The Greatest Challenge in this game...

... is my damn altitus!

How do you deal with it? Generally, I just embrace it... but I actually want to run through the Dark Astoria story line (solo, not on a team where you can't actually see it!), and I don't feel any of my current 50s are adequate for soloing incarnate content (and for many, regular end-game content).

Close to a month ago I rolled a StJ/EA Stalker, which had been awesome (got to 33 in no time at all), but then I rolled a Demons/Time MM... and then I rolled a Dark/Dark Dominator... then, last night, I was looking into rolling a Corruptor!


So, at this point, I'm wondering how I'll ever actually get to go through Dark Astoria!

We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.

I deal with alt-itis by playing with a single character for several levels until I feel like it's time for a change and then level a different one for a while.

Wait, I think I'm altitising wrong. O-:

Sometimes I wish I had more altitus. While I'm not GG (only playing 1 character ever), I do tend to play one character for months on end, often well after 50 and incarnated and IOd out, when there's nothing else really to get except badges.

*looks at signature and raises hand*

Hi, I'm Dante and I'm an altaholic too.

For what it's worth, I try to make little goals along the way that help to keep me interested and invested in playing the character. Or, if I'm on an RP character, I try to involve them with a group or SG so there's some investment in keeping them going. Here's my list of goals that I keep in mind when trying to overcome my affliction:

Level
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4) Pool powers and travel options
12) Dual Origin Enhancements open up
18) Tends to be a good power on most sets
20) Costume slot!
22) Single Origin Enhancements open up
26) Again, normally a good power here
28) Ditto for secondaries
30) Normally where I start slotting IO sets plus another costume slot
32) Final Primary power, normally a humdinger
35) Patron and Ancilliary pools open, a chance for more customisation. ITF opens up, always a good acid test for any character that's got this far.
38) Final Secondary power, normally good.
40) Another costume slot
45) Top tier TFs and lots of slots to finalise a build with.
50) Incarnates (if you're into that kind of thing).

I usually have a primary focus between two characters and then an ancillary focus on the remaining ones I have. I also try to get into the character quite a bit so I stay with them.

I appear to be immune.

My solution is to the problem of getting a character to play in Dark Astoria is apparently to try to roll a: brute, corruptor, tanker (hahaha no), scrapper, and a peacebringer (it might be nice once I get it to 50 and perma lightform... except for the fairly lackluster damage khelds have)...

I'm thinking the real problem is the complete and total lack of SG/etc to regularly play/team with.

We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.

Simple: when something new and shiny comes out, create a few new characters to use it in all sorts of creative ways!

It's a good thing that in this game, leveling up IS the endgame.

Except rolling many, many, many new alts does not help me to be able to play through any of the Dark Astoria content.

We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.

I'm sort of like this. I have Chronic Restart Syndrome.

I roll a character, go "This is AWESOME!" and level that character up until they reach somewhere in the "Dead Zone Range", the range where I start losing interest in a character, which is around the level 15-30 area. I then get bored of that character, delete it to save room and roll a new character who is SO AWESOME and fun to play, etc. etc.

Somewhere around 4-5 years of playing CoX and I only have three Level 50's. One of which only recently hit the level cap.

Only solution I can think of is to think of such a great character concept that I carry myself through the levels of anti-fun simply out of sheer love for the character I made.

Just pick one and go. Though if you can, try to rack up some trials or at -least- a weekly strike target and try to work in at least an alpha level shift. Makes things much smoother.

If you can't or don't want to, my other suggestion would be to farm up the solo'able goodies like the daily 10 threads, and the weekly 10 threads and 1 Astral from the SSA. That's 1 component right there plus 4 threads (FYI, unless you have to buy costume pieces just burn Astrals for threads). Even without a shift, getting stuff slotted -will- improve your performance.

Dark Astoria content, in general, isn't that hard, it just throws several elite bosses in your way, but nothing -that- monstrously hard (barring you don't go for the badges, some will eat you alive if you're underpowered).

Once I was afflicted by altitus but I found the cure.

A few weeks ago I put the finishing touches on the one character that totally satisfies what I'd been looking for. Since then, I have no desire to create any other characters or try to duplicate this one on any other server.

I'm done. Finished. My end game is compete. This character is now my one and only. I've no desire to do more.

I've moved on to more fulfilling and challenging games now but keep this account open just so I can return every few days and spend an hour or so with my beloved character friend.

It's definitely very easy to get caught up in all the alt-ness. What helped me was making the goal to get one of each AT up to fifty. (NOT through PLs, but doing it the old fashioned way!). Once I got my first fifty (a controller), I immediately finished up and solidified his build, and rolled up my next AT. Then, off to fifty again!

I kept focused on ONE toon because I knew that eventually I'd get to roll another one...I just had to finish *this* one first!

This was many years ago...way before IOs...and so compared to now, there really wasn't much out there for 50s. Nowadays, though, there is SO SO SO SO much for my fifties that I find myself playing my Incarnated out 50+3 Dark/Energy Brute ALL THE TIME. I don't think I've even rolled a new toon since returning to the game about 2 months ago! All the extra goodness that's been added to the end game has been incredible to me. AND I'VE ONLY INCARNATED *ONE* OF MY LEVEL FIFTIES!!!

There are some power sets I really want to try out (Titan Weapons, Street Justice, BroadSword), but with all this goodness after 50, I just don't see how I'm going to be able to go ALLL L the way back down to level 1 again!!!

I say pick that *one* that's sticking out in your mind as the one that DESERVES to be incarnated and GO FOR IT. You will NOT BELIEVE how the Incarnate System can make a GREAT toon into an UNBELIEVABLY INCREDIBLE toon!!

It's the trials that have made me focus on specific toons. (cough and the ability to have a free second account cough).

Altitis
A wall of text by Captain-Electric

The following tips aren't just ideas that sound nice to me. They're guidelines that evolved throughout my first couple of years in City of Heroes, and following them closely has greatly improved my enjoyment of the game. These aren't role-playing tips, as inviting as they may feel to that group. They're ways to learn to relate to your characters, the same way you form brief connections with characters in books and movies.

(1) THE ABC LIST - None of my heroes and villains are alts; they're all main characters. Sound like pure semantics? Think again! From the beginning, I took a tip from the comics (where else?), and have sought to view my characters on an A-list, B-list, C-list scale. They're all important to me, but a few of them have definitely affected local (or even worldwide) events on a larger scale than the others (see "Time" below).

(2) THE WELL - In the 1960s, Spider-Man had few fans among Marvel's editorial board. He was almost cut before they realized he had struck a unique chord among their readership, who finally had a hero with average life problems they could all relate with. There are all sorts of ways to create a character, but few heroes and villains are memorable for their power sets alone. So why start there when creating one? Start at the beginning, with their life and the circumstances that led to their origin as a hero or villain. This may involve taking out a notepad or sketchpad, or it may just take a bit of day-dreaming before going straight into the Character Creator. You will not want to delete a persona who feels more substantial to you, who is worth exploring and enriching through in-game experiences. After a while, these won't be "toons", and you won't think of them as your "Fire/Kin" or "Troller". As their personalities take shape, you'll begin to think of them by their names. Give the well of your sub-consciousness some breathing room, here. Like Spider-Man's first audience, you may end up liking a character you may not have expected yourself to make. (And if you created heroes and villains as a child, they're still living in your sub-consciousness. It can be very satisfying to breath life into these within the game.)

(3) TIME - Out of 25 heroes and villains on my home server, eight of them are A-listers (up from four a year ago, last time I updated this guide). As expected, they get more attention from the fictional world they inhabit. They hob-nob with patron heroes more often, go on more task-forces, have arch-villains after them, and they get their origin stories told through AE and through Virtueverse.com. And naturally, more "real" people know them, because an A-lister might get weeks of play-time; they're simply around more often. B-listers and C-listers will get days or even just hours of play-time between those longer stretches.

(4) THE STORY - The average comic book runs around 20 or 30-something pages. Comic writers have a certain amount of space and time to work with, to push their characters stories forward. And most comic book heroes don't even have their own comic books. There are a lot of supporting members of comic-book super-groups who don't say much or make many decisions compared to more famous heroes, even though they may do a lot to keep their teammates alive. I have several C-listers in this category. In comics, B-listers often get their own series, while A-listers get wide-ranging story arcs and get to affect crossover events. In the same vein of thought, I don't force myself to play less interesting characters more often than interesting characters. Having an idea of who's who gives me a reference point from which to push my characters stories forward, no matter how small or large that story may be. And it ensures I'm more focused on characters who deserve more focus. This keeps the game more fun for me.

AFTER CREATING so many characters with so many stories, I try to keep from creating new ones more than every few months. This is because the characters I already have should never be "finished". Sometimes I funnel that creative itch into an already extant character, updating their bio or Virtueverse page. My A-listers ought to be evolving every month. This makes them more believable characters, which is the whole point of this exercise. Advancing my characters stories might include more than just biographical updates. It might also include costume changes, or even spin-off characters (these can be VERY fun to create, because they start off with some history already set up for them).

FINALLY, I don't keep all of my characters separated by a vacuum of space and time; I have intermingled many of their stories when writing or updating bios. One of my B-listers is side-kicked to one of my A-listers, and two of my villains are the arch-enemies of two of my heroes. I've even created a super-team among my roster of characters. None of this is terribly silly. With AE, it's possible to fight alongside (or against) your own characters. Anything's doable now. But even without AE, it's fun to intermingle characters stories. For instance, you can learn more about Captain-Electric by reading Detective Marvel's bio.

THE GUIDELINES ABOVE are the most natural way to handle "Altitis" that I've found. If you've read this far and like the approach, read another post about it. I've discovered for myself that Altitis isn't the problem. After all, most comic-book universes exist in a permanent state of Altitis, with all the personalities and story-lines they expect their readers (and writers) to keep up with. Your roster of heroes and villains can either be a flat list of video game toons, or it can be the jumping-off point to your corner of a substantial fictional universe. Unfortunately, there isn't a universe that we know of where time management isn't an issue.

Those guidelines are good for people who want to make the complete character and I myself have also had a couple of toons that I really connected with and wrote Bio's for and pushed myself to finish them off. Unfortunately a lot of altitus is caused by not being satisfied with the toon that they developed or by seeing something else that they really wanted to try. ie the Two Deadly Sins of Altitus: Acedia and Envy.

I try to formalize my altitis a bit by rotating the characters I play, so that everyone gets at least one level before I get heavily into a character for a while. So I level someone up to 50, then level all my alts up a level, then level someone up to 50, then level all my alts up a level...I usually find that by the time I've gotten one character up to 50, I'm ready for a change, and by the time I've leveled everyone up a level, I'm usually craving to go back to a particular character I enjoyed playing a lot.

That said, I'm now experiencing a craving to go back and get all my 50s kitted out with Incarnate powers, which is probably a Bad Idea.

It's funny how attached I have gotten to some of my characters..LOL. I take a lot of time giving them a great name and personality, and spend a very long time on the bios and costumes. If over time they are not fun to play, they will be deleted...but sometimes it's tough. I have just about every powerset in the game. (Healing is my favorite, but I also love scrapping/tanking.) This allows me to choose according to my mood.

I still have altitis. I just level faster.

Currently, my "main" is a Staff/Dark named Sandformer. The best thing about him is that he uses OLD costume assets pretty well. 90% is I0 stuff.



Stone is the basis (which matches up with a "Sandfall" backpack). If I could get a good picture, I would.

Staff is nice on Stalkers, and after leveling up in sewer trials I've started to run missions -1/x8 since level 22. Could do better if I set it for /6/bosses, but whatever.

Main previous main is now being using a marketing hound. Same with other old characters, including Dis Pater (roman god), Combat R1, Poor Farmer, Old Wippernapper, Kinetic Fist, and more.

I usually go for 2 months.