, then the Mission Architect has many player-made missions that directly cater to that flavor of gameplay.

That still doesn't explain what you mean by huge blocks of text. You ask how people get past these things. But you haven't really elaborated on what these things are.

For me very definitely it's the journey. I don't care about gaining levels. I abandon most of my 50s the moment they hit 50.

I don't care about the juggling of cool downs. In fact I will often make it more of a juggling act by using less of my attacks. Beating an opponent with less tools for me is more fun than having a huge pile of powers to select from.

I love reading the mission texts. They are the journey, they are the story. Not reading them is like getting a book, paging through it and just looking at the few pictures, and then complaining that it's a boring book.


So no, what you seem to see as problems I see as the attraction of the game.

That and the community in general.

for a general answer, i keep coming back for customization, no other mmo on the market does it as well, and most mmos barely do it at all. I play other games across the pc, console and handheld spectrum but coh offers something unique .

plus, since with the decline of japanese developers and western developers allergy to martial arts based heroes, coh does allow me to use a character i want, It is bizarre to me, but almost no recent major game release in the action rpg genre has let me play a character who is primarily an unarmed martial artist, and this is in the midst of the @##$ing mma craze.(last one was the spy one by obsidian, and that was nearly 3 years ago)

as for the missions being similar with blocks of text..well, thats kinda gaming. I'm playing a single player rpg right now where i have tons and tons of sidequests, And i love em, but you quickly see the strings behind the show, the missions are 1. go here and talk to this guy or get this item. 2. kill 10 (in this case, spiders, boggarts, faer gorta or the like) 3. get 10 rat tails 4. kill Micky, the specific rat 5. fight through a kind of linear area till you get a boss and info-dump. and dats pretty much what you see in a lot of games these days. In november i put many many hours doing just that in a popular single player rpg, and it kind of becomes naggingly apparent after a while. and honestly next month i'll do it again in space. games do what they do well, but if you look too deeply, they tend to do the same thing, and its up to you to decide if the window dressing is worth it for you. coh is a mostly standard mmo with some mechanical variations and with window dressing that really appeals to me, so they get my dollar. If another game comes out where i can play a martial arts using blue dragon in samurai armor, i will consider moving,. I dont see that on the horizon.

oh, and while the forums have lately existed largely to get me angry, the ingame community is pretty fun, haven't found a similar one in other online games i have tried.

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