Does your character experience the game "right" and do you care?

I was playing some AE missions with a dominator. I realized that since I permaheld the final boss I never found out what powers they had. It might matter, it might not.

I ran some as a stalker and could ninja the mission - which gives a very different feel.

I'm not sure what AT would really get the "right" experience in the game. Melees with mezz resistance ignore that aspect. Masterminds can have a very different experience with their pets being attacked. I've run with many ranged characters who never really saw an AV or other special character because I'm so far back.

It matters more so in story arcs and solo. Do you feel your character is experiencing the game "right" or perhaps "fully" and do you care?

I care to some extent. My ill/rad controller was so hands off and so unaffected by foes (they all just went after phantom army) that I barely felt like I was playing the game. But that's really a pet thing. As long as my character is holding them, blasting them, or whatever I figure that's how my character sees the world.

First: The fact that every AT and even some powerset combinations operate wildly differently indicates that the devs expect one character's experience to be different from another's, and to deal with different challenges (for example mez, or fleeing enemies) differently - therefore, the way a Stalker experiences the game is no more or less "right" than the way a Mastermind does. If using the unique powers available to your AT and sets were ever in any way considered "doing it wrong," then those sets would never make it past beta, or in the event that they did would be readjusted hastily after the fact (ED is an example of such an adjustment where the devs considered a common practice to be the wrong way to play).

I determine whether a character is experiencing the game "right" based on two criteria, one of which is concrete and the other of which is even more relative than the answers you will get in archetype forums where you ask for build advice:

1) Do I enjoy this?

2) Does the way this character operates in a fight reflect the concept I had for this character's history, personality, mannerisms, and other general ideas I had when I was fiddling in the costume creator and coming up with a name?

There is absolutely nothing else that matters to me. For example, I have a Fortunata who completely ignores the advice of every Fortunata guide I have ever seen, and operates much like a Night Widow in that she uses stealth-crits and melee attacks heavily. I always imagined her moving like a Geth Hopper from Mass Effect in combat (would give her a wall crawling power if it existed!) and as it turns out, the constant movement on the battlefield that her build makes necessary for survival really does feel like that when I play her. Therefore, because her mechanics match her concept and because I am able to play her with a sufficient level of survivability and kill-speed that she is not frustrating, I consider the way the game feels when I play her to be "right," regardless of any guides proclaiming that her use of melee attacks and going toe-to-toe with the enemy makes her a "failfort."


tl;dr: If it works for you it's right.

there is no 'right' way to play a video game, with the caveat that in a multiplayer environment you should show proper respect for other players.


however you play, whatever style you enjoy, that's 'right'.

As long as I don't "cheat" (cheatcodes, hacks,etc) then I consider myself playing the "right" way.

I have to be an echo here.

You pretty much answered your own question by pointing out how differently a mission went for a Dominator vs. a Stalker. And that's the idea. Every AT is supposed to play differently than the others, so it is impossible to find a "right" and "wrong" way when comparing two different ATs.

Now, if you were herding with a Regen Stalker, ignoring Hide, then I might say you were "doing it wrong."

If you're having fun and not harming other players' fun, then you're playing the right way

I don't think my question is coming across.

People are focused on how you play, which is not my question. My question is how you experience the game.

Take the ITF. You can fly to the end and defeat Romulus first. I suspect that the devs planned for you to make your way along the valley facing an epic battle of others first. I further suspect that doing it the way the devs intended gives it a much more epic feel than just flying to the end.

Likewise in the Sutter TF Duray teleports around a bunch. If you somehow managed to hold him so he could not, you would not experience that element of the mission.

This is not a question of cheating or of playing wrong.

It is a question of whether you get the "proper" experience from playing the game.

For many of my characters, one of the most useful gadgets in the game is a mass-produced device called a PPD teleportation tag. When placed on a subdued baddie, it checks vital signs to ensure the target is unconscious or otherwise disabled, before teleporting them to a PPD holding cell or even directly to the Zig. It's obviously a completely fictional gadget, made to explain away a game mechanic. I never leave home without a belt pouch full of them. Shut up, haters.

Most of my characters would not be equipped to bypass an entire army and stand right before their leader. But when I say equipped, I'm not just referring to game mechanics. I mean, for those few characters on my roster who are teleporters, such a bold move might not seem strategically viable without all of the OOC knowledge that we have and take for granted as players. But I have a couple of characters who would be crazy enough to try it, regardless of the unknowns. Just to see the look on the big bad's face.

For those of us who play characters, gaming the system isn't fun. Shortcuts aren't fun when they don't fit the character. But gaming the system is a perfectly valid way to play for those who have fun doing it. Many people, I've found, are a little bit of both. I make huge exceptions when I'm on a team that wants to stealth part of a mission, or take some other shortcut. But then again, many of my characters probably would too, if they were real.

In any case, I don't make other players suffer at the expense of my wild imagination. But I have become acquainted with several others who play on the same page, and it's made for some very memorable gaming these past couple of years (If anyone reading likes the sound of that, give me a shout on Virtue sometime, @Captain-Electric).

This is one of the things I love about CoH. A mission can have all kinds of equally viable strategies depending on the build, and if you're using concept builds, it really helps blend the character into the setting and make the missions feel like their stories come to life. My flashy energy blaster charges in and spends half the time raining havoc on the enemies and the other half running away from them in a panic, and it makes perfect sense for her character. Meanwhile a more stealthy, secretive character can slip through the shadows without being noticed and quietly take down the enemies one by one without much of a struggle, and that fits their personality too. If it's possible to complete a mission a certain way, then it's definitely okay to do so - and if it makes sense for the character, even better.

I personally always prefer to steamroll content: kill what is in your way. This is how I handle most things, though there are exceptions to this due to varying circumstances.

The only experience that doesn't seem 'right' is knock back. I don't want to give a detailed reply and derail the thread with nit picking, but it seems like there's not enough of a margin between magnitudes of knockback and that the whole effect should scale with more degrees.