Your favourite things about CoH

Let's take some time to celebrate the game we love and remember the things that CoH got so very right.

I mean... this game wouldn't have lasted for as long as it did if the guys running the show didn't know diddly right? But to read the boards you might think this game only got to be eight and a half years old by fluke, happenstance and sheer good luck.

Let's remember there is no evidence to suggest that is was dead on its feet and terminally ill. It was killed. After eight and a half years.

So let's celebrate that and talk about what worked well and why we love the game so much.

For me my top picks are simple but they made the game work really well:

Enhancements - the UI is simply gorgeous and perfect. It just works. It leaves little room for ambiguity and it runs right from out of the box and continues right up until you get to Incarnates. Even with the addition of IOs, the UI still worked fine. No need for mods or tweaks. Just go on and slot 'em in there and hey presto, you got your powers in a visual expression that shows you exactly where you are.

Controllers - I've never experienced an AT like them in any other game. They are versatile, deadly without being overpowering and probably the most fun I've ever had in a game. No two combos play quite alike - even if they have a shared primary or secondary they are all interestingly different. And there's a lot of interesting combinations despit the ubiquity of the fire/kin

Combat - it was fast - a whole array of powers all ready to be fired off at the press of a button and there was almost always something ready to deliver at your foe. None of this "perm x from y, and wait ages for them to be ready to fire" malarky! You earn the power, you get to run with it! YES! That's one reason why Frostfire was so intense even at level 11!

speaking of which... Frostfire - that's the coming of age/rite of passage that has been so missed in recent issues. It's weakness was its ubiquity. The alternative was hunting skuls in Kings Row, but with Frostfire you still got some of the best story in the game to date and a challenge into the bargain. Frostfire taught you to take the back elevator and not to charge into a room unless you knew what you were doing. The only problem was, the lack of choice meant it got stale - and so a wonderful zone arc became a chore. But by the time the Hollows revamp came along, there was no need for the revamp - there was too much choice. I'll be running Frostie on Nov 30th for sure!

The Ski Chalet - what a great thing! A game within a game. Light relief. A couple of unique events that really never got the credit they deserved and some cool missions and rewards even if the gaining of them was a bit grindy. And the invisible ninja cows and the phantom yodeler

The Rikti Invasion - I know they weren't the most popular event but I loved them. It always gave me a sense of real challenge. This was saving the world and being the hero I was meant to be. Zombies not so much. I guess the Rikti raids had dropships and bombs to set the scene and interdimensional science mutated space alien humans with speech:defects pwn zombies every day of the week.

Kahn and Statesman TF -well they both appealed to my sense of struggle. I loved the fact that there was never a guaranteed win with those two TFs even if you'd got everything right, especially STF - but yet a small team could win wiht perseverance.

Soldiers of Arachnos - what a brilliant concept to make VEATS stuff that we'd grown used to beating up on a daily basis. Not that Kheldians were bad but these things rocked. What was even better was the stock SoA turned out to be an unsung gem in the game. Resilient, goodish damage, cool pets and a bit of handy control and melee. Arguably one of the best all-rounders in the game. Let down by the weak story and the fact you only got one original NPC cossie. Not to knock Kheldians but the SoA kicked but and even put the other VEATs in the shade IMO. Huntsman Strauss (so called to annoy Ghost Raptor - a no prize to anyone who can guess why ) kicked **** and was very quickly my redside main, became the only toon I solo'd the ITF with and my first successful solo Rikti Pylon takedown. Also in full flow delivers the best sea of orange numbers in the game.

So those are just some of my personal favourite things about this game. I'd love to know about yours!

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Earth Doms. Lock-down, mitigation, slows. Giant hammers. It was the only powerset I got to 50 because I found it so fun. Nothing like casting earthquake in a large group and watching them flail about.


And I haven't found a game with an RP community like CoH's yet.

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brutes and tanks.

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-Female Player-

Lots of things CoH got right which made it's failures seem relatively unimportant. In order of importance from my own personal opinion:

1 - Not gear driven; or at least not from a visual appearance stand point.

2 - Grouping. Even before the relatively recent side-kicking changes teaming was where this game really shon.

3 - Unique power sets which all had their place and looked darn cool no matter what character concept you came up with.

4 - Clearly defined archetypcial roles so that you knew what would be expected you on a team, the team knew largely what they'd be getting.

5 - Probably should've been the top of the list, but it's really a bit subjective result of all those things above. Fun. CoH had fun and buckets of it. There were things it did wrong but most of the time, it let you do the things that were fun and rewarded you for it.

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@SteelRat; @SteelRat2
"Angelina my love, I'm a genius!"
"Of course you are darling, that's why I married you. Physically, you're rather unattractive"
http://faces.cohtitan.com/profile/SteelRat

Almost all of it

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@Golden Girl

City of Heroes comics and artwork

Warshades, Illusion controllers, and Masterminds

Most unique and fun classes I've ever played in gaming in general. Moreso with IOs.

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Hmmmm where to begin

The ITF .. when it first came out I recall the number of players moaning about how "HARD" it was to win but as always we found the strategy that worked and before long it was rare to even hear about anyone failing one. This was just such a different experience compared to any other TF. I loved battling Cyclops and Minotaurs as we worked our way to the final conflict with a Nictus enhanced Romulus.

Peny Yin's TF .. Just like the Posi one and two before it the new Yin TF made it fun and fast. I never really disliked the old Sister Psyche TF thanks to a set up that allowed sleath but this allowed the team to complete the entire task force in under an hour and without ever having to leave the zone. If COH does somehow manage to continue hopefully this is a model for what needs to be done with many of the old TFs that run a player all over creation and take far to long to complete.

Corruptors .. No specific power sets (I have a bunch of them now). I never really played the AT much when I first started on COV but when it became possible to create one and become a hero at level one I found them and never looked back. I think what I enjoy most is I get the DPS of a Blaster (or almost I am not into numbers) and still get the buffs/debuffs/heals of a Defender's primary or a Controller's secondary. They solo quite well and are a huge asset to any team.

Croatoa .. I don't get there as often as i used to but I can still recall my first visit to the quiet little rural college town and how different it felt compared to the concrete and steel jungles I had found myself in over and over as I leveled to 25. It was a welcome change and even the mobs there were so much different than the street gangs and such that I'd faced in any other zone.

GIANT MONSTERS .. Long before there were Rikti Mothership raids battling a GM like Lusca in IP allowed players to develope the skills to form multiple teams and battle a HUGE opponent. I enjoyed that challenge and the fun of watching 16 or 24 heroes buzzing around a GM until it dropped. And of course there was the challenge of just how few heroes we could use to take one down. Back before IOs or incarnate powers that was a real challenge and with no patrol XP to quickly erase debt a little risky.. My bests included Babbage in Boomtown with 4 controllers and one tank and Adamastor in old Dark Astoria with 2 controller, 2 deneders and 1 warshade (ME) acting as the tank.

Costume Creator .. I admit it I enjoy playing dress up. At one point WAY back when I first started in 2005 I had changed my look so much my SG mates made fun of me. "Is that you? You look so different. AGAIN" I have actually taken time out from leveling, as I approached level 30 or 40, to hit the tailor shop and design my "Next New Outfit!" Isn't that new save feature just great? lol

Of course my FAVOTITE favorite thing are my friends here. Being able to chat, joke and have fun while playing has made playing COH a great experience and a fantastic way to relieve the stress of the day

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�We�re always the good guys. In D&D, we�re lawful good. In City of Heroes we�re the heroes. In Grand Theft Auto we pay the prostitutes promptly and never hit them with a bat.� � Leonard
�Those women are prostitutes? You said they were raising money for stem cell research!� � Sheldon

The Powers: Seriously. I cannot tell you how many toons I have made in 7.5 years. When I started I was on a Defender kick. I had a 50 of every primary and like 4 Emps. Then I discovered how much fun trollers were...and again had a 50 of every primary (Except grav...never liked grav). I tried all the melee sets, but was never much of a melee person until Staff fighting After GR came out though I started focusing more on Corruptors and Dominators...Heroes of course CoH has so many combos of powers and that is what kept me subbed for 7+ years.

Costume Creation: I loved to sit and play in ICON. My ONLY beef with the costume creator is that you could not chat AND edit a costume at the same time. Too many times I would be halfway done with a costume and hear that "ding" that someone sent me a tell... GRR do I stop..or do I make them wait.... I make them wait

ED/IOs: Yep I liked both. Well I didn't "like" ED, but I was already using it. To me it made more sense if I was six slotting something (like healing aura) to put 3 heals, 1 rech, and 1-2 end redux. Sure my heal was not as good as Joe Schmoe who 6 slotted his with Heals, but it came up faster and cost me less end. I loved IOs. They rewarded me for doing what I was already doing by "normalizing" my powers AND giving me nifty lil bonuses.

Player Notes: I have no memory for names. None. Heck IRL I have trouble remembering people's names. So now I can put a lil note when I meet someone that says their name...what I liked/disliked about them. I always hated before notes getting a tell saying "Hey how ya doing???" Because then all I could think was "OH CRAP WHO IS THAT!?!?!?"

Base Editor: While it had it's flaws...editing bases still provided me hundreds of hours of fun. I almost always used arcane items and would see what I could create by mixing things together.

Those are the main things that kept me playing since 2005. But there is one thing that always kept me playing...the friends I had. I would not have played CoH long had I not met the friends I had in game. I loathe soloing and considered myself lucky to find like-minded friends who were into the things I was into....min/maxing/TFs,Trials, etc.

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- Costume creator
- Base editing
- Incarnates!
- Encouragement and ability to have so many alts

Basically, everything that allowed me to customize.

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Thank you for starting this Thread, Scarlet Shocker. I felt inspired to write about this today, after having spent the past 24 hours playing virtually non-stop this last weekend of "City of... " for the foreseeable future.

Fave Things
1. Create your superhero character whose look(s) isn't tied to gear, with multiple costume slots. Every option the devs gave us only made it better, imo.

2. Heroics/Villainy/In-between with drama and tension but also often lots of humor.

3. Easy to learn the basics of play while still engaging after nearly daily play for years.

4. Able to play solo yet also easy to teamup.

What made City of Heroes special to me were the following: 1. the game. It was fun. Nope, not bored yet - I still enjoy playing. 2. at another level, I saw people take great pleasure in creating characters, costumes and bases analogous to the loving details hobbyists put into models (railroads, cars, etc.) A certain SGmate and grandfather comes to mind. While I enjoyed my own creativity, I marveled at what others came up with. 3. This community, the in-game community, who were often quite generous not merely with INF, but also time, in helping new CoX players (rather than disdaining or worse hunting them); some of you have been truly heroic (even on your red toons). Many have been inspiring. Most have been a pleasure to game with, whether it was a one time PUG or a SG/VG where we teamed often. 4. It may seem cheesy or even vain, but I really liked the use of cutscenes in SSA2, Pandora's Box, where one's character is shown alongside the Freedom Phalanx. 5. I liked so many of the non-player characters, arcs, and our virtual environment landscapes.

The camaraderie will be what I miss most, even as I love all sorts of things about City of Heroes.

Thank you, players, and thank you, Developers. Hats off, one and all!

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aka @Kristoff von Gelmini, leader of small SG bases (Infinity/Victory/Virtue/Protector), member of The House of Tera (Justice) and various others (Champion/Infinity/Victory/Guardian/Freedom).

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August 31, 2012. A Day that will Live in Infamy. Or Information. Possibly Influence. Well, Inf, anyway. Thank you, Paragon Studios, for what you did, and the enjoyment and camaraderie you brought.
This is houtex, aka Mike, signing off the forums. G'night all. - 10/26/2012
Well... perhaps I was premature about that whole 'signing off' thing... - 11-9-2012

Pre-I13 PvP.

And making OP characters.

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The 1st Message Board Warrior. m/