CoH to be shut down

[Xanthippe]

I've said this before, and I'll say it again. CoH had the best character creator ever, and the quickest route to fun in any MMO I've played. Felt like a superhero right off the bat, and certainly by the time travel powers were acquired. So sad to see it gone.

[rk47]

bye dark/dark scrapper.
i was hoping champions is more of the fun... but going into the F2P game, it wasn't like it.
the super speeding past mission maps, getting to the end boss and just going all out with a party was something.
side kicking was good too.
i used to play with a classmate just clearing missions. he was 10 levels behind but can still keep up.
o well.

[JRave]

I'll miss the street sweeping that happened around release.  Was some of the most fun I've ever had.  Running around taking out villains, running into other heros and then teaming up with the randoms you just met.

That game had one of the better communities in the MMO Genre.  How many other games had guilds/groups so dedicated to helping out others that they were across every server in the game.  Taxi Bots, Hollows Rescue Force etc.. (names might be slightly off)

Another thing they go right that other MMO's haven't bothered trying with was allowing you to revisit old content.  Ouroboros was a great system idea.  Allowing your players to go "back in time" to revisit their favorite story arcs or experience content they missed.  Hell they had even added in some content that was removed from the game. (Original Posi TF, and that one TF with Calvin Scott are the big ones I recall)

I enjoyed that game, even in the later years when I would pop in for a couple months of playing every so often.  I ended up making my own SG just for myself at one point to have fun with the base editor and to get even easier ports around the Rogue Isles.

Still only got 1 character to 50 though.  I kept quitting my alts in their 40's.  RIP: Seismic Phoenix, the Stone Melee Fiery Aura Brute.

[Strazos]

Felt like a superhero right off the bat, and certainly by the time travel powers were acquired. So sad to see it gone.

True that.

Super Speed...oh my god, I thought it was one of the coolest things ever when I finally got it. Especially since I also had prestige pre-order movement powers and got the movement abilities in the SR and Fitness trees...made exploration fairly safe, as I zipped around maps at near the speed of light while looking like a huge spammy beacon of light.

DC Online had a good version of super speed, which included running up walls and actual acceleration...but it wasn't the same.

[kaid]

Felt like a superhero right off the bat, and certainly by the time travel powers were acquired. So sad to see it gone.

True that.

Super Speed...oh my god, I thought it was one of the coolest things ever when I finally got it. Especially since I also had prestige pre-order movement powers and got the movement abilities in the SR and Fitness trees...made exploration fairly safe, as I zipped around maps at near the speed of light while looking like a huge spammy beacon of light.

DC Online had a good version of super speed, which included running up walls and actual acceleration...but it wasn't the same.

First time I played COH and got super jumping I was like THIS is how you do a super hero game. I enjoyed COH quite a bit they did some things amazingly well. To this day they have done the group/support characters the best of any MMO. Instead of having a healer you had your support people who supported in different but good ways. Sure you could make a healer or you could have a shielder to help avoid damage in the first place or a debuffer to make its o you don't need as much healing.

I am really shocked more MMO that came out after did not steal this concept and most fell back into the tank/dps/healer triangle.

It is sad to see it go but it had a really good and long run.

[eldaec]

The point about support classes doesn't just apply to the defender class either. Controllers were equally great.

This was the last significant game to feature all 3 of the holy trinity classes, and I often feel like the only guy on earth who misses controllers/enchanters - they are inherently interesting to play, and CoX demonstrated that  if they are properly designed devs really don't need to warp the difficulty curve around them.

[Sjofn]

RIP, superjump. 

[Tyrnan]

The point about support classes doesn't just apply to the defender class either. Controllers were equally great.

This was the last significant game to feature all 3 of the holy trinity classes, and I often feel like the only guy on earth who misses controllers/enchanters - they are inherently interesting to play, and CoX demonstrated that  if they are properly designed devs really don't need to warp the difficulty curve around them.

Well there's at least one other person here that feels the same way.  Mained an Illusionist in EQ2 and my most played character in CoH (between bouts of rampant altaholism) was my Earth/Storm Controller.  She definitely wasn't the fastest soloer but the amount of control she could throw around was ridiculous.  And creating 8ft high stone cages during Rikti invasions never got old!    The old pre-I5 days when you'd join a team and hear "Yay, a Controller!" because we could turn entire rooms of mobs into statues was pretty cool too.

The only real flaw (if you want to call it that) with support characters was that they were grossly overpowered when you stacked them.  All Rad superteams could trivialise just about any content in the game from what I remember.  Fun times but probably a bit broken.

[Merusk]

Which I think is part of the reason the "trinity" has shifted to Tank, Heal, DPS vs. Tank, Heal, Support (throw dps in).  It becomes too easy to trivialize encounters if Control was stacked, or too difficult to do if you designed around stack control but didn't have one.   

Another part is they only are enjoyable to a narrow band of players.  Even though they were mandatory in EQ, (and really powerful) you had a very small segment of players running them.   Even smaller than the oft-groused-about Tank and Healer shortage in other DIKUs.  They require thought and creativity to fully utilize their power, so is it any surprise they're not as widely-played as the easy gratification of "BIG NUMBARS" DPS classes?

It's disappointing that other games haven't included them, but not too surprising.

[Lantyssa]

There's several of us.  I loved the Dark Defender power sets.  Once power customization came in, I could keep the effects while changing the looks and theme which just made me even happier.

And Superjump.

Damn, I'm sad now.

[kaid]

Which I think is part of the reason the "trinity" has shifted to Tank, Heal, DPS vs. Tank, Heal, Support (throw dps in).  It becomes too easy to trivialize encounters if Control was stacked, or too difficult to do if you designed around stack control but didn't have one.   

Another part is they only are enjoyable to a narrow band of players.  Even though they were mandatory in EQ, (and really powerful) you had a very small segment of players running them.   Even smaller than the oft-groused-about Tank and Healer shortage in other DIKUs.  They require thought and creativity to fully utilize their power, so is it any surprise they're not as widely-played as the easy gratification of "BIG NUMBARS" DPS classes?

It's disappointing that other games haven't included them, but not too surprising.

One reason not a lot of people play the support characters in Most MMO is because they are pure heal bitches whose sole job is to play the green bar mini game. In COH some "support" like darkness actually was mostly offensive with lots of debuffing/controls. Unless you chose a more pure healer type defender/controller you never needed to play the mini bar game. You did your thing and by doing your thing you boosted the survivability of your group.

I cannot recall another MMO that really had non healer support classes that could obviate the need for having a healer in the group. Some had things like bards but having one did not replace the need for a healer which limited their usefulness.

[Zetor]

I play support/control almost exclusively, in all games (back in WOW vanilla, I liked juggling three and a half different CCs at the same time with my warlock). In COH my main was originally an ill/rad controller, then later a rad/sonic defender. In COH the basic grouping dynamic was "get enough debuffs / buffs", everything else was secondary. Doing task forces with all-defender and/or controller groups was pretty amusing (and effective), as all sub-EB/AV mobs were permanently held and EB/AVs were debuffed to uselessness and reduced to beating on invulnerable pets or super-buffed players.

Even though I played off and on since launch, my favorite thing in COH was the Mission Architect from 2009 on. It was a damn solid system for player-created content in MMOs, and that stuff has appealed to me ever since my MUD builder / GM days in the 90s. In fact, I don't think any other game on the market with a similar system (sto foundry, eq2 dungeon creation are the two I know about) comes close to the MA's capabilities.

[Rendakor]

I also loved CoH support characters. My main (and only 50) was a Kinetic Defender; debuffing mobs, buffing the group and giving everyone Super Jump was a blast. I very rarely had to use my heal because the debuffs were so good. I also had an Ice Controller who was fun because I didn't use stuns; I used Ice Slick and Arctic Air so the mobs would alternate between attacking one another and falling on their asses.

[Kageru]

It was a game from an era when combat didn't have to be carefully calibrated for a positive gaming experience. They'd throw hordes of mobs at a full team, with the same powers the players had, and dealing with it was your problem. It was chaotic, epic and fun.. and sometimes you'd just get your asses kicked. But it couldn't be tuned to be progression content in way WoW made standard.

That's partly why meaningful CC, let alone something on the CoH level, doesn't happen anymore. It's so powerful in the hands of skilled players (as it was in EQ) that it makes it impossible to balance the challenge for poor players or parties without CC.

[Stormwaltz]

I just adored my Storm Defender. She was a self-propelled buff-bunker. Once my regular group all quit, though, she was unplayable solo. I made her on day one of live service - which for me meant the pre-start. I watched the servers close logged in with her. In eight years, she only reached level 31.

There was so much of that game I just never had a chance to see...

[Merusk]

Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal?

Numbers on blasters, scrappers vs controllers?  Numbers on enchanters vs. other classes?  Yes, control is popular among this group but I thought we realized that this forums demographics are way off the norm.

[Nevermore]

I absolutely adore 'aggressive' support characters, meaning characters with abilities that help my team while I can stay focused on the enemies.  My most played characters included:

Gravity/Kinetic Controller
Earth/Storm Controller
Illusion/Radiation Controller (see a theme?  )
Mind Control/Fire Assault Dominator
Ice/Dark Corruptor (which had comparable control to a Controller/Dominator)

No other game that I've played has had that kind of playstyle, which is a damned shame.  So Gothika, Terra Firma, Marionette, Fantasia and Iceblink will always have a special place in my heart.  I won't say RIP because as far as I'm concerned, they're all still off doing their thing in Paragon City and the Rogue Isles even though I can't log into the servers anymore.  They certainly can't be defeated by a mere server shutdown. 

[Kitsune]

I had a robots/forcefield mastermind, and it felt almost like cheating.  Not only was I throwing forcefields on everyone, my protector bots were also throwing forcefields on everyone, and they stacked.  On top of making my entire team vastly harder to hurt, I was pouring robots into a room and OMG LASERS.  The only downside is that there wasn't much for me to personally do in fights; my attack powers were weak and primarily just to knock down anything that tried to run up and kill me so my robots could then laser it to death.

[Ingmar]

MMs were pretty ridiculously overpowered in basically every facet of PVE. What's kind of amazing is that for the most part they just let that be.

[Trippy]

They weren't so hot on TFs/SFs, though.

[Numtini]

Fire/rad controller and rad/rad defender. Love debuffers.

I loathed MMs. They were fun enough alone, but the first time you were in a group with three or four of them, the masses of minions just got insane.

[Sjofn]

The only downside for my mastermind Mrs. Roboto was that her babies were REALLY NOISY.

KLANG KLANG KLANG KLANG KLANG

My highest level character was Ghost Blossom the martial arts/whatever the hell the tree with all the regen shit was scrapper, I think she was 38 or 39. I got a fair number of characters into the 30's, then the fun would drop off considerably and I'd start someone new.


I'm mad at myself for forgetting to log in and screenshot some of my heroes.

[Zetor]

MMs were really bad in incarnate trials. 'Last Sheriff' (therm/thugs) and his buddies 'Good/Bad/Ugly', 'Butch Cassidy/Sundance Kid' and 'Wyatt Earp' just stuck to regular groups and soloing and did fine, though.  

e: Doom Metal (rad/sonic defender) was where it was at, though. Pop AM so everyone was happy, maybe put on some debuffs, and bring on the pew pew. I even used the ghost slayer battle axe for the requisite METAL FACTOR, Brütal Legend-style (wish it could be reskinned to a guitar, but ah well) as well as Total Focus (long-ass animation melee attack) from the energy epic power pool. And no, I didn't have the PBAOE heal on autocast. :p

[Mrbloodworth]

So who is going to make the next CoH I wonder.

[Mattemeo]

They weren't so hot on TFs/SFs, though.

They were utterly hilarious in PvP, though. I ran a Thug/Poison MM for a while (she got grandfathered to another server before they upped the per-server char limit) who basically preyed on Blasters, but most anyone was a valid target. Pink insps were a must-have, though, cause it was really easy to screw an MM over with teleport foe.

[Lantyssa]

They certainly can't be defeated by a mere server shutdown. 

Beautiful. 

[Simond]

So who is going to make the next CoH I wonder.

Nobody? I mean, if your MMO died while Vanguard (for example) is still going then it's not exactly making a good case for a follow-up.

[Trippy]

NCsoft's decision, though, was unusual. The game was making them money (albeit not a lot). Shutting down MMOs like Auto Assault and Tabula Rasa made sense, but not for CoH.

[Ingmar]

NCsoft's decision, though, was unusual. The game was making them money (albeit not a lot). Shutting down MMOs like Auto Assault and Tabula Rasa made sense, but not for CoH.

I would go so far as to say it almost certainly was making more money than, say, Warhammer Online or some of SOE's malingerers.

[Falconeer]

You all know I am broken, so no one is gonna be surprised when I'll say that I was in love with Auto Assault and I miss it a lot. It was our only shot at Car Wars/Auto Duel in this century, and they killed it and it's never gonna happen again. Sorry for the derail.

[Venkman]

Aren't we past apologizing for derails?

I did enjoy Auto Assault a lot. Until they bolted on the avatard portion 

[Trippy]

Driving games of that type that aren't in first person and let you drive around in reverse with no disadvantages are fundamentally broken, IMO, since you just drive around in reverse while shooting your main front facing guns at all the things that are chasing you. Same issue with first/3rd-person shooters that have lots of melee range enemies and let you move backwards with no speed penalty.

[Ingmar]

I  :heart:ed Auto Assault, unironically. I didn't really want real driving mechanics, that probably would have made me like it less.

[Surlyboi]

I really liked Tabula Rasa.

That said, some of the best times I ever had in any game were spent providing cover (and one time falling asleep in the middle of a raid with) my favorite enchanter in EQ. He made even the toughest trinity encounters trivial with his CC skills.

[Kageru]

I liked Tabula Rasa too, and loved watching enchanters do their thing in EQ... especially since I was a cleric (crack please!).

EQ, CoH... all games from an earlier age. And even though EQ is still running, I think, it's not remotely the same game.