I would request you keep it limited to your main. The purpose of this thread is to help the Devs see ways people played that might or might not be outside the box. Also the things that made it fun for you.
My main was a Defender Empathy / Psychic. I used Mind over Body, Tactics, Maneuvers, and a few other powers. Every ability I used was a toggle or long duration buff to make me and those around me more tanky. I could stand toe to toe with some of the big bosses healing myself and the tank. I played duo with my husband who was a Fire/Fire tank.
These were our only CoH characters for more then a year and we always played them together for family night. He never made a second character I made 1. We enjoyed being able to get surrounded by untold enemies and even when things got bad we both were tanky enough to live. His Aoe and my single target burst let us eventually overcome every foe. In our 1st year of family night he only ever died 3 times and I only died once. Missions could take us a long time but we weren't in a hurry.
Edit:
It's clear there are a lot of Altoholics. To those I ask. What did CoH do right with Alts and what do you feel they could have done better? Having only 1 Alt just to play the Prea starter area and then retired it I am not equipped to give input.
The line between knowing and understanding is often blurred.
Cute Kitsune the Anti Villain of Phoenix Rising.
I have more fervor then empathy, I still like you.~Me to a friend
It applies here too, I'm passionate not hostile.
It all depended on the character I played, and since I didn't really have a "main" my play-style was varied.
By the time the game was closed, I had over 100 characters. Having played RPGs (PnP) since I was 12, Most of those characters had their own personalities. Even two characters with the same power-sets would play differently because of the personality differences.
I'm sorry, but I can't answer your question any better than that without writing a mini-novel.
[url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Scrapperlock]Scrapperlock[/url] was my first love in City of Heroes, and it never really went away. It even carried over into other games, like Tabula Rasa, where being able to [b]mow through hordes of Foes[/b] was the stuff of mad cackling with glee! Even better yet when the rest of the team had wiped and I was the last one standing [i]and couldn't be brought down[/i] because I was so deep into Scrapperlock!
My next great love in City of Heroes was Crowd Control and the ability to lockdown the battlefield (or induce [url=http://tomax.cohtitan.com/data/powers/power.php?id=Controller_Control.Mind_Control.Mass_Confusion]Mass Comedy[/url]) to completely shift the flow of battle in favor of myself and my Team. This included Taunting and Tanking, but was not limited to Tanking.
My last great love in City of Heroes was ... Stealth ... and the ability to "find the seams" between Foes in order to either slip past them or maneuver into a position of maximal advantage. This playstyle was most fully expressed in the Stalker Archetype, but they were not alone in being able to exploit this particular system to great effect. "Being sneaky" was all about the Player(!) being clever, and was something that I always enjoyed about using (of all things) [url=http://tomax.cohtitan.com/data/powers/power.php?id=Controller_Buff.Trick_Arrow.Flash_Arrow]Flash Arrow[/url].
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
One of my favorite things about CoH was that I never felt obliged to have a "main." I had tons of characters and none of them were "alts." So, how did I play CoH? Every way I could think of.
(Robin) Christina Lea
http://www.amazon.com/author/christinalea
I played with Chaos. My goal was to try to push myself and my teammates to the extreme limit and see if we could survive it. I'd run willy nilly from group to group aggroing as much as I could and try to either bring them back to my team or find a big room to get them all clumped up in and go to town. I'd push my character's limits to see just how far I could go. I was especially dangerous about this while teamed with RadDidIt. The two of us together could do things nobody in their right mind should ever be able to do or attempt to do. Duo both Towers in Cimerora with Time/Dual Pistols and Time/Fire Defenders? OKAY! Run ahead and pull six mobs together into one room and clear out half of them before the team arrived to us? SURE!
Now I could play nice and stick with the team and follow orders as well, don't get me wrong. But my forte and best playing capabilities came while I was in the middle of insanity. My brain shut off from trying to tactically think and just went into automatic mode. I'd do stuff without even knowing why I was really doing it. Instead of planning out which attack or buff/debuff I was going to put down I'd just do what felt right at the time. That's when I truly felt like I was my character and actually in the game. The words that put a smile onto my face the most while playing that game were, "Pssssst......Hey Static. Whatcha doin over there?"
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
My man changed several times over the years and never got past level 30 or so. My first two were energy/energy blasters both of with were fun. The first one I did a lot of exportation with and so he ended up in so much debt that I never got to 20 with him. My second character was a bit smarter so I was able to lean pinpoint pulling with snipe shots. After that I decided to take up tanking so I bounced between a stone/axe and a Willpower/SS tank. That was fun and I always enjoined being the mass of meat getting the attention of and smashing any who got in my way. All this was with me playing on an off over the years. With more alts in between then I could count. Last main was a Robot/FF MM and I had fun in the rough islands. Found myself grouping with other MMs so our missions had a mixed army charging in to clear the path for us. Gave a real Mastermind feeling when I didn't have to do much fighting myslf.
I never had a main. But here is how I played the game.
I picked alts that covered every archtype, every major play style within an archtype, and eventually most powersets. The alts usually had a horribly punny name and a dubious costume, though I dabbled in more serious RP a dozen times or so. Then I would pick which content I would use to level, some via street sweeping, some papers/radios, some zone arcs, some almost entirely TFs, some entirely via AE(stories not pling). I tried very hard to experience everything that world had to offer. At the end I had played literally every shred of content and had over 70 50's most with incarnate powers and all fully IOed builds.
My favorite alts were all either tanks, or a hybridized alt flirting with the edges of his archtype. son/em/stealth melee blaster pre redside stalker. dm/fire scrapper built to main tank for a dedicated team. fire/storm troller built to live and die in melee. Night Widow built as a team buffer ranged cone specialist.
Content wise my favs were casual task force running, street sweeping with a large team in hazard zones, and running story heavy arcs with a dedicated duo/trio heavy on the RP.
Spent a lot of time crafting for all those builds and a ton of time in MIDs, but I saved that for when my friends were not on.
-joe
Repeat Offender
Tank Addict
Homeless.
Like many here, I had MANY alts. My favorite AT was MasterMind though so it was like having my own team at times.
I enjoyed teaming when things were frantic. Dashing about, mob to mob, watching the FX fly. When I played solo I was more inclined to slow down and think things through.
My main Brute was suicidal and thus this was also my play style. Scrapperlock doesn't begin to cover the zone I would go into when surrounded by enemies.
One of the joys of CoH was all the different ways to defeat an enemy. Hold them, debuff them, blast them, trap them, swarm them, smash them. If one doesn't work, try something else.
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
Not to be evasive to the OP, but I have to agree with what the others have said here: the strength of CoX was that the ATs played quite differently, so it really depended upon which character I was playing at the time. Even if I boil it down to just my 2 mains (one blue, one red) the playstyle was completely different. I soloed most of the time. My main hero was a blaster, so it was a lot of ranged alpha and run for her life when things didn't go quite as planned, while my main villain was a stalker, so it was take out what he could with alpha and then roll up his sleeves for the down and dirty.
Spurn all ye kindle.
My 'main' was a Tanker who did tanky stuff, like diving into the middle of a crowd and making them 'stupid' so they'd ignore the blood-crazed Scapper chopping them to bits. However, I had a couple-hundred Alts, and the the ones I liked best were those that worked in 'atypical' ways.
FF/Energy 'offender', perma-teamed with another Ff/Energy - we'd bubble to the max and then just go to town, blowing stuff up. Or my Dark/Dark Defender, who was regularly the last team-member standing, simply because it took a while for the de-buffs to stack up, but once they did... Yeah, other D3s would recognize the experience. Die in a Pile, you fools! A Fire/Storm 'Corruptor' who loves the 'Rain of Chaos'. (Freezing Rain + Rain of Fire.) Or my Mind/Storm Controller that snuck through enemy bases and gave bad-guys Tragically bad dreams.
It was all about leveraging synergy to make the most of a character-concept.
Be Well!
Fireheart
I liked to do Task Forces a lot, so my main play style was to build as team-worthy a toon as I could (given my intransigent refusal to play a pure healer) and then form TFs galore. This was probably my innate reaction to the Jack Emmert style of play that was being promoted/forced upon people in the early days. That siad I always enjoyed teaming for iTrials and TFs way more than soloing. I soloed mainly for swag or to get something like a badge I wanted for a toon, etc.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Hero side, villain side, I liked to play usually with toons that were made to get up close and personal and could take a hit while dishing out the hits (tanks/brutes) although I did switch it up a bit and played each AT each designed to stand on their own when crap hit the fan. But my overall playstyle was pretty flexible but didn't like scrapper too much or the luck based stuff in defense. No luck for me. So scrappers and defense in COX didn't mesh well. Even with 95% chance of the enemy mob to miss, still got hit often. It seemed the enemy mob was using loaded dice to roll with. And scrapper crit 5% for most powers and 10% for a couple, chance for me it was way less than that but not the worse that I seen but well below 5%. Yeah scrappers didn't work for me. Brute yeah, move the bar do more damage not a chance to do more damage it was guaranteed as long as the fury bar moved. And kind of why I preferred Doms over controllers. Never knew when if that extra hold mag would pop, and rarely when I needed it most while Domination, pop domination it was guaranteed extra mags. Plus then again, I never did like casino games and gambling.
I didn't mind teams if I could find one, but mostly played solo due to the mixture it was sometimes easier to play solo to get the feel of the storyline and get done what I wanted to be done and partly because I didn't have a choice, especially in my early time when I was in distant time zones than most players.
Didn't have mains, only had creations. Sometimes a toon is hotly played for a while the nit goes cold and another takes it place for a while then the first toon is hot again.
What made if fun for me, was the ability to create toons and play them out and play out their storyline. That is until I started to create stuff that wasn't feasible in COX and more creations sat on ice than what could be created. A good team, very good stuff very fun to do, when a good team, especially in the early days, but longer I played more it seem good teams out for the same kind of fun I was looking for (bashing some mobs heads in and not doing map tours) were harder and harder to come by as time went on. Especially since by the time I did make it back to US time zone territory, most people I managed to get to know moved on to other games or simply quit MMOs. But I made the best of it and still had fun either way solo or not.
But the biggest thing that makes a game fun for me, is choices. No favorites played for one play style or another. Present them on even platter and let the players go and do what they find fun without one play style being held upon a pedestal while the other shackled and forced to go through extra hoops to get the same job done. When in a game that seems like people are enjoying themselves like they want to, it sets a feel presence of it's a fun environment. When it seems partly of the people find something fun and the rest seem to be doing begrudgingly because there is no other choices, then the environment seems tense and not so fun.
***For Me***
My main was a Fire Blast/Kinetics Corruptor. I dealt a crazy amount of damage at the end, and sped up the tempo of the team! Speed and Damage was king :)
My preferred playstyle was making a scrapper, working on their build, working towards that build, then doing things like stealing and holding agro from the tank, or tanking the powerful AV that kept killing the tank.
My playstyle was very non-traditional. I have a habit of building 'broken' characters using 'inferior' powersets and then seeing what I can do with them. I would joke that, if I'd had the option, I'd have made a FF/Emp defender with only forceblast, brawl, the fighting (?) pool, and temp powers for offense.
Yup, a recipe for disaster for a serious gamer but it would have been a blast to play.
Wait until you see the... nope, that would ruin the surprise.
My favorite was Automation Lord. He had seen all spectrums: from good to evil and back again. If I recall, he was a mastermind. He used robots, force fields and heat mastery. I was all about being a one man army. Thanks to heat mastery's rise of the pheonix I rarely went to the hospital unless I did something stupid. It was horrible in pvp but it was great fun.
I don't get mad, I restructure the laws of quantum physics and resolve the situation with temporal engineering.
Way, way too many alts to consider any of them a 'main', although who I was playing the most would vary. One month it might be my Shield/Mace tank, the next my elec/elec blapper, the next my Dark/dark/dark defender or earth/kin controller or one of many more.
In general, I liked teaming, either with my SG (RP missions!) or in PUGs or with people from VirtueUnited or the Brickhouse. I'd solo as well, either if nothing was going on or I was doing a lot of AFK pausing.
Like many of the other posters here, I have to say that restricting myself to a main would make it impossible to answer how I played the game. What kept me coming back to it (and what I really find myself missing now, since [I]so few[/I] games out there take this approach) is how incredibly alt-friendly it was. Even within a particular AT there was an enormous amount of customizability, and in turn replayability. I played a lot of controllers, especially early on, and my fire/kin, plant/rad and ice/emp (as examples) were all totally different experiences. That's what I really want out of the game.
In an effort to best answer the OP's question, however, the closest thing I had to a main was my kat/wp scrapper. I logged the most hours on her and she was the only character I ever got into things I considered a departure from my "standard" experience, things like badging and PvP.
The thing is that I really enjoyed playing some kind of team support character (though at times characters built for that were excellent solo toons) but found the game's tools for team-building to be lacklustre. I frequently played at off-peak times as I work evenings, and could find it frustratingly difficult to get things rolling at times. To me it's really important that the game ease that frustration by making it as simple as possible to build teams.
[url=https://cityoftitans.com/forum/compilation-information-city-titans](Unofficial) Compilation of Information on City of Titans[/url]
My main was certainly Summer Heat on Victory. I wanted a fire hero that could dish out a ton of damage, so when I had rolled him up, fire/energy blaster was the way to go...then ranged damage went weaker than melee, then blasters got broken, then we started to piece together again, and all the while, I'd prep a fight with buildup, aim, a few damage insp, always tracking what my damage bonus was sitting at, and when IO sets came out I slotted heavily into +dmg. I wanted to knock things out fast and I wanted the essence of that unstoppable blaze to be my theme. I intentionally found ways to mop up whole rooms grouped by the tank, pulling agro if I had to, and I wouldn't care, because I had Rise of the phoenix in my back pocket - slotted to be an offensive attack on top of the self-rez that I'd use it for, even had a contingent rotation if I knew I'd faceplant to use it effectively. Even in ITF I would take care of one large group on my own.
I even got mad at a radiation defender once because he wouldn't use fallout fast enough and my dps was falling while I lay unconscious onscreen. lol Led to the most embarrassing thing I've ever said on vent.
My playstyle in CoH - damage. I wanted to be at the damage cap as long as possible as often as possible, or at least as high as I could get in a normal rotation and stay there. It was being that damaging and watching whole rooms fall beneath my attacks with one shot that made me feel like a superhero.
[i]“The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.” -Douglas Adams[/i]
Favorite was support (defender) and range attacks - so though my first was a dark blast/bubbler defender, my favorite was by far my grav/rad controller.
Though if I wanted to get up close and personal, nothing beat my fire/shield scrapper (Fiery Vixxen) - who was a hoot to play!
First best part was teaming up with other heroes and running missions (was not into the Arena/PVP element) and helping the Paragon Police bring those nasty super villains to justice. Even better was that no-one really "died" just got teleported to the hospital - so made it family friendly (didn't have to kick the kids out of the room to play).
Second best part were the task forces! What a great concept!
Third best part was the "neutral" areas where heroes and villains could team up for a common goal. The whole "enemy of my enemy is my friend" was great.
Last, but not least, I liked that you could shift your faction depending on choices made in the game.
Main was a Ninja/Time MM. Drop the minions, buff with the HoTs and Temporal Distortion, mark big targets so I could hit numpad 7 (All Attack My Target) and bring the pain down. For mob hordes I put down Time Crawl and Distortion Field and triggered Farsight. Nobody could do jack squat when those went off. It was glorious, and brings tears to my eyes remembering it.
Hope this brief list helps.
Rise! From the ashes and decay!
Rise! From the prison of your grave!
Rise! Upon the standard at the door!
Rise! Into the eye of the Storm!
-KMFDM, "Risen"
My main was a Dark/Dark Defender. I wanted to play a Dark Blaster, mind you, but that wasn't an option until very late in the game. She was based on a Marvel Advanced character I created before City of Heroes, and played for several years. If I'd had the ability to play the actual Marvel character, she'd have been a Dark blaster with healing ability. But, as we all know, Dark powers weren't added to the blaster set until the last year or so.
The healing power was especially nice with the defender, because even after Enhancement Diversification, and the massive ED Nerf Hammer, her healing ability only dropped about 50 points. Most healing powers went from about 500 per tick to maybe 130. But the dark/dark def could still reliably heal for 479 points per tick. I think part of the reason was that you had to be extremely close to the fighting to use it, because it was a healing AoE centered on the caster. But even so, between her healing and the Regen Incarnate click, I could keep the party up even during the hardest fights.
When played as a Dark/Dark Def, I could pretty much lock down Reichsmann during the task force. I even got Master of Reichsmann Task Force on that character. Before the dimension gun, between Tar Patch and Darkest Night I could reduce his ridiculous defenses to about 20 on everything, and impact his ability to hit the rest of the team. After the gun took away his dimensional power, I could keep him pretty firmly locked at about -15 to every defense, and pin him in place. Ah, memories... :)
My main was a Rad/Dark Defender. Perma-hasten, perma-AM, tactics, assault, maneuvers, she made everyone on the team more effective at whatever they did. EF, RI, with LR and EMP set up to spam, she made AVs melt like butter. Enough +def so that she could run in to heal with her PBAOE. I made her build with exemplaring in mind, so that even on lower-level TFs her +recharge was through the roof and her +recovery would support all her toggles. I loved helping make group content way easier. Inexperienced players wouldn't always notice the impact, but I found experienced players always enjoyed having her along. One of my proudest moments was when, after a particularly smooth TF, the team leader said "great job debuffers!" and the other defender on the team sent me a /tell "you were the only debuffer, right?"
My first Char was a stone/stone tank. Just a basic tank that could take an insane amount of damage (specially when he was specced up). But my two main loves were
1. Blaster - Rifle/devices. Just loved that long range sniping while standing behind a line of caltrops, mines and drones. So much fun.
2. Minion Master - Animals/Devices. This was not something I saw very much, if at all, at the end of CoH (I may have been the only one with such a build, I do not know). But I loved the combo's that it would produce. Of course I also hated the build because of the stupidity involved in the AI for my pets. Heck I also hated the fact that my pets were all ground based four legged animals. Would have made much more sense (and made the powerset much more enjoyable) if it was set up with say 3 eagles, 2 lions, 1 Gorilla. That way you could have all attack patterns covered, without having to resort to a mythical beast (which maybe could have been used either as a 'skin' producing 3 harpies, 2 direwolves and 1 dragon for a mythical feel).
My first love was an ill/emp controller. Before everything was nerfed I would just slot my pets so they would respawn as quickly as possible and I would be surrounded by an army of illusion pets [there wasn't a cap on them] So you could often see 3 main pets and 3 - 6 lower class pets. I would then buff the main pets up with all the empathy auras and fortitude buffs, slip into invisibility and then blind, scare and hold the enemies so tight that there was literally nothing they could do to stop me. If all went pear shaped due to mob sizes being pulled I would just slip into phase shift [which at this point had no time restriction on it] and recover. There were plenty of other advantages to this build which meant no matter what happened I could never die no matter which foe was in front of me.This of course all changed after a few updates but the illusion empathy controller for me was my first love, it opened up the world of soloing and crowd management in one swoop. The update nerfs put this character on the shelf sadly, but ill/emp initially in CoH was a thing of beauty.
I then moved to a forcefield defender and I used to team with a fire tank who I would hover above and perma buff, where we would farm the demon chamber room [pre cap nerf] . Triggering the portals letting it fill up with hundreds, sometimes thousands of baddies and just set fire to the entire room. This was so much fun it was the closest to insanity in CoH you can imagine.
After this I was all about solo tanking, and my elec/fire brute with shield/pet/damage incarnates became a thing of beauty for taking on hordes of +3s endlessly. The whole idea of feeling invincible was something that as a superhero fanatic was why I played the game.
[Being a UK player on US servers made me gravitate towards solo builds that could integrate into teams, this was due to time differences of being online. So out of necessity I needed builds that could survive on their own for long periods of time]
day one vet
I mostly soloed, so I could play at my own pace, even though I did find it slightly more fun in a team, particularly a full one. I didn't have a main, I always came up with new characters. I came up with various stories about them, so I rejoiced when Going Rogue and Mission Architect were implemented.
I was mostly a Solo player as well. Often turning off my XP in order to read the stories and not out level the arc or zone. I did join teams as well that's where I focused on XP gain and just having fun with a group of other players. I also Newbie helped a lot inviting a new player to my team to show them the ropes or just hang out in Atlas and handed out welcome INF.
I also was a major RPer still am. Just now here on the forums instead of in chats.
-------------------------------------------
Personal rules of good roleplay
1.) Nothing goes as planned.
2.) If it goes as planned it's not good RP
I had several alts, I had been playing since 2004, but my favorite to play was Sonic Warlock. He was a sonic blast/dark miasma corrupter with soul storm. Had decent heals and debuffs which helped out the sonics damage and the soul storm was just fun to watch as a minor hold. The stance my character would make afterwards was a very Magneto stance with you levitating and arms folded. Still have very fond memories of him
My main was an Inv/SS tank. Soloed probably 90% of the time getting to level 50, only teaming when forced to by the AVs at the end of the story arcs (This was before they could scale down to EBs.), or when I would join a TF. The best part was hitting level 50 when I defeated Tyrant at the end of the original A Hero's Hero arc. Even when I did team, I would be the secondary tank if possible, because knowing the theory of aggro management and having the skills are two different things. :)
I also had a few alts, and loved creating new ones. Trying out new power combos and new powersets was always fun, figuring out the proper techniques for soloing was like a never ending puzzle. The wide variety that available to play kept the game fresh, even when I was running the same beginning arcs for the 100th time. Because the defenders did play the same as the controllers, or the MMs, or any of the other ATs. Even a WP/SS tank didn't play the same as an Inv/SS tank.
Man, I miss that game.
My Main was a Ninja Storm MM, I sent in my ninjas and supportet them with the Ice Sleet and the Ice Fog. I wasnt very durable and died often. I never could take on hordes of Enemies on my own, but I managed to play the stories. With the additional incarnate pets I could reliably take down most elite Bosses. ++ for Incarnate Powers ;)
I played mostly solo, just to experience the stories. I loved reading the stories amnd sztoped to listen to the NPCs in the instances.
Oh, I hated the incarnate Trial with the mines. they always killed me and my pets. Incarnate trials very bad for masterminds due to the massive AE damage, that killed my ninjas instantly or the lasers from the baf towers, that 2 shotted me.
I dont know, why noone turned them of.
Lydia Frost MM
How DID I play? Any and every way that seemed interesting...
If this is really meant for the Devs to see, let me say this: Give me CHARACTER SLOTS. As many as possible. It was great in CoH to have a dozen slots on a dozen servers. If this is going to be One City on One Server. . . Well, I hope you get that figured out.
I couldn't begin to count the times that I came up with a character based on an Origin idea I had, or a cool/funny name, or a single costume piece... THAT is what kept me coming back. "OOH! I could make a Fire Tank, with a stove pipe hat... and a tail coat, put flames on the sleeves....yeah and a beard. Ladies and Gentlemen I give you...Hot Rod Lincoln!!"
That was what replayability meant for me. Two hours in the Costume Creator every other week, then 30 or so hours on a character that I may or may not get up to level cap. ::shrug:: Occasionally go back and weed out the Level <10's (If I wasn't playing them, I felt bad about camping on a name)
And if we get something like AE, I hope we get at least one story/mission/whatever per slot. Three per account did not nearly satisfy my creativity. Heck, I had to make up a 3 part serial mission just to tell one story. POOF. All my slots, gone. Yes, I know, AE was a big storage resource drain. I'm just asking pretty please if there is a way to make it work, you will have my undivided attention as a player for a looong time.
I had a lot of characters and after the shutdown of the game there was still sets I always wanted to try out, but I never find a good character idea for it. It was important for me to have a nice character behind the powers. My first character was an empath defender. At the beginning, everyone was looking for them, so it was easy to find teams. Later when everyone can heal and rez a little bit in the game they was a little bit useless, so I concentrate on something else and this was a mastermind with robots and force fields. It was perfect, I can made every mission alone when I have to, but it was also a great help in any team. I love it to team up in the game, so scrappers and brutes wasn't my type of character, but I had a lot of defenders, controllers and so on to help the team.
I think teamplay is very important in the game. There are so many MMOs out there, calling themself MMO, but a lot of them are single player games with an multiplayer option. The uncomlicated teaming with everyone was the strongest part of City of Heroes I think.
I came very late into CoH. Played about 15 months before "The World Ended"
My main was a Martial Arts / Super Reflexes Scrapper.
I basically soloed by fighting street NPCs , doing Radio Missions, or following NPC arcs. I found coming so late to the game that most folks had scads of currency, and getting "farmed" to 50 was their major interest. I neither had the option, nor would I have taken it. I prefered the journey to, not the destination of 50th.
Oh yeah, just found out about CoT today, I know it's a lame pun but I'm "Super" excited!
I did occaisonally pair or trio up with other Heroes in Radios, but I found joining full teams more about doing difficult ones with a "no fear Zerg" mentality. I played a slower paced, real life "I don't wanna go to the Hospital" approach. Not criticizing others, just explaining how I look at it. Seems like OP played that way also.
I did make plenty of alts, most based on tabletop Champions characters. I think one of the successes of CoH (besides amazing costume variability) was you could log in, click your toggles and go, as opposed to something like EQ (which I still play) where you log in, sit around for hours waiting for buffs, and then go. This ability to get to fighting quickly made playing alts easy and fun. I basically tried every class (Hero and Villian) scrapping power combos or classes I didn't like.
Chivalry lives while I breathe
I agree. Giving 12, 15, 20 character slots per server would be nice. With an easy character to character xfer system for whatever types of currency/equipment their are.
Chivalry lives while I breathe
Single server BGR. We're one community and won't be split into separate servers.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
Yeah, I was wondering how that works. Like, are we going to have a million Atlas Park 1, Atlas Park 2, zones like CoH had, or what?
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
We'll only have a million APs if we reach the cap in an instance a million times. Which if we do, that'd be awesome!
in cox, honestly, I played every type and nearly every permutation of archtype/powers up until going rogue....
the reason for this is simple....
...I played a character until they got hard to level, then made a new character.
I never reached max level in the game, the closest I ever got was 47.. and that was with two friends attempting to PL me.
In Champs, I have a couple of maxed characters, because leveling is easy.... but I still regularly make alts before ever maxing, because I find I cant capture my vision of a character with the tools they provided.
...this is a problem I almost never had in COX.
personally, I kind of hate levels and leveling.... mostly because i hate how it feels like a slog from half-way through progression afterward.
so, if the devs could remove leveling all together, that would be neat...... but I doubt they'd bother, it's far too entrenched, and i doubt my views are shared by many.
___________________________________
[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
So as I understand it, the way it would work is like this: there's only one server, but to prevent the problem of having like 300+ people all trying to talk to Ms. Liberty all at the same time to level up, what you have is not different servers, but different Atlas Parks on the same server. They're all essentially identical, and we can't perceive them (that is, I can't travel to Atlas Park 3 from atlas Park 2, I can't even tell there are other Altas Parks). So teaming up with people would be a lot more dependent on non-face-to-face methods like the iTrials had, queues, and so forth. People will all be able to see each other's posts on chat, I assume, even though the person you're talking to over chat channels isn't necessarily on a map you can access, you can still team up with them and then get magically (or technologically) whisked away to the mission start point as soon as the mission begins, or whatever. Is that about right?
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
except for the "not being able to travel between versions" bit.
generally there's a means of switching which "instance" of the location you're in, and ways of staying together/meeting up with social contacts "in person"
true, there'd be no way to "walk" from AP2 into AP3 (for example)... but switching from AP2 to AP3 should be possible.
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
Question GhostHack.. will Orion be your "Main" in CoT (as close a costume as you can get? Because I'm really getting used to his picture and loving it!
I'm EXTREMELY curious about server structure (Authentication Server, Character Data Server, Chat Server, Map Server etc). From what I've read it seems they're going to the "Shard" route.. which is great for elastic games without Perpetual/Emergent AI.. Because I am advocating for perpetual AI I hope they find a way for players to have first priority to return to their shard of choice. Something like a queue list so that if you're in a shard and go to an instance your host shard keeps your name in a queue to return to it.. this would FEEL like dedicated servers but would not need to BE a dedicated map server.
Also the Character Data server is extremely important to me .. I sincerelyy hope they have an offline version (in Wiki form) so players don't need to create a separate wiki AND they can easily link to the in-game lore. Champions Online once had a "Rate my Champion" where you could search avatars and look through them (and flag them for IP violations). Those were the golden days I hope to see brought forward to City of Titans.
My SG loved using the character Wiki (primusdatabase) but hated that there was a SEPERATE Game Wiki.. I want to be able to update the game wiki and study up on lore for my character wiki at the same place/time. Its a tiny investment but done from the start it's a very valuable tool (Just go ask the Champions Online devs)
Crowd Control Enthusiast
Indeed. Except my problem was opposite. In COX many times I found I couldn't build my vision while in CO most of my toons were actually created to be in COX but couldn't do properly.
Hopefully though, if they go the leveling path, it doesn't log down mid way. Hopefully they have a good leveling pace instead of the first ten level go by fast in a matter of a few missions, then 20-30 is good pace then it all slows down to a grind by level 32 and up.
To me, COX was more a slog to max level prior to the change trhey made after that pound for pound it was about the same. CO to me seems quicker because there is less team gated stuff and more combinations of powers that are viable in a reasonable way, (NOT viable only if you have this this this and that billion dollar worth of gear stuff like in COX for some builds), but viable even in the hands of the average player to be viable whetehr if they can find a team or not. They can get it done. In the upper levels in COX, if one don't have one of the few builds that can on average go through missions solo without it being a chore or having to do a bunch of special stuff to get it viable, and there is a situation where there is no teams availbe for the task at the time, then leveling progressed is slowed merely due to other may not be interesting in what that person is interested in.
MMO Massive multiplayer online. Nothing in that acronym says. Must Team Always. There is no T in that acronym. While teaming can be fun, but in reality it may not always be viable and not everyone like their game play be solely depended on what other people are interested in and total disregard of what they may want to do. Sure someone may be running TF that is needed once every feb 29th if it lands on a Tuesday, but they may not be available for that date and that shouldn't mean they should automatically be punished for it. Game makers of MMO should focus on their players and stop playing favoritism while still taking the same amount of money from both sides, because then one side is getting more for their money and the other side is getting ripped off by being charged the same but treated like second class gamers. Multiplayer do not means teaming. It means it's a game in which a world usually massive world where one log off the world still go on, with other players. Now if those other players team or not, doesn't make it either multiplayer or not. Most games that are multiplayer are more like killing the opponent and some may or may not allow teaming. Because gamers grow they get married they enter school they have jobs and may not have the time they had at first to spend one hour or so trying to get enough people in order to do a task every time they play, especially if the population itself is not large. Sometimes people just want to play a great game without feeling they must team every time. Game makers of just about every genre is changing with the times, consoles now, back in the day one couldn't even dream of playing with others that is not next to you. Now they can. Yet, most MMO PC game makers seem to be stead fast on focusing on one group of players while ignoring the rest then whine about how corporations are taking over and only a few games have great success and stay open for going on over a decade while everyone else end up getting closed after 3-10 years. It's like they are happy to hand over the market to console games because eventually MMO will come to console then what? Everyone besides the big dogs are going to simply fade away and stand by like they have been and let consoles take the customers and sit in the corner wondering why no one know about this or that great game? Or will they realize that MMO doesn't always mean must team must team and treat their customers, all of them, with some semblance of respect instead of treating one set like kings and queens and the others like lepers. The choices are getting larger as time goes on. This isn't 1995-2005 anymore.
As long as the "paths" system works out, and I can combine a "hometown hero" path and "cosmic hero" path.... AND I can have him have cosmic/burning melee attacks....(basically... this http://youtu.be/p8qwNZvAvBE?t=11m9s)
then frick yeah, he will be.
I mean, Orion will be my main, either way, but I'm hoping I can play him how I've envisioned him, come launch.
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
I am officially jonesing for the first time we can achieve Atlas Park 33 (or equivalent) in the City to Come!
Captain of Phoenix Rising
Titan City 02201!
I know they're not voicing anything to save money, but I bet you could get Jason Priestly and Ian Zering on the cheap for this. OH WAIT! They should put in a Sharknado Zone Event too!
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
The OP's edit question: "It's clear there are a lot of Altoholics. To those I ask. What did CoH do right with Alts and what do you feel they could have done better?"
I think that's a fairly complicated question with many facets. You could reference the number of character slots available for example, or levelling rates at lower levels (which [I]may[/I] allow you to get a good sense of an alt's flavour relatively quickly).
One of the biggest things I think CoX did right here is allowing a wide variety of themes to exist within a particular role. For example, some games seem to look at fire and say "this is always about damage" while looking at cold and saying "this is always about mitigation," or at least lean so heavily in those directions that it may as well always be true. CoX looked at fire and allowed you to use it not only for damage, but for protection (Fiery Aura), control (Fire Control) or support (Thermal Radiation). This allowed a whole host of thematic concepts, maintaining flavour associated with different themes without pigeonholing them into limited playstyles.
Going hand in hand with this is that you had a multitude of ways to play the game (and reasons to replay the game) even within a certain role. If you liked controllers you could have a quite different experience playing Illusion as opposed to Earth, and if you liked scrappers it didn't feel at all the same to play Spines after playing Dark Melee. The game provided you with a variety of different tools to accomplish a particular task, and that meant you could explore a particular archetype many times over. Even two characters with the same primary, secondary and ancillary/patron sets could be legitimately built in many different ways.
There are other things I'm more on the fence about. Sometimes builds relied [I]very[/I] heavily on certain powers. This was good in the sense of feeling real accomplishment in getting to those powers, but sometimes I found that characters were really lacklustre or required me to play in ways I didn't want to until I got there. Certain armour sets were really squishy until tier 8 or so powers for example, and controllers could be paaaainfully slow to solo before pets (and still pretty darn slow with them sometimes).
I also found that synergies were sometimes too significant, meaning that many of the builds that were theoretically viable fell way behind others. There were of course the (in)famous examples like Fire/Kin or Fire/Rad controllers, though of course there is some subjectivity here and opinions didn't always match up. I'd read from more than one person that Earth/Kin was a bad combination, for example, due to the fact that one set was more distance-oriented and the other close up, but that didn't match my experience. I found the relative safety of Earth paired nicely with Kin's more offensive nature, Earth's def debuffs were fantastic for Kin's frequent need to hit, and Kin's recharge bump helped maintain Earth's fantastic controls. Obviously synergies will exist in the game and there's nothing at all wrong with that; I think it's a good thing to a point. How much the game should reward such synergies in an objective fashion is largely a matter of taste. It's worth mentioning here that this probably has more to do with how the game's underlying systems work than the philosophy of character design however.
[url=https://cityoftitans.com/forum/compilation-information-city-titans](Unofficial) Compilation of Information on City of Titans[/url]
I agree with a lot of what Pyromantic said. I'd just add that City of Heroes was fun even at low levels. You didn't have to grind through a phase where all you could do was wander around murdering prairie dogs with a wooden sword like some games. You jumped into the game with super-powers, and, even though a thug with a baseball bat was still a threat, you felt like your character was already a super-hero (or villain). That made it a lot easier to stop worrying about pushing that one character forward a little more and start playing with new ideas.
(Robin) Christina Lea
http://www.amazon.com/author/christinalea
To answer your question about Altaholism, I guess I had about 12 toons at the end, and I might have made and deleted a few more. What kept me alting was the fact that you could make so many different toons even within a single favorite Archetype that it took a long time to get boring. I didn't really like having to scrapperlock on badguys (playing scrappers always reminded me of the Fighter class in Diablo I, which had to chase down badguys who'd run away a lot. The Sorcerer, on the other hand, got blitzed and had to fend them off, which was more harrowing and dangerous, but less frustrating and grindy, I felt). So within realm of "Def/Con" types alone you had a farily large creative space you could explore by trying out different builds fo different powersets, etc. Then also you could make your ONE tanker or blaster or whatever just to see how the other half lives once in a while, which was even more added fun.
I actually worry that the system in CoT will be set up in such a way that you can't explore the possibilities on your own and they just hand you a class and a subclass and tell you "ok, this is what your role is, all other toons that have the same role as you play exactly the same, so go out there and do what you're expected to do" I feel like that would lead to a lot of "HEALER HEAL!" ism, not just directed at healers, but at everyone. There comes a point where you, as a developer, have to go hands-off and just let the players build their toon the way they want, organically, by figuring out what works for them and what doesn't on our own. What I want to avoid is the problem of choosing a class and subclass and then having every apparent option from that point forward be such a no-brainer that you're basically boxed into an obvious "best solution" build from level 1 forward. Even if there are like FIFTY different class-subclass option comboes available, which would be great, I don't want that one choice to end up being the only one I really make for myself and "forever dominate my destiny" as Yoda would put it.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
My main was a Time/assault rifle defender. Loved buffing and debuffing people and mobs. Only played in random groups. Had so much fun and met so many people that way.
Check out ur new station http://www.namesakeradio.com/ !!!!!
I go live every Saturday night at 9pm EST! ^o^
For fast updates on the station and my show follow me on the Twitters @Namesakeradio and @Brokenredmage
As mentioned elsewhere (I think) alting was a big part of how I played. The ATs felt different. And even within them, there was such variety. An invuln/ss tank felt nothing like a fire/axe. The more alts I tried the more I wanted to try. I deleted the alts that I just did not like to play and I still had 80 toons at the end. Variety is the spice of life.
-joe
Repeat Offender
Tank Addict
Homeless.
I mostly played defenders, corruptors, and controllers. I primarily played builds that involved less healing and far more of every other form of support, mainly to kind of stick it to alot of those who had a mentality of healing being the only form of support(one of my first sgs had that problem). It mainly started with a force fielder left who, was for lack of a better word, a god-moder(though I wasn't much better at the time). So I started messing with powersets like force fields and the like, and experimenting with combinations like that, as well as the debuff and soft-control oriented sets like storm summoning. When time manipulation came around I'd finally found the set for me, but then I didn't realise they(NCSoft) wanted to shut the game down a year later, I was so heartbroken. Especially since I was starting to finally form teams of my own and was beginning to work on forming an SG of my own.
My roleplaying had also improved drastically over the years of playing to :).
I realized something today(5/8/2014) that many MMORPG players, are not like us who enjoyed CoX. They enjoy repetitiveness and predictability, rather then unpredictability. We on the other hand enjoy unpredictability and variety.
I'm in the Altoholic group ... more than I could readily count. Pinnacle was home to something in the neighborhood of 60 by itself (2 accounts) by the time the end was announced. Then there was Freedom, Virtue, Victory, and Justice each with at least the first page of slots full on the primary account. Even the rare characters I didn't particularly care for wouldn't be deleted as long as there were still slots on the server. Only on Pinnacle did I really find myself staring at that problem, solved inevitably by building the new character on another server instead.
That said I did have a main above all the rest, my 'main of mains', the first one I always logged onto if a any new content (be it a zone or event or whatever) was released. After GRETA-001 (Claws/SR scrapper) came a dozen or so that I regularly played including the latest alts to see activity. Most were scrappers, defenders, controllers or later corruptors but at some point I tried every AT there was to at least 20th.
So what did CoX do right? Truthfully I'm not entirely sure. Some of that may stem from the fact it was my first MMO and is still nearly the only one I have experience with, nothing to compare to. Was it a lack of a barrier to communication? ... I could sit in my SG base on "Server X" crafting stuff or later putzing around in Mids while watching or joining chat across nearly any server (typically had several tabs open each dedicated to one or more chat channels). In turn I could easily learn about such and such starting a team on any of the servers I had characters and readily switch to join when desired. Plenty of slots on any given server so no worries about having to delete to make room for the latest character. As others have said even within an AT or even power sets no two characters played quite the same and often very differently. Spread that over 10 AT's plus 4 Epic AT's and you have a ton of potential variety. Maybe it really amounted to doing nothing that specifically discouraged it? Perhaps the fact the level cap was in fact the level cap changing only once from 40 to 50. Maybe the ease of both exemplar and sidekicking characters. It didn't matter that my friend or an sgmate missed a couple weeks of play and fell behind you could always exemp down and run their content or do the reverse and they could sidekick up and run yours.
My main was my character Gideon a BS/Regen scrapper. How I played was I would jump in a group of enemies and hit them with the sword attack that hit multiple opponents and I tended to use the attacks that caused continuous bleeding on the enemies then finish them off with a powerful attack.
"In the end there can be only one" The Highlander
How me plays My Farmer? ;D
[img]http://i.imgur.com/3ZRmUHP.png[/img]
I mash a bunch of buttons 'till they all Die! :o ;)
Before jumping into a group, locate a Boss or Leut. and target him.
Just as i land in the middle of the mob...
- activate Darkest Night.
- hit Consume
- hit Soul Drain
- hit Soul Tentacles
if one of Bosses got a punch through...
- hit Siphon Life
end will be a wee low, so...
- hit Consume
target bosses/lets 1st, alternate between these attacks for a bit...
- Smite
- Shadow Maul
- Siphon Life
- Midnight Grasp
when most enemies are 1/4 HP...
- Hit Dark Consumption
most leuts and minions will be down.
for the 1 boss or leut that you missed...
- hit BURN! :)
etc...
Since this set has a few AOE's, the hard hitting Single target attacks should be used on Bosses and Leuts 1st.
The goal is to drive the whole mobs HP down evenly if you can. Not always possible, but a Kinetics Support helps. Me want SB crack!;D
The better question might be how DIDN'T I play. Some of my favourites -
I had a ss/wp brute built for survivability, recharge and AoE. If the team needed a tank I could, if not I mindlessly deal damage.
Stalker, db/ninja, pure offence, beat them down before you get beat down.
I had masterminds, oh lordy I had masterminds. Bots/Traps, lead the charge and last one standing. Got a pile of "master of" badges on that one, and helped many more peeps get theirs. Necro/dark, very good solo but even better on a team. Ninja/poison, so challenging to level, but once incarnated out with +defence it was a ridiculous killing machine. Glorious.
The mechanics of the incarnate trials heavily penalized MMs, if and when pet classes appear in CoT I don't want the content to penalize dumb pet AI.
Fire/dark corr. Damage, debuff, ridiculously good.
Kin/Sonic defender. After they made SB an AoE. Tedious to solo, but in a team or better yet a raid this toon was a gamebreaker.
Plant/Storm 'troller. Overpowered solo. On a team I'd only use about half my storm powers, but if we started to get overwhelmed I'd cut loose and go full KB crazy.
AoE build crab spider built for survivability and recharge. Excellent solo, even better on a team with all those passive buffs and AoE debuffs.
I'd say there's 2 common threads in my play. First of all melee is a lot of fun and good for nights I didn't feel like thinking too much.
But I mostly played buffers/debuffers, and they were way more powerful and fun then the casual players realized.
I was a particular fan of Niche builds.
My personal favorite was a Nictus (a Warshade that went Villain at first opportunity) that relied exclusively on the Nova Form. Every other power was relevant only for the type of IOs it could slot, and therefore were chosen only for their usefulness in the generation of set bonuses. Careful selection provided me with 46.225% Ranged Defense, 300+% Damage, and enough Recharge and Recovery to maintain an indefinite barrage. Add in a Nova's Natural Flight, Slow, and Knockback capabilities, Chance to Heal Self IO Procs, and the +Stealth IO from Freebird and I could annihilate with impunity, clearing even Lvl 54 mobs with relative ease.
The Breadth and the Variation in the Invention System was what kept me Alting.
"Anyone who would act up to a perfect standard of goodness in everything must be ruined among so many who do not. It is essential therefore to have learnt how to be other than good and to use, or not use, goodness as necessity requires." - Machiavelli
I loved CoH and played it for the whole time of its existence. I am a life member of Champions Online, but it has gone through way too many changes and simply does nothing for me now. I now play DC Online, and though not as good as Coh IMO, it suffices for now. What I look for is a game that is equally fun to play in a group, or solo. I do like having some "Lone Wolf" heroes that like the challenge of doing things alone, without any group interaction. I hope that will carry forward in this new game!
Death is a congenital birth defect.
Oh Wow were do I start…joking i will keep it brief. Now I used a Tank vice a Brute Like Izzy but he can also tell you how awesome this build is hehe I just wanted the additional Toughness of a Tank over a Brute. My all Time Favorite was my Fire/Dark Tank…OMG talking about a Energizer Bunny on Steroids!!! oh baby!!. With two good self heals, regenerating your endurance as well and more AOE attacks thank any Tank should EVER have...you dominated where ever you went my guy put a new meaning to the phrase"Takes a licking but Keeps on Ticking"….hehe. I soooo Love playing this guy and hoping I can recreated him in COT.
I also had a fav MM, a Bots/Storm not easy to play but the Offensive capabilities of this guy was, well Offensive….lol. You not only had Bots throwing down enough Laser power to make the Death Star Proud but you have to contend with the awesome power of the storm coming atcha. This is truly not a team friendly build with you scattering enemies to the four corners of the world but with the Tornado, the Lightening and ice Storm dealing damage and laying waste to your enemies around you even the teams tend to forget the negatives and welcome you awesomeness…hehe.
Through power, I gain Victory
Okay - I'm going to cheat - I had two mains - both defenders.
Interdictor was my first character - a Force Field/Energy Blast defender. Pretty tough, good team buffs, and since his bubble powers were mostly "fire and forget" I was not afraid to blast away with my secondary in between bubbling sessions - he turned out to be a very straightforward character to play - mostly worrying about positioning but leaving me otherwise free to be a backup damage dealer. That change near the end which allowed you to bubble multiple allies in an area was a literal GODSEND (would shudder to think of the headache if I had to bubble a League one by one). I actually built him kind of lean regarding his primary and secondary - skipped some lackluster, boring or superfluous powers in FF and in EB so I could really dip into the pool powers (like Leadership - which saw a LOT of use since it was so good on Defenders). Mostly built according to a concept (technological power armor) but it worked out really well. Well enough that when my original group on Guardian dried up and I moved to Freedom, I didn't bother to transfer I just "re-rolled him" and levelled him up to 50+ again.
My other favourite was Storm Lord - a Storm/Ice Blast Defender. If Interdictor was my "straightforward" character, Storm was my "fiddly" character. In this case I had all the powers from my primary and secondary and only dipped into the pools for a travel power and the Electricity pool set. This guy was all about options, status effects, and "active squishy protection". He had 3 holds (2 from ice, 1 from Electricity Mastery) which enabled him to lock down bosses by himself, slows, 3 PBAoE damage powers with secondary effects, more slows, a little stealth, a little healing, a little defense and resistance, some impressive knockback and area denial abilities, and a little extra damage. Very versatile; the array of powers - many situational - kept me on my toes.
Now - you ask what did CoH do right with alts? I kind of alluded to it in my previous two examples. Not only did the different ATs require different play-styles, but even characters within the same AT could require different play-styles. Not only did my Tanks play differently from my Defenders and Controllers, but my FF/EB Defender felt different from my SS/IB Defender, my INV/SS Tank felt different from my ICE/ICE Tank, and so forth. This kept the game fresh, kept me wanting to try out new combinations, kept me playing, and kept me paying. If CoT can do the same or more with it's even more expanded Arctype system, well, let's just say I hope we have a LOT of character slots to start off with.
How did I play CoH? Like this! http://cit.cohtitan.com/profile/1892
Be Well!
Fireheart
I had an Energy/Energy Blaster, and I loved to play him with max KB, because I actually knew how to use it. Basically feeding enemies to the melee guys in a never-ending onslaught. The problem with KB is that people tended to think of it as a classic lockdown-type control like sleep or hold, but it's more of a tactical control. Playing D&D I guess helped me see that more easily.
What is "On a Computer"?
I'll take Iconic Villains and Their Outfits for 600
[B]Revenge is motivation enough. At least it's honest...[/B]
Roleplayer; Esteemed Villain
[img]http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/5.jpg[/img]
I went for def chars love helping and ideas those chars i loved
Tiny bot of def
I primarily played defenders and corruptors, occasionally controllers. I also had a fortunata. I focused primarily on force multipliers and favored sets that benefited me and the team, with the goal of making the team as unstoppable as possible. I tended to favor 8 man teams and favored playing on the higher difficulties, since I knew often due to the buffs I was giving out that the team would be more than capable of taking such difficulties on with enough speed that I'd level up fast in a fairer way.
As for soloing, I tended to do the alignment missions alot for alignment merits and also normal merits. That allowed me to amass influence through auction trades, which is where I got most of my influence from(and the IO's I did use).
I realized something today(5/8/2014) that many MMORPG players, are not like us who enjoyed CoX. They enjoy repetitiveness and predictability, rather then unpredictability. We on the other hand enjoy unpredictability and variety.
All I'll say is I almost never did things right.
I always played concept first, and then went for how to make them most powerful without going outside concept and conceptually appropriate playstyle. So, I'd do my homework and learn the conventional ways to optimize a particular build, but that almost never fit my concept exactly, so figured out a different way to optimize that didn't go against the concept or playstyle of the character I was creating.
And this is what I loved about City of Heroes. If I took my time and built right, I could always create a hero that performed as well or so close to as well as the optimized min/maxed build that it didn't matter, and still get EXACTLY the playstyle and concept I wanted.
I don't know how they balanced that game so well, and with the legendary spaghetti code it is even more amazing. I'm not saying it was perfect, I know it wasn't, but it was damned good overall.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
^ That's one of the things that made CoX so great: there was no "right." Anything was playable. Heck, I even soloed a Def to Incarnatehood.
Spurn all ye kindle.