Of all the nights for my internet connection to be crappy... sob.
Anyway, here's a little background on the game.
Making a Toon
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Blasters are really hard to play because they have ZERO defense. Tanks are super-easy to play because they're impossible to kill (at low levels, they don't kill anything on their own, but they try to keep bad guys attacking them and not the squishies). Scrappers are easy to play because they have both good offense and defense, and they solo best. Controllers are hard - zero offense - until level 32, at which point playing them practically becomes cheating. Defenders are kind of tough to play but serve to kind of amplify everything that's going on with a team, offensive and defensively.
Fire- anything means powerful area of effect powers. Fire Tanks are considered by almost everyone to be the easiest thing to play. Fire controllers have a powerful pet at level 32, Fire Blasters have godly attacks starting at very low levels.
Energy blasting powers do knockback, which no one likes. Energy Punching sets (tank and blaster secondaries) are very powerful, though.
Storm defenders have powers no one understands, and they are also disliked. Radiation defenders have a well-balanced primary. Dark primary is an offensive debuffing set with an unreliable heal. Ditto with Kinetics. Force Field only has a couple good powers. Empathy is close to the classic Healer type (less useful at the end of the game, but godly early on!).
Secondaries - Rad has excellent AoE damage but the single target powers are weak. Dark has lots of special effects and controls. Psi doesn't get good powers until later than the other sets (not for beginners!). Electricity does middling single-target damage and drains energy from bad guys.
Almost all scrappers use regeneration primary- about 70%, I think. Dark Armor is considered very hard to play because it requires micromanagement. Invulnerability doesn't work as well as the Tank version, but it's still impressive by the end of the game. Super Reflexes is considered less desireable because it doesn't help you if you actually do get hit (you just get hit less often).
Most scrapper primaries involve drawing a weapon. That's annoying while you're fighting because some things you do will make you put the weapon away. Katana has fast, cool animations, but Broadsword does more damage with its slower attacks. Martial Arts does middling damage but has lots of special effects. Spines does AoE damage (that is a good thing, almost always). Dark Melee is fast but does little damage per attack.
Blasters come in two flavors: AoE and single-target. Fire and Assault Rifle are the two AoE sets. Both are good. Of the single target sets, Ice does damage the fastest, and has lots of special effects. Energy is considered annoying for knockback, but each attack hits harder than ice. Electricity has lots of special effects but does the least damage.
Blaster secondaries: The two that are considered most worthwhile are Energy, for early damage boosting and powerful melee attacks (note: most blasters don't belong in melee, ever), or Devices, which has some very useful "bomb" attacks but no way to boost damage. The other sets just have different levels of suckiness. Fire secondary is suckiest of all.
Controllers: Most are Fire or Illusion, on the strength of the pets they eventually get. Illusion's come earlier, but they have the least "controller" powers. Fire has slightly better controls, but not nearly as good as the other types. Of the other sets, Ice is probably the friendliest to play. Stone is similar and more powerful for control but your powers all look like someone just took a crap. Gravity looks COOL and has good controls, but there are some bad powers in the set as well. Most people don't like Mind controllers. They don't get a pet at all and their controls are easy to break. On the other hand, Mind controllers are HILARIOUS to play because they have Confusion powers that can make bad guys attack each other.
Controller secondaries are defender primaries, except they don't have access to the Dark set. Storm and Force Field both work better on controllers, but Radiation and Kinetics eventually buff damage, making them more powerful with pets. The controller versions of defender powers are usually only 75% as effective as the defender versions.
Tanks: Fire is the only tank with real offense - and a powerful one it is, but they also have the least defenses. Invulnerable tanks pretty much are, eventually. Stone tanks are literally unkillable but for that they get to look like they are covered in crap and have huge penalties to movement (but they make cool noises when they walk!) Ice Tanks have the same problems as Super-Reflex scrappers and are widely considered the worst tank to play.
Tank secondaries are all kinda weak for damage, but most of them look cool. Energy has awesome single-target damage very late in the set (it's crappy, early on). Super-Strength just isn't all that super but it's a common choice for theme. Fire has decent AoE attacks but no standout power. Ice has a couple really cool control powers, but almost nothing that does damage. Stone (big, badass hammer) has good attacks late in its set. Axe looks cool as hell but the attacks are VERY slow to recharge and drain a lot of your energy per attack. No one takes Mace, because it does knockback, which is highly counterproductive to playing a Tank.
There are two other options for people who have already finished a level 50 character, called Peacebringer and Warshade. These guys can be built as blaster-like, defender-like or tank-like, or a mix of all three. They don't do anything particularly WELL. Mainly the cool thing about 'em is they start with the power to Fly or to Teleport.
I don't know what to tell you to start with. I find Scrappers boring, personally, but they are easy to play. Everyone likes Blasters but they're frustrating. Tanks won't seem that impressive in the early going, nor controllers. I like to play defenders but there's a learning curve on the powers, and they're hard to play solo.
You also have to select an Origin prior to starting play. Origins determine which kinds of power enhancements you can use, and what kinds of bad guys your contacts will send you out to fight on your missions.
Natural is a good choice for a first timer. Nats fight The Council, who are your basic Gun-toting Nazis. Natural Power Enhancements are easy to come by.
Magic is also a decent choice. Magic Origin-types fight Hellions (street gang pansies) and then Circle of Thorns (CoTs are a pain in the butt, especially their base maps), but Magic has very common enhancement drops.
Technology is an origin I've never done. I don't know who their starting bad guys are, but enhancements are somewhat common.
Science has a really challenging starting bad guy, the Vahzilok. From level 1 to level 20, they are the toughest bad guys in the game. Not only that, Science enhancements don't drop very often because no one likes to fight the things that drop science enhancements later on, either.
Mutants have almost as rough a time as Science. They start out fighting the Lost (mind controlling homeless people with huge swords). Mutant drops are few and far between.
The costume editor is one of the coolest parts of the game. You spend a lot of time looking at your character's backside, so I pretty much always make female characters - they have more costume options, and people tend to treat you better.
It's possible to change your character's outfit in-game, but it's expensive and dangerous for low-level types to do it, so take care to make a costume you're happy with. Starting out, you can't have a cape. You have to earn one.
It's not cool to base a costume or name a hero after a recognizable character. If a GM notices, they'll make you change whatever offends them. They do scans for banned names a few times a month.
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Starting Play
You start in a zone called OutBreak, which is the tutorial zone. Doing Outbreak is a good idea for a first-time player, since it explains the controls n' stuff.
At the end of Outbreak you're given a choice of starting in Atlas Park or Galaxy City. Atlas looks cooler, and has easier bad guys, but in my opinion it's harder to get around that zone with a low-level character. I always start my new toons in Galaxy City, which has harder starting bad guys (Vahzilok - acid spewing zombies, and Clockwork - which have nasty energy attacks) in addition to the chumps that populate Atlas, but is much easier to move around in.
When you come out of Outbreak you will be facing your Starting Zone's trainer. You'll want to walk up and talk to him/her immediately. This will let you select your level 2 power.
Subsequently, you will gain either two Enhancement slots (at odd levels) or a new power (even levels) every time you train up.
Enhancement slots are accessed from your power tray (defaults to lower right hand corner, click "enhancements" and then "manage" to see 'em). As you fight things, they will drop Enhancements that can be dragged into your slots to increase the effectiveness of your powers. Later, when you have Influence, you can buy them, either from the Field Trainers that are in most zones, or from special stores.
Each power you have can take certain kinds of enhancements. Most attacks take damage or accuracy enhancements, for instance.
Training-level enhancements can be used by anyone, and improve powers by 8.3% or 5% per enhancement. Enhancements have a level range, listed at the bottom of the icon. You can use enhancements up to 3 levels higher than you are (level 2s can use level 5 enhancements). Higher level enhancements grant a greater bonus, +1% per level of difference. Lower level enhancements subtract by a like amount.
I don't usually bother with training origin enhancements. I save my money for when better enhancements are available.
Later on in the game (starting at level 12, if you have money to buy 'em, or around level 15 if you are trying to get drops), you'll be able to get Dual Origin Enhancements that only work for two of the 5 origins, but improve a power by 16% or 10%. Still later (level 22), you'll be able to obtain Single-origin enhancements that improve powers by 33% or 20%.
A power can have at most 6 slots. Enhancements always enhance the BASE of a power, rather than the base + other enhancements. So every SO literally adds 33%, up to a maximum of +200% effectiveness.
It is possibile to combine enhancements from the Manage Enhancements screen. You do this by clicking on a filled slot. You'll be prompted to select another enhancement of the same type (dual-origin damage resistance, or single-origin Healing... whatever's in that slot already) that you happen to already have. If the two successfully combine, you have a Level+ or level++ enhancement that is useful for one or two more levels.
It is always better to fill an empty slot than to combine two enhancments.
The enhancement thing is confusing but the tutorial and manual don't cover it very well. I've met people with 20th level characters who STILL don't understand it.
What Powers to Take
First of all, there's a downloadable manual on the coh.com web site. It hasn't been updated in a year. Some of the power descriptions are vastly out of date.
If you are REALLY worried about it, you can check the CoH forums at CoH.com. It's possible to build a completely gimpy character, but even that character is still going to be fun to play.
Slotting is actually more important at low levels. Usually the best powers to slot are the first two powers you took.
Usually it's better to slot defenses before offensive powers.
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Contacts and Missions
Your first contact will be marked on the screen with a yellow targeting pip. If you follow the pip, you'll be led into City Hall or Hero Corps, where you will meet your first contact. He or she will tell you to go do something (Kill 10 Skulls, Go examine a monument, go talk to a janitor who saw something strange). After you have accepted a mission, the mission location will become your yellow pip (unless it's a hunt). If you Click "Mission" on the HUD at the top center part of the screen you can select a mission as Active, which will turn the yellow pip red. You can have up to 3 missions, but only one can be active at a time.
Missions contain storyline content (you have to read your Clues and also on-screen dialog during missions to find out what's going on) and are generally acceptable for ANYONE to solo (classes made to solo, tanks and scrappers, often find missions too easy). Completing a mission gives a nice bonus to experience.
After you finish a mission, return to your contact and he'll give you another mission or a new contact. Eventually you'll get his phone number and you'll be able to just "phone in" your visit.
Contacts also sell Inspirations, short term power-ups. As a lowbie, you have a tray of four or eight (level 50s get 20) of these colorful little pills. Inspirations come in three sizes, but you won't see any but the lowest level ones until you're around level 20. Don't be afraid to use Inspirations before or during a fight! They drop constantly. In general, the most helpful inspirations are Purple (+defense), Blue (+Endurance) or Green (Healing). Red (+Damage) and Yellow (+Accuracy) are unspectacular at low levels. There are also Light Green (Resurrection) and Light Purple (Clear Status) inspirations. The weakest inspirations are 25% bumps in whatever statistic. The strongest are 50% bumps.
Inspirations have their own tray right above your power tray.
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Talking in Game
As you might expect, people who use the broadcast channels are annoying retards. Bear this in mind. Broadcasts are used less and less in non-Newbie zones. Really, the only legitimate things to use Broadcasts for are alerting players that some out-of-level-range bad guys are wandering around your zone, or for player events like Costume contests.
There are several channels in which one might communicate. They each have their own
tiny icon in the lowest part of the chat window.
The default channel is Local. Local communications show up in your chat window as white. Local can only be "heard" by players within about 50 feet of you.
Most likely, if you are on a team you will want to switch to the Team Channel (the little "T" icon at the very bottom of your chat window). Team Speech shows up green in your chat Window, and you can hear your teammates no matter where they are in game.
If you'd like to talk to one person privately, you can "send a tell". You can do this by typing
/t CharacterName, Thing I want to say
Case is important in the character name, as is that little #$%#$%ing comma.
If someone sends you a tell, hitting the backspace key will put in the "/t Charactername, " part.
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Grouping
It's impolite to just invite someone to a group. You should send a tell beforehand. "Pick up" groups are horribly inconsistent play experiences, but on the other hand, some toons can't function well solo.
If you don't like a group, make up and excuse ("I have to shave my cat.") and quit.
City of Heroes doesn't play like a lot of other MMOs, but lots of people think it does. They want a healer and a damage-sponge in every group. Neither of those things is always necessary.
One player in a group will be leader. That person can select from all team member's missions and invite to or kick people off the team. Teams have a maximum of eight members.
Big teams usually don't function very well. Nor do teams that have a big variation in level (more than about 4 levels).
Teaming is a big part of the game, and it's what makes the game fun. Soloing kind of misses the point of being in an MMO.
If you find a person you really like playing with, you can add him/her to your friends list. You can then see if that person is online when you are. Friends are only listed by the character name you've friended. Since many people play more than one toon, you might not see that person ever again.
If you REALLY like a person you're playing with, find out his Global Chat handle. These all you to send messages even across servers. You can set or view your global chat handle in the "Options" menu.
To send a global tell, do this:
/t @GlobalChatHandle, Thing I want to say
A good group that gets along well will sometimes form a Super Group. These can work many different ways, but for me it means not having to look for people to play with. The people in my group are people I met randomly in Pickup groups during my first four months of play.
Supergroups have their own Chat channel and can function as an extended friends list.
When playing in a group, make sure you know what everyone on your team can do. Right click on their names and look at their info. If you don't know what they do (very common for defenders and controllers), ASK.
Also, when teaming, don't run off and start fighting until everyone says they are ready or AT LEAST has full health and Endurance bars. Finally, if you are teaming, be sure to wait for whatever buffs your teammates have.
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Fighting
Rule #1: Do not attack something someone else - not on your team - is already fighting. If it happens, apologize. If someone else does it to you (and it'll happen) more than once, wander away or log off. Some people are just dicks. Don't be one of them.
Rule #2: Bad guys are ranked Grey - Green - Blue - White (even level) - Yellow - Orange - Red - Purple from least to most dangerous. There's no reason to attack a bad guy with a grey name. Attacking Reds or Purples on your own is a good way to get killed. If you are someplace where all the bad guys are red or purple, you probably should not be there. In general, Defenders and Blasters should content themselves with
Rule #3: Bad guys are also ranked by Importance: Minion - Lieutenant - Boss - ArchVillain - Monster. The higher up on THIS food chain, the more dangerous the bad guy is, the more powers he'll have, and the better he'll be able to hit and damage you (white minions have a 50% chance to hit).
Rule #4: Dying makes XP Debt. This is not the worst thing in the world. Don't whine. A good team makes it go away in minutes. If no one is around to resurrect you, you have to walk back from a hospital, which at low levels is actually more annoying than the debt.
Rule #5: Don't bite off more than you can chew. When you attack something, it and all its otherwise unoccupied friends will attack you back. This is called "aggro". You can manage who you piss off by using Line of sight (snipe, then run around a corner), or by getting a Tank to help you. Tanks all have powers that make things want to attack them more than you.
Rule #5a: Area of Effect powers will get you killed. Nothing creates more aggro than AoEs attacks.
Rule #5b: Blasters, in groups, attack LAST. Blasters should attack at range, even though some of their attacks are melee powers. Blasters that enter melee range die a lot.
Rule #6: There are two kinds of defenses - Damage Resistance, which makes attacks hurt you somewhat less than they would hurt someone else, and Defense, which prevents certain kinds of attacks from hitting in the first place. Most Tanks and Scrappers have some of both (Reflex Scrappers and Ice Tanks have only Defense, Fire Tanks have only Resistance, and Regeneration Scrappers have neither). This is a good thing to understand.
Rule #7: There are two ways to make a fight easier: Buff yourself or your teammates or Debuff the bad guys. Debuffs may or may not be noticeable. Everyone LOVES Radiation's Damage Resistance Debuff, because it's easy to see. No one notices the three or four powers that debuff enemy accuracy. This is what makes playing defenders (and controllers, to some degree) hard. Look for auras around bad guys, especially at their feet. A bad guy with a green or black cloud at his feet is an
anchor who is creating a zone of unpleasantness for the things you're fighting. Kill that thing last, if humanly possible.
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Travelling
You travel on foot at low levels. You can turn on a power called Sprint that makes you walk a little faster. Walking everywhere is incredibly obnoxious, one of the worst parts of the game.
At level 6 you are allowed to select a "pool power" that, at level 14, will lead to a proper travel power. Super Speed is the fastest travel power, and gives partial invisibility, but no vertical movement. Flying is slow, costs a lot of Endurance, but looks cool and is generally very safe. Teleportation is incredibly annoying and almost requires that you take at least the Hover power from the Flight pool to use properly. Leaping is TONS of fun, almost as fast as Super Speed, but dangerous for non-Tanks, because you can't always tell what's going to be at the spot where you land.
It is a good idea to keep a map open at all times. I detach mine from the HUD, make the window as small as possible and put it in the upper-right corner of my screen, underneath the personal status bars.
The city is divided up into walled zones (there's an in-game explanation for this). City Zones are interconnected by tunnels and by two train lines. The "Yellow Line" connects the low-level zones Altas Park, Galaxy City, King's Row, Steel Canyon and Skyway City. The "Green Line" connects some of the upper level zones: Steel Canyon, Independance Port, Talos Island and Brickstown.
To use a train, walk up to the central entrance and click on the train doors. You'll be offered a menu of where you can go.
When you disembark from the tram, you'll be in a seperate part of the "station". If the train doors aren't moving and closing, you're at an Exit, not an entrance.
There are also "Hazard Zones" that require you to be a certain level prior to entrance. The first of these that you'll encounter are Perez Park, home to a forest maze and a low wall (read: barrier to people who can't fly or jump) that only has two entrances, and The Hollows, home to obnoxious morons and missions spread out all over hell. Long-time players tend to prefer Perez Park, but everyone gets at least one mission in the Hollows. Later Hazard zones are Boomtown, Faultline, Terra Volta, Dark Astoria, Crey's Folley, Eden, the Rikti Crash Site, the Hive and the Shadow Shard.
Hazard zones have larger groups of bad guys, more random placement of different level groups (i.e. badder guys can be close to entrances and near places where lowbies can go) and all have some kind of obnoxious or challenging terrain to limit line of sight.
Finally, there are a couple zones that just can't be accessed by tram. These are Striga Island (level 20+), Founder's Falls (30+) and Peregrine Island (40+). Striga is, bar none, the coolest place in the game.
There is a map in every train station, if you'd like to see how it all fits together.
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Sob.
Now I really want to go play.
