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Review of Champions Online (1-20)
Darkheart00
Member Posts: 521
I did not play OB but i have played City of Heroes/Villains (Issue 1-10), this game fell below the radar for me since i was burnt out from city of heroes and i was more interested in the other big release coming out at the end of the world. But since i saw this game at Steam couple days back figured i will give it a shot while i wait for Aion's release. Lets get to the review
Pros
+Character customization is great, surprised they caught up with how much CoH/V offers on release.
+Quests are better than CoH with some voice overs. Public quests are used appropriately compared to WAR.
+Combat is fast paced
+Loot and crafting something CoH did not have.
+Did not run into any major issues (getting stuck, broken quests etc)
Cons
-Zones are instanced way too much, it kills community since each zone typically has only 20-40 players.
-Cell shading/graphics doesn't look good even CoH looks better in some aspects compared to this.
-Some parts of map look ok while others look bland.
-Voice overs are terrible.
-Mobs are close and re-spawns are too much (i.e the ghost zone by Witchcraft was impossible to move around with acrobatics without spawning a ton of Master villains)
Overall if you are into super hero games/casual MMO player. You should definitely give it a shot but don't expect it to have as much content or game play value as WoW. From what i saw player community seemed helpful and since there is only shard it should mean there is always some one around to play with and there is no problem of being in underpopulated servers.
Comments
Got laugh at people who don't know what there talking aobut.
Can tell this person didn't get out of the starter areas since the main zones go up to 100. Cell shading can be easily turned off in options. CoH doesn't even come close to looking this good. Voice overs ARE great. One of the best things about the game. Mobs are close sure its very hard trying to find monsters in the early areas.
WoW I consider to be one of the worst games in history. Ok AoC is worse but not by much.
These game companies can't win. You say mobs respawn too fast, but any slower and competing with 60 people for the same mobs would be an exercise in frustration. Sometimes it still is.
You say shards hurt the community, and then say having shards means you never have empty servers. So it's both good AND bad?
I personally love the cel-shading. I didn't think I would, but it has it's own distinct look from other games. This is purely a matter of opinion and aesthetics.
I find CO more like an action/arcade game than an MMO; not a lot of depth. But what it set out to do it does well. No, it's not for everyone, but it's not a horrible game.
zones are only 20~40........at peak on the english servers they are at least 6 zones out or 33+ i have seen that are full (100), then rest can range anywhere between 75~95, off peak it is about 20 channels with an avg of 60 players each. Also there is lairs, the other zones with each having the same number, the power house and pvp so it is fair to say at peak on the english servers there is at least 10,000 players playing.
the voice overs....i dont like them but that is because they are comic book type voice overs.
some mobs are to close some are not, you just have to learn how to playing using acrobatics
as for the maps, i do think they need to work on that, some of it is "god my eyes let me leave before i fall asleep", but in an interview with bill roper he said that they stop creating new contetnt because when they did internal testing the game sucked, so they focused on getting what they have to be good, and then that went into closed beta then with more improvements,, so basically they all the betas they really did not focused on content that much.
What the hell are you talking about? CO graphics are a big step above COH and they are not cell shaded. Try learning to set your graphic and do not blame the game if you PC and video card can not keep up. How are these graphic cell shaded?
What the hell are you talking about? CO graphics are a big step above COH and they are not cell shaded. Try learning to set your graphic and do not blame the game if you PC and video card can not keep up. How are these graphic cell shaded?
I think he is talking about the black outline around your character when you play. It doesn't bother me personally and you can take if off in options if you want.
The bigest problem I'm having with the game right now is that when I choose the "Like First-Person Shooter" keybinding; it doesn't stick when I zone and gets reset to Champions Default.
That and the PvP is a joke. When you get put up againt a SG full of power build ass hats you get destoryed every time. So if you want to be viable, you need to be a certain build. That's how I observed it at least when I played.
Well, any MMO PvP will be like that. You either have importance to your build, or you have builds meaningless. Good games will have more viable builds, but there is a limit.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Overall Champions Online is a good title but it has a decided kids console game feel to it. It surpasses CoH in areas such as character creation, power selection, travel powers and environmental interaction but has it's own issues with overall look, missions and immersion. The tutorial is overlong (i.e. you are still doing the tutorial long after you've learned the ropes) and you are then sent to one of two proving grounds before being allowed to advance to Millennium City. I believe at one point Cryptic made claims about a huge open world instead of one city but places like Millennium City, Canada and the desert (and I assume others) really seemed to just be like larger forms of the city zones found in CoH.
Most missons are outdoor missions leading to camping, "broken" missions, kill stealing and lag. The open missions that are held in each zone are kind of cool but the announced timer for mission reset is a jarring break of immersion. The incidental missions, picked up from civic minded citizens or loot found on defeated criminals, are a good addition and allow patrolling to be a valid form of game play rather than running back and forth between your contact and missions ad infinitum.
The Power House is a cool idea as a power training facility but the "Danger Room" needs to have some mini games to make it more interesting. It also needs to be larger for the purpose of testing travel powers. The fact that you must go to the Power House to select new powers is another immersion breaker but the same could be said of the trainers in CoH.
Open PvP is possible through permissive dueling which allows you to fight other players anywhere in the game provided they accept your challenge. Now PvP is not my cup of tea but this is the best way to handle it as far as I'm concerned. The travel powers are impressive with 6 or 7 kinds of flight (assisted and unassisted), 2 forms of super jump, super speed, tunneling, swinging (ROCKS!) and an interesting take on teleportation. Kudos to Cryptic for going the extra mile in this department!
A major downside is that CO is not really the fast action game that Cryptic claims.Your first power is an energy builder which is a toggle attack. Basically you select a target, activate the toggle and your character goes through a set of attack animations over and over until you defeat the opponent or you turn off the toggle. You can click a different attack, fire off a self buff, etc. while the toggle is running and it will be inserted into the mix which amounts to button mashing for the lazy player. While the energy build up is nice the toggled attack really makes the game play even more of a no-brainer IMO.
My biggest issue though is the look of the game, the intense color saturation and Pixar-esque artwork make the game look far too cartoony for my taste. The game defaults with black outlines around everything that you can disable but disabling them doesn't really do much to improve the look and feel of the game. It would be nice to have an option for switching between the CGI cartoon look and a video game look with less saturated colors and more "realistic" looking skins.
"My biggest issue though is the look of the game, the intense color saturation and Pixar-esque artwork make the game look far too cartoony for my taste. The game defaults with black outlines around everything that you can disable but disabling them doesn't really do much to improve the look and feel of the game. It would be nice to have an option for switching between the CGI cartoon look and a video game look with less saturated colors and more "realistic" looking skins."
That is my biggest problem with the game too. It's hard for me to play a game I don't like the look and feel of. I'm going to play for the month and see if it stops bothing me.
Was wrong about the zones MC went up to 100 as people have mentioned but still it would nice if they up the limit a little more to 200 perhaps?
@Senadina,
Well i do not mind respawn if there few second delay before the mobs aggro.
@eccoton
Got a Quad core pentium with GTX 260 videocard, my impression of the graphics did change when i went to city. Which was well down but still cell shading with black line and plastic look doesn't have realistic feel granted that is part of it.
The game is fun quests make it better than CoH imo simply cause of how easy it was to level with all AE farming that is going on. That said they do need to devolop some kinda of armory site for players to show off their characters (rate my champion?), add in SG content, reduce the costs for respecs and set up builds so that players now what powers to pick for healer, tank etc and better promote the game.
Well, any MMO PvP will be like that. You either have importance to your build, or you have builds meaningless. Good games will have more viable builds, but there is a limit.
Nah man Champions online's pvp is really poor when it comes to balance. Do I enjoy the pvp to a point yeah, but man its soooooo broken when it comes to power balance. If you for example try to spec as a melee style players your life will be a lesson in frustration from start to finish in pvp. I went melee/hybrid and do just fine, as in city of hero's the travel powers are a big part of the problem tbh. Teleport is a get out of death for free card so every min maxer on the planet has it, suprisingly most of them are really bad at character development and pvp so they port in get owned and port away to go collect all the power ups then come back and repeat. Flyers just fly out to max range and nuke w/ no worries of having to come down. If you pick say acrobatics and melee to be like a ninja(sorta what I did though knowing the situation I went hybrid) you will find yourself unable to melee them and basically having to fight on their terms.
Certain powers don't work correctly various powersets and others work WAY to well such as 100 percent hold success rate with the ability to stack that same hold on the same person before the first wears off equals out to the ability to hold someone literally forever with no trouble. I could go on and on, cryptic has never understood pvp balance and this is typical for them(its mainly a pve game) but for us that enjoy pvp prepare to have to alter your vision of your toon to allow yourself to compete.
Heres how I handle the min/maxer lamers: First pick up a AOE dot ASAP, reason being dots don't go away on teleporters and can actually get you the kill if they just port run forever. I actually slotted my dot aoe with a endurance mod for me, a health return mod and then upped the lvl of the move so I dot the whole other team then reap the rewards of constant regen from the other team.
Second pick your powers carefully, your stat choice will determine how well your powers work. In other words if you pick say a normal type of heal but have very low presence then the heal will be next to worthless since the actual amount of the heals will be so low versus endurance lost. My way of playing is pick 2 or 3 super stats and then pick 2 complimentary stats to work on . For example I am a ego/ego toon with my stats going into first End/Ego/Dex now most usually pick 2 as primary but for the way I want to play my toon my super stats are 3 with a bit of recovery as my 4th stat and a touch of con because thats how the stat bonuses played out and a bit of hp can be useful.
Third find some sort of hold stun for your build to keep them from escaping when they get low on health. They all run, with travel powers viable during combat they will run if they sense the health getting below 25 percent find some sort of move to stop or slow that movement.
Even though most people build self sustaining builds stay together in pvp, half the people going into pvp are in SG's putting groups together that are nearly unbeatable right now with current balance so if you want to have half a chance move as a unit and IF you die get back to support your team asap because many of us put builds together that have staying power and group utility. Thats my biggest pet peeve, I move in with my team and as they drop around me I find myself sapping health off the other team and staying alive but if they don't get back to me I will eventually die and often people die once and then spend the time trying to shoot at the enemy from the shadows. Well thats great for them but doesnt' work for those that are soaking up the dps.
Well, any MMO PvP will be like that. You either have importance to your build, or you have builds meaningless. Good games will have more viable builds, but there is a limit.
Nah man Champions online's pvp is really poor when it comes to balance....
No, you misunderstand. In pretty much any game premades will dominate 'pubbie' teams. Pubbies (random strangers) simply stand little chance against an organized group on vent/teamspeak.
Granted, the balance in Champions is off but regardless, pubbies would stand little chance even if the game wa sperfectly balanced
Want a fair shot against premades? Lobby the devs to somehow create a ladder for premades. This way only randoms fight against each other
Take Guild Wars. Premades cant fight randoms. Additionally, if there is ever the odd case where you have 5 randoms that fight so well together they are unbeatable they are booted out of random arenas into Hall Of Heroes to compete together. This was how it was in my day (prophecies)
Also I know I've said this a few times but it bears repeating: Melee vs Ranged. This should be obvious. Melee should never ever win
In real life, a guy with a bat will get killed by someone with a gun before they can get a range.
Why? Because the ranged guy can kite.
Take EVE. For serious fleet combat snipers rule the day.
The only reason you see Melees doing so well in games like Guild Wars was only because the devs *made* you faster. Warriors have more strength in which gives them more foot speed then a squishy. And still, only reason Warriors do so well is cause there is no z-axis (vertical)
Take WoW. Rogues only do well due to stealth+backstab pre-Burning (I quit a bit before burning or something).And again- they follow the golden rule. WoW has no z-axis really. Yeah you can jump but it makes no difference.
Pretty much in any pvp game be it FPS or RTS Melees are quite worthless. Fantasy mmorpgs have being trying to help Melees for years but it requires giving them stupid overpowered stuff or gimping the entire game by removing z-axis
Melees just should never have a chance to compete ever unless they are 'faster' than a squishy. I see Cryptic doing stupid stuff to try to give Melee a chance like build these small Arenas and cages so squishies cant fly that high. but seriously, melees will always get kited. And if they made it so strength would make Melees faster in Champions you'd still just get kite cause Ranged players will just choose that and go hybrid
I was a Melee in City of Heroes and how did I compete? I would of course pack stuns, slows, and some ranged attacks that would help me entrap my prey so I could kill them quick. Worked fine on randoms but not so well on pros that knew to kite