So I’ve started playing city of heroes, I’ve gotten my mage to lvl 60 in World of Warcraft and am getting really sick of doing the same instances over and over, consequently I decided to give something else a try.
I’ve got my Blaster to lvl 10 and I’m already bored to tears. There only seems to be one area I can play in at the moment (the hollows) and the game seems determined to only allow me one mission to be going on with at a time. The enemies outside seem to be clustered in large groups that are either stupidly powerful or too low in lvl to give me much experience and all of the enemies I’ve fought to this point seem to be pretty much identical. The missions always seem to involve entering a building and killing some more cloned bad guys.
I understand that most of these games start off slow, all I want is some reassurance that the missions will get more numerous and complicated and the baddies will get a bit more varied and the game in general will get a bit less repetitive. Anyone here play?
The Hollows is one of the least interesting parts of the game. Fortunatly, you can skip it the Hollows is a side quest which doesn’t lead to any other zones. If you slog through all the missions in the Holows, it leads to the Cavern of Trancendance trial, and that’s it.
If you don’t want to do the Hollows, simply finish wahtever mission you’re on, return to the contact which gave it to you, then don’t take another one from him. Return to your other contacts, they should give you other things to do.
Here’s a guide of what you can look forawrd to in the rest of the game:
Ditto on skipping the Hollows. Apart from the fact that the zone has a nice varied look, the type of enemies in the Hollows rather breaks the level-up scale of most of the defensive power sets, introducing players early to things against which their defenses develop much later. The location of the door missions is really poorly placed; sometimes a level 6 has to run through level 15 territory to get where he’s going. It can be a frustrating waste of time.
However, as much as I enjoy the game, every mission you do consists of staying outside and hunting bad guys, or going inside and hunting bad guys. Occasionally you will have to click on targets (glowies) in the shapes of secret information or bombs to defuse; occasionally a hostage will thank you for rescuing him; once in a great while you’ll have to defend a destructible item which the bad guys are bent on destroying.
The bad guys get more complicated, yes. Not to spoil any major surprises, but:
[ul]
[li]Vahzilok Mortificators will sometimes revive their fallen zombie comrades[/li][li]sometimes fallen Freakshow will revive themselves[/li][li]Tsoo Sorcerers teleport around, healing the enemies as you try to take them down[/li][li]Devouring Earth plant nasty enemy-buffing devices on the ground[/li][li]leaving some missions will spawn an ambush of nasties who will then chase you[/li][li]Sky Raider Engineers deploy hovering force-field devices to protect his allies (i.e., your foes)[/li][li]Clockwork Assembler Dukes and Banished Pantheon Death Shaman summon more bad guys mid-battle and send them at you[/li][li]you don’t want to ask about Knives of Artemis and caltrops[/li][li]…or about Malta Sappers[/li][li]…or the giant Zeus Titan robot[/li][/ul]
In Issue 5 there will evidently be more mission variety. NPC heroes will fight alongside you in the missions. You will have missions where you must escort a citizen to safety. You might also be able to fight fires in Steel Canyon.
At some point in the future they will add skills that give players more of a variety of things to do besides combat. However, I have not heard that these skills include crafting or loot-making items for sale. What exactly they will be remains something of a mystery.
There’s also talk that the University that some NPCs are building in a particular area will enable players to go and learn additional skills or something like that.
Hollows are bleh. Did it once, now I avoid it. I’d rather slog through the same missions in King’s Row all over again.
There are two early breakpoints in CoH, where you feel big jumps in play. First is level 14, the first level you get a movement power. As much as I love to start ‘alts’, I hate waiting for level 14 and the ability to zip through the zones.
The second is level 22, where you switch to Single Origin enhancements. Suddenly, you start really feeling super. If you thought Dual Origins were nice up until that point, you’ll really start to party now.
Best way to get from level 11 to 14 is the Positron Task Force in Steel Canyon. Some teams might look past you (very tough for low levels), but if you can get one willing to sidekick you, the XP bubbles will fill like they were the minute hand on a clock.