Top 10 things I miss about City of Heroes

I know several of us played CoH before playing DCUO. I probably wouldn't be playing this game if CoH were still around. I'd like to hear your thoughts about it. Do you agree with my items, have others, or simply rank them differently?

1: Speech Balloons: I know it's stupid, but I miss the comic book style speech balloons when you talk! This let you know who was talking, and made it easier to notice if someone was talking to you! Silly, but I miss it more than any other feature of CoH!

2: Police Scanner (Heroes) & Newspaper (Villains): This was a quick, easy way to find something quick and easy to do. You could always look for a simple mission that would get you experience, but wouldn't take all night = a short mission with a minor boss. Plus, especially on the Villain side, I loved the bank raids!

3: Ninjas: Yes, we have Tech Ninja style, but in CoH, there were Ninja powers, lots of styles that could make various Ninja-like outfits, and Ninja weapons looked like Ninja weapons - a real katana not a tech katana. The servers I was on had lots and lots of Ninjas, so I think I may have been a minority, only having 2 Ninja toons!

4: Multiple Loadouts: Or power bars or whatever you want to call them... Not limited to just 6 powers. I know SOE wants to keep the game PS compatible, but we already have roles, how about the ability to add another loadout and using the same command (T on the PC) to alternate between them? Make it available during combat, and then we have multiple loadouts, and can utilize more of our toons' powers!

5: Teleport: OK, the main teleport power was a little odd - I never did master it, but Mission Teleporter to get to the starting point of a mission, and Teleport Friend to help a team get together were great! A map selection long range teleport would be helpful, and a line-of-sight teleport that the longer you hold the key the farther you go might work. Plus a teleport-and-attack at a targeted foe would be great for starting the fight!

6: Stalkers: See also #3 (Ninjas). The Stalker was a DPS-style role that could actually hide from opponents, and strike from hiding. That first attack was often devestating. I guess better stealth and ambush abilities are what I'm missing. (for those of you who didn't play, you become visible when you attack, so only the initial strike was safe)

7: Beast Run: I know it's stupid, but I liked having my 7 foot tall humanoid tiger run on all fours like a tiger. This would be great as an alternate animation to Acrobatics. I'd pay for this feature! Ninja Run was also cool, and I bet people would pay for jet-pack or flying carpet or broomstick animations for flying!

8: Multiple Costumes: Yeah, with the Style options, we can change our look at any time. However, I liked having certain looks available with the touch of a button or two. Alternately, this could be different gear for PVE v PVP applications!

9: Secondary Powers: OK, weapons & powers is close, but not the same. One of my favorite toons had mental powers with electrical powers - an electrokinetic. For those who knew the game, his name was Mu Too, and his powers were red. Imagine combining Fire and Mental for a pyrokinetic, or gadgets and electricity for a super-tech toon.

10: Selection: DCUO is very new compared to CoH. That may explain this. But CoH had more appearance options, including size (not limited to small, medium, and large options), appearance options, powers (darkness, fire, ice, energy, telepathy, telekinesis, sonics, various weapons, ninjitsu, super-strength, invulnerability - resistance to damage, regeneration, earth, time manipulation, electricity, and probably others I can't think of at the moment. By combining primary and secondary powers, there was a wide range of posibilities), roles (not just damage, tank, heal, and control - but Stalker, Summoning, etc), plus a place where both Heroes and Villains could hang-out.

So, what are your thoughts? Same list in a different order, or do you miss other things in your top 10?

11. The ability to simply GIVE an item to another player

12. Players that actually HELPED one another.

13. Zones that were labeled by level - a new player or toon was less likely to get in over his/her head quite so far.

14. Custom colors for powers.

15. Abuse on the message boards (especially towards free players. (Not really - it was there, but I don't actually miss it!)

Had to go more than 10!!!

Wow, I wish I played COH while it was up. Unfortunately my PC isn't made for gaming but COH sounds so fun!

It was. While there were a lot of elitist "Why should you play for free when we've been paying for years!" snobs after it went ftp, there were also a lot of people who would help you on missions, give actual good advice, answer questions, and just chat. The players seemed much more social, which added to the overall fun for me.

Never really understood why they closed it. There were alot of positives with that game. My main issue is I felt the progression was a bit slow and not intuitive. Ultimately i ddi not have as much fun thefre as other games I was playing (SWG) so I undsubbed. But it did have a great deal going for it expecially in regards to character customization. But other then being based on the Superhero genre it really is comparing apples and oranges as the basicl design of each game is very different.

COH was my first MMO, so it holds a place for me....


But I mean, something is wrong when the most fun part of the game is the character creator.

Character Creator was great. But the end-game content (after you hit the level cap at 50) was lacking imo. And there was a long delay between levels when you got past 30 or so.

I played COH for 7 years and was there till the game was shut off. I seriously doubt anyone will ever create a game with so many options again...

Not to knock DCUO but basically when you start a new character you get one unique mission after leaving the Brainiac ship and then ever new character you create does the exact same mission again and again until they hit 30 and then, of course, base on your CR you run the same alerts and reaids over and over. COH offered to begin with 5 different contacts with story arcs all based of whatever origin your character was and then added additional ones as you went up in skill level. Beginning at level 10 you could start doing task Forces and trials ( sort of similar to the alerts and reaids we do here) and those would allow a player to actually skip missions from contacts completely. They added in the mission archetect which even alllowed players themselves to write and design their own missions which added even more content. You were still farming in a sense for cash or drops but there were so many different ways to do it .. it just didnt seem as much of a chore.

I haven't seen any game that had the variety of costume and character options .. doznes of different types of hair styles and faces to chose from along with a slider that let you vary your characters height, width and even the size and shape of nose or chin. I am noty even sure how many different costumes shoices were available and .. unlike DCUO almost all were available to a brand new character. Heck befiore the game ended we even had the option to design 10 distinct outfits that weer saved and could be thown on with the click of a mouse button... and all of those were able to be editted and changed at any time

Long Stranger not sure when you left but as the years went by new content made those levels above 30 go by faster ( Yeah I was around when it was actually possible to all but run out of contacts trying to get from 30-35) and personally I enjoyed the Incarnate end game.. It started slow but by the time the ame ended we had 8 different trials and the two Incarnate specialic task forces. The best part was, with some excpetions, almost all of these were available to anyone above 50 level (not broken down into a handful of ones available based on combat rating like here). End game was sort of a cross between what we do here and the massive raids seen on WOW .. most trials allowed up to 24 players to join and the others allowed 16. It was actually fun just watching the carnage all around you when 24 players attacked mobs designed to challenge a group that size.

Oh and lets now forget the special raids ... A rikti Mothership attack (for those unaware the Rikti were aliens that invaded the planet) could see as many as 50 players attacking with one player coordinating them all. The Hamidon raid was very simllar and again as many as 50 players would attack the Ginat Green Blob monster intent on removing all human infestation and giving the planet back to nature.

We had three different zones that actually allowed heroes and villains to be team mates. No I am not talking about running around in the street attackingsome of the same mobs for different reason i mean actually joining specific teams and doing story arcs and even 8 man task forces. Before the game ended it was possible to convert a hero to a vigilante or a villain to a rogue and at that point they could travel from one side to the other and join teams doing ALL of the other sides content. Heck a hero could eventually become a villain and a villain a hero.

Its gone and despite efforts to attempt to save it I know it wil never be back. this is my new home now but I will always remember the fun i had as I leveld fifty different characters to level 50 (and of the 14 different possible arch types I had at least one character designed around 13 of them).

TW, Did they ever gove areason for the closure. It still seems odd to me. With SWG it was due to Lucas Arts pulling the license. I cannot help to think that COH was still profitable (even SWG was still up to the end). Just curious if they ever gave the player base an answer?

Its been awhile since I played CoH. Hopefully I am thinking about the right game. I seem to remember a feature where players could share missions/bounties. That way (when needed) players could get the mission from other players instead of running all the way back to the quest/mission giver.

You could join another player, and level-up doing his missions instead of your own. Get a team of four going, and do one-another's missions, and everyone raises level. Drops didn't seem quite as important there, because you didn't desperately need to complete that style, and, in the early stages, your abilities were determined more by you and your level than what you picked up. You could pick up items to enhance your abilities - kinda like research items here, but it didn't feel so forced and laborous.

I played till the end - as a Free Player only buying only the items I felt were worth it. Maybe that's why it seemed so limited to me. I didn't have the subscriber content. But, still, it was a lot of fun.

I played mostly on one server, and it seemed like almost everyone on the server knew my friend Nefastou. We did a lot of missions together, often adding one or three other friends or even newbies neither of us knew. Nef was always ready to help with a tough mission, and gave very good advise. Wish I could find him in DCOU.

The only reason given was that NC Soft - the parent company, dropped the game. Somehow, I doubt that was the whole story.

Of all of this, the one thing that sticks out most is --- I played a free game but gladly spent money (think SC) for items that were well worth the price. Here, the DLC's are worth it, but what else is there? I don't know what to spend my monthly 500 SC on because I get the DLC content for subscribing.

No real official reason was ever given aside from they were going in a "NEW" direction. The game was still profiable but just barely from what I understood .. thet were managing to cover expenses but the game wasn't raking in huge profits above that.

Speculation was, and it does seem to make sense, that COH died so the new Guild Wars 2 could have more servers to expand onto. GW2 was getting close to going F2P and I guess the servers they had were all but maxed out. That was just one of many rumors though and no one really knows but the NC Soft Execs. I think another contributing factor was that the game never took off and did well at all in the Orient and NC Soft is based in Korea. Speculation was they never really grasped the appeal of a super hero game to those of us in the US and Europe so to them it was expendable. Look at the rest of their titles.. all are martial arts oriented and a good deal of the artwork looks as if you are in an Asian country. LOL if you really want an idea then download and check out Aeon .. the characters reminded me of Pokemon and in the tutorial I was battling Panda Bears (I guess no one bothered to tell NC Soft the Panda was an endangered species and it MIGHT NOT look to Politically correct to have your hero pummeling them)

Honestly I am not even sure if the people at Paragon Studios really knew why. In August, while still working on what was to have been the latest update, suddenly and out of no where NC Soft simply fired almost all of the Paragon Staff, put out the statement that they were going in a new direction and that the game would close at the end of December. At 12:01 Am PST on Januray 1st the servers shut down for good.

The social aspect, one of the best and most enjoyable social constructs I've ever played online.

I could log on and just sit in Wentworths or Atlas just chatting away.

Bishop

There was also a mentoring set up that allowed a player that was say an 8 or 10 level to team up with a group comprised mainly of 40 levels. While the player gained no new powers their Health and damage levels were raised to one level below that of the group leaders. They still earned experience at the level they were but didnt have to solo or sit around because they couldn't fins enough people their level to play with. Before the end the game was revised a bit and this worked both ways. A 47 level could log in and if no one his/her level was available could simply join a group doing 30, 20 or whatever level missions and they would be exemplared down to that level so they didnt auto kil everything but they still earned experience and cash rewards just like they were teaming with nothing but 47 levels. It made finding a team a whole lot easier. ( to clarify this system didnt apply to task forces or trials which had a minimum level assigned to join BUT higher level players could join those and the set up was the same .. lower helath and dmage but still got xp and cash at their level).

I think one of the biggest things i miss, and it has taken a while to not want to scream when it happens here, is the rez set up. On COH if I got knocked out in a mission there were players (mostly defenders or controllers) that could actually resurrect my character. Not by getting to me before a 12 second countdown expired ... they actually had a power that could rez at amy given time. Now if no one on your team had this ability you still had an option to be teleported to the hospital for a complete recovery. This meant being whisked away OUTSIDE of the mission and having to return. NOW FOR THE PART THAT MAKES THE SET UP HERE ANNOY ME... when I got back from the hospital I did not find myself locked behind some door and forced to wait for all of my team mates to a) manage to defeat the boss without me or b) all die and we had to start all over. NO .. I was healed and back so I could walk right in and continue to help my team. No team was ever denied help by a player simply because they had been knocked out. Oh and part 2 .... there were times when we did experience a team wipe ( all members were knocked out) and had to head to a hospital. Now certain bosses, due to the nature of their powers, would heal themselves while we were gone and might be back at 100% depending on how far away the hospital was from the mission but there were others that had no ability to heal and when you returned they would be just as beaten up as when you left. Now granted this is a GAME based on COMIX BOOKS but in real life if you beat someone to the point where they were barely able to stand up and then returned a minute later.. would they be 100% fit like you had never touched them? Took we quite a while to get used to that here and not want to scream bloody murder every time I found myself standing behind that door waiting to be allowed back in. JUST A HINT TO ANY DEV THAT MAY SEE THIS.... people like to PLAY games not stand looking at a locked door while other people play. LOL

Thanks for the info!

I was a DCUO player before trying out CoH (which I only played very briefly), but Speech Balloons was one thing I thought was amazing!

I miss being able to adjust the difficulty of missions to better challenge yourself/group.

It's one of the things that baffles me about DCUO. Why can't I adjust the difficulty of T1 challanges to make them T3/T4 difficult if I so choose? Same with raids, they should all have the abilty to either be novice, expert or super-expert (<-LoL!). I mean, seriously, imagine Kahndaq with T4 difficulty. Shazam, b****es!


Edit: Before anyone jumps down my throat about gearing faster and this, that and the other thing. I was only being half-serious.

When comparing it to this game, I really miss the Teammate Search option. I could see who was in the zone, who was looking for a team, what powersets they were, what level they were, etc. All I had to do to find a team was to click "Looking for team" and anyone who needs someone with my powersets could invite me. If I didn't want to be invited, I could hide myself or click "Do not invite". The success rate of PUGs was so much better in that game.

I never played CoH but was always curious about it, Which is why I decided to read this thread.

Anyone that may be new to the DCUO community, Welcome.

Anyway, what Primordia_Vox and others have said is very interesting. I'd love to see some feature improvements to DCUO like were in CoH. I do believe the devs are trying to make some improvements to the game. I am eagerly awaiting the next two DLCs.

It was a truly amazing game and my first MMO...actually my first anything PC wise and the community was also amazing...did I say amazing enough lol but I have nothing else to add 'cept echo what posters here have said already. I spent most of my 7+ yrs on the Virtue server, this is my home now (DCUO) and I know its been around for what 2+ yrs but yeah it could take alot from CoH in soooooo many areas. But if anything I thank DCUO for the gaming experience of flying again.