COH lv10+

Cooktastico

I've played up to level 10 from the trial and it's been the same thing over and over. Is the entire game a repetition just with larger/tougher mobs or are there eventually some interesting quest chains that come along and stuff like that?

Nihilx

Nope, pretty much the same over and over. 

Cooktastico

Haha well that's a bust.

Techleo

   I guess for me Im like any hero. You fight crimes and you save the city. Eventually it gets repetious even for the most adventerous heros. I mean how many woman can you save from being murdered. Nah its not the actions that drive a hero its the backstory of personal motivations and personal desires. You mite want to get that one realy BAD guy and need to go thru a bunch to get thru him. Also for me the combats a blast, I love the energy of it. Well anyways I enjoy it. I just cant wait tell the random content is added like In CoV's newspaper adds. THatll be pretty darn soon to.

Amarsir

I can't give you as complete an example as I'd like because you didn't tell me exactly what you find repetitive, but I'll take a stab at it.

Story Lines

Your hero is growing in experience and stature. So far he's stopping a purse-snatcher or retreiving a stolen painting. Not quite epic crime-fighting yet.

From 10-20, that starts to phase out. Get a mission because you're starting to gain some fame and the public comes to you to rescue someone. Or you start tracing a new drug back to it's source and bust the kingpins. Or bust up a gangwar or crime ring. You might even get your first experience with an Arch-Villain (that one being Dr. Vhazilok).

20-30 you start dealing with plots more extensively. The Banished Pantheon are trying to unlock the secrets of an ancient powerful item. The Tsoo are tracking down some powerful artifacts of their own. The Sky Raiders somehow are using weapons designed and produced via government contracts. And those fun-loving freaks have spread out on a scavenger hunt to see which ones can cause the most damage.

30-40 the plots continue, but broaden in scope. Where are these Devouring Earth coming from? Why are the Rikti aliens so interested in human medicine? The Circle of Thorns is trapping souls and conjuring up demons. And what is up with Crey Industries - are the Crey-trained Paragon Protector heroes really on the publc's side? Arch-Villains start becoming common here.

By 40-50, you're saving the world, and even travelling to other dimensions to save those. The para-military group Malta (and associates) want to protect everyone via a new order, and aren't afraid to send their mechs out to shoot down planes if it helps their goals. The Centuries-old Nemesis has his own ideas in that regard, but instead of secret military his soldiers are out earning the public's favor - with steam powered weapons no less. Portal Corporation has contacted other dimensions, and found the Praetorian dimension is reversed with SuperHeroes like Miss Liberty and Statesman choosing to be evil - and you can bet they're coming here. In fact, Paragon's biggest hero Statesman has been taken hostage and a rescue party needs to go after him. Arch-Villains all over the place here.

And these are just examples.

So you can see the story really grows. Up to 10, you haven't met any story arcs yet (that'd be "quest chains" to you I suspect). The villains are pretty vanilla and your deeds are minor. Check the stories, they will get more and more interesting. Along those lines, also look into joining TaskForces. These are teams put together for a specific arc where the same team has to run a number of missions tracking down something big at the request of one of the city heroes like Positron or Synapse. It takes a few hours but is a good experience with interesting story and almost always an Arch-Villain at the end. (Positron's, the 10-15 one, is the exception because the worst bad guy is only an Elite Boss, but he's still interesting.)

Combat
As you've probably noticed, combat is more complex now than it was at level 2 because you have more powers. That improvement continues as you go up in levels and it does make combat more interesting. What you have to look forward to varies by Archetype and Powersets, but there were certain levels when a new power would completely change the way I play.

To that end, the team you play on changes things too. Teaming with different players and their choices can create unique experiences for each of the different combinations. Up to 10 teams probably broke down to a healer trying to keep everyone alive and everyone else doing their own little attack things. That'll change as roles get more fleshed out and other methods become available. (Especially if you're a tactical person with flexible strategies. Some people settle into a very fixed way to play of Tank first, Scrappers flank him, Blasters, defenders and controllers on the back line. It works, but it's not the only or best way.)

Also, as you may have picked out from the stories above, new villains come in. The existing ones change too - clockwork haven't been trapping you in Tesla cages yet, but they will. Circle of Thorns start getting some spirit help. And the Tsoo with a ninja/magic flavor start making appearances very soon. The gang members you're used to are pretty vanilla, but the groups add a decent bit of variety. Tsoo or CoT spirits can turn invisible and fly away when they get low on health, only to return when you're not expecting them. Sky Raider engineers can set up Force Field generators to protect their group if you don't stop them soon enough. Banished Pantheon shamans can summon waves of zombies to fight for them or hit you with weather effects. Etc etc.

And the Arch-Villains I mentioned are always unique. They have powers not widely available, or at minimum just pack a heck of a shot. They take teamwork and coordination to beat. Tougher than them are Giant Monsters, who appear in most every zone and usually take more than 1 full team to beat them. (And award a badge).

Of course it's still always fighting. There's no crafting or anything like that in the game, at least not until next year at best. And if you choose not to vary your tactics, combat won't be nearly so interesting - and arguably not as successful either.

Scenery
This unfortunately is all too overlooked for some reason. Warehouses, sewers, and offices you will see from now until forever. There are several types of caves, and lab maps to add - but for the most part the tilesets will be the same. Special missions like the end of a story arc or a Task Force can have special graphics, and these tend to be really cool. (A screenshot of Dr. Vhazilok's sewer-based Labratory is my current Windows wallpaper.) But for the most part inside missions it's going to look the same forever.

Outside however can get more varied than what you've seen so far - and I happen to think Atlas Park is pretty cool. For the most part they all have the feeling of being unique districts in the city, and Founders Falls is especially nice when you get there. The ones that aren't so great (Faultline) are due for update very soon. But the best are zones added as part of the post-release expansions. Striga (20-30) and Croatoa (25-35) have wonderful feels to them and unique stories and enemies. Those are big favorites.

I hope that answers for you a bit. If you find it getting repetitive, switch to another character. I have yet to find any other game that plays as distinctly with different classes as this one does.

norse25

CoH really make YOU get into the game.  They don't do as much content wise in the early levels like WoW (good or bad, you decide).  You have to read the backstory and get into your character to really enjoy the environment.  I have also found that the soloability is lacking and unfun.  Grouping is a blast, but sitting down to solo for a 1/2 hour was not rewarding for me.

I fyou think that sounds like a lot of work to get into a game, then try the EVE free trial  Great game, but I don't have the time to get good at it.

jaytravis

A few posts above me has a pretty good layout of the actual storylines, but I would more or less agree with the second poster. It's pretty much all the same; you'll see a few new instance maps, but mainly you'll grind through the same ones over and over. And the new mobs don't really behave all that differently from the low-level ones, they may look different and even have some additional powers or tricks to throw at you, but their underlying behavior is the same and it gets very repetitive. A few gems, like the Task Forces and things like the CoV Mayhem missions mix things up, but IMHO those come all too infrequently.

I'd say CoH is fun in short controlled bursts.

Amarsir

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Originally posted by jaytravis
And the new mobs don't really behave all that differently from the low-level ones, they may look different and even have some additional powers or tricks to throw at you, but their underlying behavior is the same and it gets very repetitive.

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I can't really disagree too much. While we players learn to use terrain geometry in our tactics, the mobs never really learn not to run into a trap. (Though they are much better about spreading out and rounding corners widely than when the game was first released.) And of course minions especially aren't exactly active between their attacks recharging.

But is any game not like that? It seems to me that unless they made an AI then intentionally weakened it at lower levels, every game is going to have mobs that behave similarly. Or am I missing something?

Graug

I agree game can get repetitive but i love it and i have played EQ, EQ2, and Lineage 2 and can tell u this if they were all i had to look forward to i would just invest my time in Xbox or Playatation. If you want to make the game more interesting do what i do if there is another player on the team with similar power sets as you challenge them to see who is better at taking on groups, for instance i have a lvl 50 clwa/regen scrapper and was on a team with another regen our powers were neerly identicle but she claimed Moment of Glory was a better power to have than Instant Healing. So i chanllenged her to see which was better so we took turns knocking out groups of coures there werew 5 people total on the team so at lower lvl's u really cant do this in a big group but u get the point. Well she died first run and when it was my turn i had to deal with 2 DE bosses and 3 Leutinants and bout 7 minions yes i came close to gaining soem debt but hey i proved my point and had a blst doing it. Man im just rambeling huh ok ill end this now.

mbblade

well then you described all the MMO apart from the crafting system inmost of them