OK, I don't get it

[thunderforce]

I'm not posting this just to have a go at CO; convince me I'm wrong.

Downloaded the client. Created a character - Blade archetype. Apparently I don't get half the costume pieces until I've finished the tutorial. Did the tutorial, which wasn't so awful, and now out into the normal world. Got a travel power at level 6 - can't complain about that (well, I can - who thought a Super Jumper's limbs should windmill madly when in flight?)

But - level 6 already, and barely out of the tutorial? Is everyone doing these purple gang missions? The world feels small; incredibly small. I've pretty well gone from Defender to Kodiak, and a little beyond Kodiak, and... well, this isn't a lot bigger than Freedom Court Plaza and one other subzone of Galaxy City. By this point in City of X I was - well, I was being told to look for Circle of poxy Thorns hiding on top of buildings in Kings Row, but let's not dwell on that, at least that got fixed in later issues (and, more seriously, I'd have been to Galaxy, Atlas, KR, be close to sticking my nose into the Hollows and Perez. Gah. How could I forget Perez in my screenshots?)

And so far the combat's deeply unsatisfying. Run up to someone, my first attack spams itself, and I spam my second attack. Every now and then I am called upon to press the Shift key, which apparently is what qualifies it as an action game, although it sure looks like "Press X to not die" to me. The camera flails about unpredictably. Does it get better?

[Kaos Arcanna]

There aren't nearly as many zones in CO as there were in COX,  but the are more than Purple Gang to fight.

Once you reach a certain level-- I want to say 12 or so-- you can go to Canada or the American Desert Crises. Completing one of those Crises will open up the rest of MC to you.

So far, the coolest things to fight in CO I've found are the dinosaurs (raptors) in Canada proper.

[thunderforce]

There aren't nearly as many zones in CO as there were in COX,  but the are more than Purple Gang to fight.

Right, but is everyone at the point I'm at fighting the Purple Gang, whereas in City of X you might be after Hellions, Skulls, Outcasts, Clockwork, Circle of Thorns, or Vahzilok?

[Kaiser Tarantula]

A lot of the early missions are up against the Purple Gang, but you'll soon get a mission that introduces the other gangs of Westside - the Cult of the Red Banner (Chinese Tongs), the Cobra Lords (Bikers with a love of muscle and fitness), the Black Aces (Playing-card themed burglars with a surprising leader), and the Maniacs (psychotics and crazies who just enjoy mayhem).  Along the way you'll also have to deal with Escaped Prisoners, who aren't so much a gang as they are recent escapees from either Westside's jail or Stronghold Prison.

[RubiconX]

And so far the combat's deeply unsatisfying. Run up to someone, my first attack spams itself, and I spam my second attack. Every now and then I am called upon to press the Shift key, which apparently is what qualifies it as an action game, although it sure looks like "Press X to not die" to me. The camera flails about unpredictably. Does it get better?

I was right with you but I gave it some time and checking out the threads on here with info on the game play, also read over the in-game help which is pretty good actually. After you get to lvl10+ it gets much better IMO, I think the big thing is just getting over that it's not CoH and try to enjoy it for what it is.

The combat gets better and if you adjust your combat settings to be more like the CoH settings, thread on here about that, it makes a difference. You do start to fight different groups and some are pretty neat. So far the mission arcs are pretty lame but some of the mission types are a nice change to the same ol warehouse missions in CoH.

[Kistulot]

Also, as a strong suggestion, do not roll alts too quickly.

The beginning will be very redundant, so it's best you hold off on doing so unless you really want to feel how other powers work. Doing westside for the fourth time in a row is less exciting - though it did help me recapture a nostalgic feeling for them much like going through Faultline's arc.

[thunderforce]

Doing westside for the fourth time in a row is less exciting - though it did help me recapture a nostalgic feeling for them much like going through Faultline's arc.

Faultline? Ha. Spring chicken. For me... well, the revelation I had in CoX was realising one did not have to go to the Hollows.

(Seriously, though, I'll see how it pans out.)

[emu265]

There aren't nearly as many zones in CO as there were in COX,  but the are more than Purple Gang to fight.

Once you reach a certain level-- I want to say 12 or so-- you can go to Canada or the American Desert Crises. Completing one of those Crises will open up the rest of MC to you.

So far, the coolest things to fight in CO I've found are the dinosaurs (raptors) in Canada proper.

Raptors... in Canada...?  Oh, that is amusing.

[crayehal]

And so far the combat's deeply unsatisfying. Run up to someone, my first attack spams itself, and I spam my second attack. Every now and then I am called upon to press the Shift key...

How is that different from CoH?  If I recall, CoH also has about 2-3 attack powers at level 6.  If you are a vet, you can add Sands of Mu, Nemi staff or Black wand to your tray.  Just like any other game, CO takes some getting used to.
As for teams, you're not going to see a lot of folks lft in the Zone channel.  It was that way in 2009, and it has remained about the same except for alerts and certain events.  Also, you're not going to see lvl 1s tagging along with lvl 40s.  This is because lvl 1s get more xp solo.  To get the same xp/rewards as the team leader, you need to:
- have the same mission as the team leader
- be +/-3  to team leader's level

If you are not, then you will:
- get as much as 50% less xp than the leader
- if the leader didn't share the quest, you get 0 quest complete bonus.  Quest complete bonus can be as high as 20,000 xp, and imagine spending 30 mins with a team and not getting any of that.

As you can see, from an xp standpoint, there are a lot of disadvantages to teaming in CO, except for alerts.  Tagging along with a lvl 40 for the kills won't help much, since each minion gives around 50-100 xp and each boss around 75-200 xp.  Even worse if you are not +/-3 from the leader,  you will get 25-50 xp for minions and 40-100 xp for bosses.  This means you get most of your xp from quest completion bonus, so a lot of players solo to get 100% of the kills and the quest complete bonus.
To get an idea if teaming works out for you, create a new tab for rewards and xp.  Do a solo quest and then do one in a team.  Compare the rewards and xp and then decide whether to solo or team.

And yes, Canada is where all the bad things are happening. :p

FYI, Lemuria Crisis is broken.  Even if you get it, there's a chance the 2nd mission will split the team and the contact sometimes won't give the next mission.

[Kaos Arcanna]

Raptors... in Canada...?  Oh, that is amusing.

There's also a Bigfoot village where they speak Hollywood American Indian.

[Kistulot]

Faultline? Ha. Spring chicken. For me... well, the revelation I had in CoX was realising one did not have to go to the Hollows.

(Seriously, though, I'll see how it pans out.)

It's not that I never did The Hallows, or never did them several times (because I did! Really! Honest!) it's more that Faultline more accurately described the way I felt. Overall fun, neat plot, but some doors that were ugh to find, some filler, and some less than fun moments depending on character.

The Hallows were by comparison much more straightforward, and except for the final mish with Frostfire, the sort of stuff you'd find from radios.

[faith.grins]

Playing Champions Online feels like I'm wearing someone else's clothes.  I can't quantify it, but I have a strong sense of other-ness playing this game.  In City of Heroes, I felt like I was participating in something.  In Champions Online, I cannot shake the feeling that I am playing with someone else's toys.

And this isn't just a function of going from the familiar and the comfortable to the strange and new.  I purchased The Secret World a couple weeks ago, and I can jump into that without much problem.  It feels like a desolate wasteland of a community, but the game itself I have no problem with.  I've also dipped my toes into SW:TOR, and I feel like I already know how it works, and I haven't even left the starting zone.  But I jump into Champions, and I can't hold aggro on teams even though I'm playing a Tanking role and I'm using powers that have improved threat generation.  When I do hold aggro, I tend to get face-planted pretty quickly, especially in Alerts that aren't named "Museum Heist."  The workings of this game are a complete mystery to me, and even though I like the pacing of the game, and I've found some of the missions and storylines in it to be interesting, I feel completely out of my depth, here.  When I try to look at the official forums for help with tanking, or for general advice on builds, I find archived posts with outdated information, or I find conflicting advice from players who have radically different build philosophies.

I guess some of this is to be expected, given that this is a game developed by Jack Emmert, who didn't actually understand the threat mechanics of City of Heroes (or, if he did, never bothered to explain them to anyone else) and believed that showing players a bunch of numbers would only confuse them.  But the bottom line is that I still feel completely at sea in CO.  I haven't found my bearings, and I'm starting to wonder if I ever will.

[thunderforce]

How is that different from CoH?  If I recall, CoH also has about 2-3 attack powers at level 6.  If you are a vet, you can add Sands of Mu, Nemi staff or Black wand to your tray.  Just like any other game, CO takes some getting used to.

Hang about - if I'm a class oriented around attacks, I should have 2 attack powers at level 2 in CoH, right when I emerge from the tutorial - definitely 3 by level 6. And Brawl and the origin-based newbie snipe - not a lot of use, but something to do. (And in all fairness, I was getting two veteran attacks later in my CoH life, but let's pretend I don't).

But yes, cycling those 3 powers wasn't the best bit of my CoH experience, no doubting that - but I'd seen more than one kind of enemy outside the tutorial, I had a sense that enemies had more flavour than just damage, and at least I had something to do in combat besides spam attack #2 and press Shift to not die.

[thunderforce]

The Hallows were by comparison much more straightforward, and except for the final mish with Frostfire, the sort of stuff you'd find from radios.

I actually like the Faultline arc, Elite Bosses or no, but I was more observing this depends on when you joined. Back in the day, Faultline was a pointless ruin, like Boomtown only much harder to get around, and the Hollows...

1) The position of mission doors was not closely related to difficulty - a level 5 mission could well be on the other side to the AP door. You'd die en route. Repeatedly.
2) No-one had a travel power - no buying jetpacks from the Arena, or getting them from Safeguard missions. If you were really lucky a Force Fielder could superbubble up and walk across, or a Hoverer could Hover across - then Recall Friend.
3) There was no hospital in the Hollows. Anyone who couldn't be rezzed in-mission was walking back from Atlas Park.
4) Lots of people thought Invincible was just a title, not a difficulty setting.
5) To put the icing on the cake, lots of Hollows PUGs wouldn't move an inch in-mission if anyone was walking back from hospital, because "they'll miss out on XP" - never mind that the practical effect of this policy was that no-one got any XP because you spent 95% of your time waiting.

In a sense, I appreciate the Hollows - it was the first Hazard Zone with the "10 levels, 4 contacts, zone arc" format that was so strong in Striga, a definite step forward in game design from the street sweeping zones like Perez. But I still didn't really want to go back there.

[Little Green Frog]

Funny how it works. Ever since newer and more player friendly zones sucked people away from Hollows, I've been really missing the zone and all the things that you pointed out.

[Tenzhi]

And so far the combat's deeply unsatisfying. Run up to someone, my first attack spams itself, and I spam my second attack. Every now and then I am called upon to press the Shift key, which apparently is what qualifies it as an action game, although it sure looks like "Press X to not die" to me. The camera flails about unpredictably. Does it get better?

The camera goes exactly where I move it for me.  And I don't have my first attack on auto.  And somehow the frenetic limited spam is more satisfying to me than attack-wait-attack-wait-attack-run-out-of-blue-sit-on-thumbs-attack-rest...

[AlphaFerret]

It does get better.  The biggest thing to get used to is the "energy builder."  In COH we were used to our toon acting as we pressed whatever attack we were using.  In CO, the energy builder continues to roll as long as it is toggled on...so your character is seemingly acting on it's own volition.  Once you learn to ignore the continual auto-attack running, and focus on what powers you want to utilize, the easier it gets to function.  I am only level 21, but I hear that on later levels that the energy builder is not really needed.  Just make sure you take some sort of self heal.  I was gimped for quite a while without one.

[JaguarX]

The camera goes exactly where I move it for me.  And I don't have my first attack on auto.  And somehow the frenetic limited spam is more satisfying to me than attack-wait-attack-wait-attack-run-out-of-blue-sit-on-thumbs-attack-rest...

yeah. wasnt so bad in COX when I played. Then I tried different game mechanic that was faster and then I couldnt go back to it. It seemed sooooo slow in compare.

Best thing to do first after setting up buttons to taste is to not have energey builder on auto especially if a person is not used to it. I dont mind it and used to it by this point, especially on the range energy builders. Melee, I usually turn off the auto.

[SARobb]

I am only level 21, but I hear that on later levels that the energy builder is not really needed.  Just make sure you take some sort of self heal.  I was gimped for quite a while without one.

I run a level 36 pure Electric toon (very, very blaster-centric).  My energy generation is so high, that if I run down my energy with a ... electric storm for example .. My energy builder pops twice before I can trigger Gigabolt and I'm at full energy again.  Now if I could stop generating twice as much hate as I do energy I'd be good.   

In all seriousness though, when you first start out your energy builder is a good source of constant damage, and some of them have some nifty side effects as well.

[General Idiot]

If you're freeform grab Evasive Mauevers from Archery. It's a reverse lunge (flings you away from enemies rather than toward them) which if you take the Sleight of Mind advantage will also dump aggro. Smoke Bomb from any of the martial arts sets will do the same, and is a 100% chance while Evasive Mauevers with the advantage is only 50% chance, but has a much longer cooldown.