Author: LordStarwolf
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Getting Started: levels 1-10
By Lordstarwolf and Bergman
This is a guide for all of those who are new to COH. This will not be a walkthrough telling you how to level fastest or giving away secrets of the game, but rather a starter guide letting you know how to get started playing the game. People that are new to the game are usually, and not always affectionately, called noobs, n00bs, newbies, newb, etc. If someone refers to you as a noob don’t take offense, this just means you are new, which is correct. We’ve all been there so don’t feel like the lone ranger. If you have questions in game or make a mistake just tell them you’re new to the game and could use some advice. Generally people will help you out with suggestions. There is a list of abbreviations used in the game here. You may have to scroll down a bit to get to the list.
When you start COH for the first time the first thing you will do is create a new character, also called a toon on one of the 11 servers. There isn’t any difference in the servers other than people generally stick to one or two servers to play on. Toons can not be moved between servers, so whatever you build up on one server stays there.
The first step is choosing an origin. There is a good guide on origins here. After that is choosing your archetype, the kind of toon you want to play and powersets. There are beginners guides to archetypes and powersets here, as well as an entire powers section with detailed info here. The look, build and costume of your toon are a personal choice for you and does not have any bearing most of the time in game play. The only exception to this rule is the long, flowing pieces like capes, trench coats and wings. These pieces can cause lag in older, slower machines (not only yours but other players’ who are viewing your toon). However most of these pieces are only for those who have veterans rewards for playing a long time in game (trench coats and wings) or reaching level 20 (capes), so it’s not going to be available to a new player anyway.
When you are done creating your character and find a name that isn’t taken (very hard to do) you are given the option to go to the training room or straight into game. If you are brand new the training area is a good idea. It will tell you all about the controls and method of play. There is also a badge in the training room that can’t be gotten once you leave it, or start the game outside of it. Badges are an extra feature of game play outside of leveling or teaming. There is a whole section about badges here. For the most part they don’t serve a whole lot of purpose except to give you more to do in game and bragging rights for having them although some of them can contribute to rewards called accolades that can give you power increases.
The important thing to remember about COH is that it is all level based. How well you fight depends only on the relative level. This means it doesn’t matter if you are high level or low level, it only matters if you are near to the level of the bad guys you are fighting. The higher you are from them the easier they are to subdue, but also the lower the experience points you get for subduing them. And the inverse is true. If they are higher than you, the harder they are to subdue but the higher the experience points you get for subduing them. You also receive influence and, if you are in a Super Group, prestige for subduing them. Influence is the money system of COH for the individual, and Prestige is money for the Super Group. The more you get of both the more things you can buy for yourself and the more things your Super Group can buy.
Super Groups (SG’s) are organizations started by individuals for the purpose of creating a group of heroes to play with on a regular basis to enjoy the advantages of the Super Group. These advantages are such things as a med transporter, teleport pads, etc. The med transporter lets you resurrect after you fall in the SG base rather than the hospital. You will not have full health and stamina, as you would in the hospital, but by using the SG portal to return to the zone you can re-zone straight back to that zone. If you are in a hazard zone you would normally have to go back to the normal zone that you entered the hazard zone from and run all the way back. The teleport pads allow you to teleport directly to any zone you have purchased a pad for. This allows the SG base to act as a shortcut to long distance zones.
As long as you are in Super Group mode you will earn Prestige which will allow the leaders of the group to purchase these items. You enter super group mode by clicking on the super group link at the top of your chat window and hitting the button at the top right of that window that says “Enter Super Group Mode”. If it says exit instead of enter then you are already in SG mode. Quite often when you are new and hanging around in Atlas Park you will get invited to an SG right out of the blue by someone you’ve never met. Quite often this will be SG invite spammers simply trying to get as many SG members as possible, since you are automatically granted prestige for the first 15 players to join. While this may be good for the new player to see the process, since the people are all random and strangers and there is no discrimination on quality of players, the quality of teaming with the SG members may be low. The choice is up to the individual on whether or not to except, but getting in an SG is not necessary at that low a level.
You can also talk in super group chat channel and talk just to your SG members. The various channels you have can be changed by clicking on the teeny tiny little buttons directly above the little window you type in for chatting. There is local which is limited to those immediately around you, broadcast which is visible to the whole zone you are in, team which talks only to your team members, super group which is only visible to SG members, etc. You can also access this menu and the option to join channels created by members by right clicking the chat window itself. Only the members of that channel, those who have agreed to join it, will see your text. For instance, if you are in a team you switch to the team channel so all your talk about the mission you are on is private between just the team members.
Once you finish the training area (or when you choose to skip it) you choose to either go to Galaxy City or Atlas Park. These are both starter zones for low level toons and don’t have baddies higher than 6 or so. The zones of the city are used to separate out higher level areas from lower ones so that the newer players aren’t immediately attacked by extremely high level bad guys. Each zone has its own level area. You can find the guide on zones here. There are also some zones that have difficult terrain or larger groups of bad guys in them that are much harder to play. These are called hazard zones and have a minimum level requirement to enter.
When you first start the game you will have a small window in the top middle of your screen that is your navigation window. It will display things like your first contact, the mission you are currently playing or the contact you have to go to when the mission is done. When you first start playing you will have your first contact with an indicator not only in the nav window but also in the main screen marked by a yellow triangle. If your contact is inside a building the triangle will be at the door of the building he is in. Just click on the door and you will go inside.
A few points about contacts. Some people prefer to level in the game without using contacts in the beginning. They do this by “hunting” which means roaming the streets killing random bad guys just standing around, which there is all over the zone. One or two things that doing missions from your contacts has over hunting is that after a few missions they will sell you not only enhancements for your powers but also inspirations to use in your encounters. Hereis a good guide explaining the current structure of enhancements and what they do for you, and here is the enhancement section giving you the names and effects that they boost. Inspirations are one shot use boosts for your powers. The inspiration page can be found here. There are inspirations for boosting endurance, health, accuracy, etc. They can be picked up off of fallen baddies like enhancements, but unlike enhancements that can be bought in stores, inspirations can only be bought from contacts.
After you finish enough of your first contacts missions, or after you have leveled to a certain number, he will introduce you to a second contact, usually in King’s Row which is the next higher normal zone. Often times your second contact which you receive in that zone will send you to talk to a contact in the Hollows. The Hollows is one of the hazard zones. The playing is harder there but also more rewarding. You can either take the more difficult play there or you can simply talk to that contact without taking a mission and return to your contact in King’s Row and he will give you a mission in that zone.
This should get you up to close to level 10. Level 10 is considered the “graduation” level. Up until ten when you die you can resurrect yourself by teleporting to the hospital either in your zone, or if you are in a hazard zone, to the normal zone that you entered the hazard zone through. Then you simply run back out and get back into the fight. But after level 10 when you die you also get what’s called “debt”. When you have debt, for any experience points you get half of all your points will go to paying off your debt until it is all paid up. Then you will return to receiving all experience points to your leveling.
A few tips on playing. Depending on how much Influence you generate you may not have enough to slot up all of your enhancement slots with level 5 enhancements from the trainer stores. The best way to handle that is to slot up the powers you need most and leave the others empty, or to buy the level 1 enhancements from your first contact after finishing enough missions for him or her, which are much cheaper.
It’s wise to carry certain Inspirations with you while playing. Awakens are important to have on you to “rez” you, or bring yourself back to life after falling in battle, without going to the hospital. Also, since awakens leave you disoriented and vulnerable to attack, carrying break frees to take off the disorient so you can run immediately is a good idea. Other than that, the type of character you are playing will determine what else is useful.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help, either in a team or just in broadcast to the entire zone. If you are looking for a team you can put up something like “level 4 Blaster lft” substituting your level and archetype of course and lft means “looking for team”. You can also occasionally broadcast in places like the hollows, where very low level toons are sent through high level areas for missions, asking for a teleport to the gate. Quite often there are higher level toons willing to help out.
Take your time, learn the story arcs, roam the maps and see what’s there. COH is full of interesting content. You can take offered shortcuts to leveling, but that will make you miss all the storylines and content of the game, since once you level past the level range of a contact they won’t give you missions any more. And most of all have fun! It’s what we are all here for.
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