Question: What makes you feeling "epic"

So.... what kind of story arcs, TF or things make you feel the most epic in CoX?

I remember a long while ago, lots of people were complainning on the forum that we weren't heroic enough, that we were just the freedom phalanx's sidekick. (or arachnos, i'll stay blue side for simplicity)
Not long ago, one of the devs mentionned in some incarnate interview that it was kinda over, that now we were there to fight threats even them couldn't stop.

Is that how people feel? Personnaly, i feel way more epic when i'm doing something alone or when it's a "fair fight". Here are some exemple:

STF vs LRSF: In STF, you end up being 8 vs Lord Recluse alone-ish (flyer might pop back, his bane spiders dont count so much, he's an MM and they are just nameless goons) Compare that to LRSF, you're 8 vs 8. So LRSF is a clear win for me.

Old Preatorians vs New: In the old arcs, most people could solo against at least some of the EB. Even with AVs, you only needed 8 people max to beat them (some extreme case soloing the AV). Now, when you look at the same chracters, you need to be a league. So 16 to 24! Seems like we're weaker then we used to.

Who's the strongest incarnate? Nobody will ever beat Emperor Cole i'm guessing. It took a huge bunch of us to beat him. Then Battalion will come, but i'm guessing it will also be a league TF, so we'll need a bunch of people to beat what Cole intended to fight alone. (Kinda like Preatoria Hami, he soloed it! Haven't of a player doing that...)


So what do you prefer? The big bad at the end of new content being a single ultra-powerfull entity or a team? The epic story being a TF or a story arc that you can do with 1-2 friends (or solo if you're good/have the right AT)?


Not all new content is that way though! If you check the SSA, fight very powerfull foes one on one! (or the 5 vs 5, one of my favorite moment ever. You think you're 1 vs 5, then you see your backup, redside at least)Same for the whole Mot story arc. You can end up defeat him all by yourself.
Personnaly, i hope they'll be more of those kind. So Battalion being a team/mob/army, or just a crazy entity that mutiplicate so that there's a total number bigger then the league. I'd love that a whole lot more then just Battalion being one huge lvl 65 GM that we bunch 50 vs 1. =p

Agree with you on all counts, but I'm not sure I see the suggestion in there.

What's weird is in some other games it can feel enthralling to be part of a raid; but here, it almost consistently falls flat. To me, I think it has to do with visuals. Often here, for the big bads requiring teams or leagues to defeat we get slightly bigger than human opponents, and they just feel like models scaled up rather than truly gigantic things, especially the animations being something you'd expect a human-size dude to do rather than an enormous entity. There is that feeling of mass and power that is missing; it's not convincing, and I think that's where the problem lies... It really throws you out of the game world and back into the reality where you're just punching a bag of hit points.

Not really a suggestion, but i didn't know where to put that. ^^;;
It doesnt fit in the AT and powersets forum, and it's not just for one server, the usual places i go.
In a way, i just want to throw my opinion out there and maybe the devs will think about it and do epic story arcs for me and those who aggree with my post. =D

Didn't though about it, but what you're saying about the lack of real enormous entity must be part of it.
But it has a lot to do with genre too i think. Nobody is really impressed that Spider-Man helped defeat Galactus the 7th time he came to earth. (random number, but i'm sure he did fight him) Cause there was probably at least a dozen other heroes. When he's fighting Venom, the Green Goblin or Doctor Doom all alone or in a duo, now that's an awesome fight!
Same for Batman. Who cares he beat Dark Seid with the Justice League. People will remember his fight with the Joker.


The punching big bags of HP is particularily true lately for some challenge. Especialy when it doesnt make that much sense lore-wise. (Romulus Phalanx Control, the computer with more HP then Statesman!)

The problem with CoH raids is many of them don't feel like they should require a raid.

Malestrom...really? When did he become such a powerful foe?

At least Maurder had some gimmicky cola.

Getting killed by civvies throwing rocks? Not really epic.

A league taking on a powerful invading alien force? That's Epic!

Solo wise...for me...taking on AVs!

Duoing LGTF and Soloing ITF without the Incarnate abilities...those times felt EPIC!

Oh! That comment about invading force reminds me.

During the Barracuda SF, we killed so many ambushes that they just stopped.(took like 30-45 minutes) Defeating the WHOLE 5th Column, one soldier at the time! That was epic. =D

If you mean "epic" as "awesome", my Elec/WP/Mu Brute is so epic that she cured my alt-itis because all my other characters felt too wimpy to play. I love teaming with people who have asked for help with an EB, or AV, or Carnies, or whatever. There was one time someone was making a desperate last request for help with an EB before giving up (it seems his team had quit on him, saying it was impossible). He'd cleared the map up 'til the EB. With just the two of us, it took about 3-5 mins, maybe. I don't remember the details; it was an EB at the end of one of the Villain patron arcs, and I think the character I was helping was a stalker. In any event, I felt awesome for the rest of the day.

Jokingly: Proper verb conjugation.

Seriously: I enjoy content that challenges me, but doesn't maul me. Team-ups with other characters hold a certain fondness in my heart ever since Twinshot.

Story wise... Soloing the finale of Dream Doctors arc in DA is about as good as it gets for me. The way it is written always makes me feel a bit like Neo wrapping the helicopter rappel rope around his arm and bracing himself.

Feat wise... There is still no feeling in the game quite like having a full teams instance worth of spawns chasing me around until I decide it is time to roast them.

Walking into a room full of spawns with a machine gun in hand and spraying lead and shell casings until everything is dead, then moving on to the next group. Challenging, but not overwhelming. I want to be in danger of dying, I don't want to be one shot by a power coming out of nowhere with no warning. Working alongside other heroes, not just being superior to them. Taking a deep breath right before a difficult group of mobs, and then jumping in anyway.

Rolling a Brawl/WP brute and gettin' him to 50 solo street sweeping only. And using him to tank 12 Fake Nemesis GMs that one time during the invasion. Sweet.

/What? You know that's epic, people.
//And a lil' insane, sure, but I'm an oddity anyway, so it works for me.
///Well, maybe not as epic as MrPlayskool or UniqueDragon (or even JR...), but still, it makes me feel epic, so that's that.

I felt epic when my Mind/Dark Dominator soloed the first 2 missions of the LRSF with only the Alpha slot. Im stuck on mission 3 with the 4 Heroes on Atlas Building.

Cake and lots of it..

Fighting AV's/Heroes/GMs and not being taken out so easily makes me feel epic. / actually kicking their backsides

Feeling very "non-epic" was my number one complaint about itrials. I found task forces ti be a much more enjoyable experience in many ways. It's more personal with 8 people, and the stories seemed more impactful. The enemies seem underwhelming from a story aspect even if they are strong mechanically.

I suppose one of the issues I see with the lack of epicness with I-trials is the sheer number of players. Something that is really rare for a league host to do is host an i-trial with the minimum or the near minimum number of players, which makes the team more like family and the whole encounter feel more personable. I think one of the most "epic feeling" i-trial moments was when I was on an 8-player micro Lambda with my stalker. During the raiding phase, with only 4 people per area, it was cool that everyone was running around basically by themselves while ransacking the place. I've run mini's of everything but DD and Magi, and so far the mini runs are much funner than the full league runs.

I'm trying to encourage more people to run mini leagues, since for the majority of them I'm not even sure that having more than the minimum is even helpful, other than as an idiocy buffer. Of course, running things en masse makes it harder for players to learn, reinforcing the issue... so yeah.


I find the most epic feeling in the game comes from strange and unique challenges. "Challenges" being the key word here. Whether it is dealing with a mass of enemies that are a threat, to dealing with an AV by yourself and suddenly discovering that he's gaining levels, it is those moments in the game that really make me feel accomplished. Another example was during the SSA #5 when someone obtained someone else's power, and their opening attack smacks you for 500+ damage (half your hitpoints on many toons), then you go "OH PANCAKE!" then pop several insps to buffer the blow, engage him in battle, then have to engage in an aerial fight with an aspect of Rularuu. At the end of that, with inspirations expelled and nearly dead, you truly feel like you've accomplished something there.

Doing content faster than everyone else / Pushing things to the limit.

Personally, for me the most "epic" type of story is the type that's the most personally empowering. "You are the only one who can stop them," basically. That doesn't mean I want my character to be the only protagonist of any story, but I'd still like the others who aren't mine to be supporting cast, so that when the moment of truth arrives and all the cards are on the table, it's up to my character to do the final deed.

Dark Astoria is great for this reason. We've tried everything to stop Mot - we tried spells, we tried other gods, we tried a variety of plans. The only recourse we have left is to do what should be the unthinkable - attack a god directly, dive into its body and claw its insides into string cheese from within. See, what makes an "epic" story to me is one which sets its own limits and spends most of its run time trying to work around those limits, only to have the protagonist finally step up and outright break those limits right at the end.

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What I DON'T find to be epic in any sense of the word is a huge clusterhug of a battle that I'm only a nameless peon in, having a tiny role assigned along with another five people like me, told to go stand somewhere or go punch buttons somewhere. This is not epic. It's doing PE in high school. Yes, I get that some threats are so great that you need many people to defeat them... Cole's flunkies aren't it, but I can get the basic idea.

Well, what makes these fights that have been built up as impossible to win alone "epic" IS winning them alone against all the odds. Bringing up Neo was a good idea, though to me it's more right at the end. The notion that "You mean I can dodge bullets?" "I mean that when you're ready, you won't have to." Having the fiction stick to rules consistently with the express purpose of making breaking them a big deal is what makes a story epic to me. Simple as that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Duoing ITF, LRSF and Master Tin Mage on my perma Mind/Fire Dom with my friend's perma Mind/Psy Dom was pretty crazy fun.

Epic = me taking on endless swarms of stuff and just ending them.

The closest to feeling "epic" I've ever been in this game was the first time I activated Force Bubble. Beyond that I generally feel like I'm playing characters that are underwhelmingly weak.

what would make me feel Epic is getting my own house on one of the floating islands in ouroboros

I was playing with some stuff in Photoshop. and i thought how awesome it would be to make myself a house in ouroboros :P

Question: What makes you feeling "epic"

Being able to have Ninja Run on with Combat Jump would make me feel "Epic"