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Champions Online: Five Most Needed Additions to Champions
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
MMORPG.com's C.A. Thomas writes this list of overall improvements that need to be made to Cryptic's newest superhero MMORPG, Champions Online.
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Currently, there is a very large and vocal group of people who view Champions Online as a disappointment for dozens of documented reasons. There are some major issues with the game itself on a functional level relating to the game's progression, elements and mechanics. It is widely agreed (and, to be fair, has been openly admitted by Cryptic Studios on more than one occasion) that there is not only a lack of content, but a lack of diversity in CO's content.
What does this mean for the future of Champions Online? Can it bounce back from the widely demonstrated distaste seen not only in the general population of MMORPG players, but within its own community, where the unrest seems to be strongest? Or is the game doomed to fail, having suffered major issues and controversy from the very moment they switched on the live server with the now-infamous Day One Patch?
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
I think the main mistake that CO team did was trying to compete against the general mmo sword & magic style. Trying to bite that much they avoid the procedural content generation scalable in team size and dificulty that is a great feature of City of Heroes. This would make the game more team friendly.
About the suggested additions:
#1 More open missions. While open missions are a source of non-organized team, since they are not chainable and most have a timer to avoid exploitation. Better rewards in xp and gear are really needed to motivate people to do them.
#2 SG features. I would add coalitions for the moment, anything else would be pretty much attached to bases and/or too complicated to implement atm.
#3 More team based instances. This part is quite difficult. I would fill the existing ones with procedural pre or post content. Make the instance either scalable or force to be 3+ players.
#4 Improve lower level experience. I kind of disagree here. Improving open missions should be enough to make the low level experience more enjoyable. Maybe decreasing the level required for the first nemesis to 20 would help
5# Improving PVP. I am not going to comment on this one since I dont pvp much.
Now, I think there is a six important one. The nemesis system. It hasn't been exploited to the maximum. Since it is actual user generated content it should be an integral part of the leveling. Sharing nemesis among members of SG would be also pretty cool. Making the nemesis to be more active would add more enjoyment to the game.
No Playable Villains did it in for me. Fighting in Arenas only goes so far. You want a real Nemesis, introduce player controlled Villains. Give Champions something to hate, to fight. Hopefully DC Online will do this. Not saying it will be any good either, but one can hope for a real challenge rather then NPC garbage that CO has.
I honestly don't think CS will do anything serious for CO in the way of making the game better in any way. CS certainly never put any real effort into CO's beta in the first place. CO was obviously created just for cannon-fodder to fuel funding for STO. Sad & lame, but true I believe. the real victims are the ones foolish enough to waste money on lifetime subscriptions for CO just to get beta acess to STO when CS STILL hasn't given the large majority of them acess yet. CO will be around long enough for STO to launch and then CS will most likely shut the servers down on CO quietly.
I doubt CO is going to get any attentiion until after the first of the year. Most devs go on vacation now. Those left at Cryptic are crunching on STO. STO will be the focus until its launch. Hopefully resources can then be shifted back to CO for quarter to maybe address one of those points of this artical. IMHO
All very good suggestions. My personal emphasis are 3 and 4, MUCH more group instances and much better lower half experience. I'd also say a Villain player part is much needed. CO has a good basis to work on, but they need to add a lot. And STOP swinging any nerf bat. They must make a halt and forbid the nerf of any single power for, say, 6 months. People need to feel more Super again.
And indeed a bit onlaught is to come. STO from themselves, the WOW expansions, SWTOR sometimes 2010 likely, the DCU and the Agency and several others.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
*sigh* That sounds quite bleak and pessimistic... but it may be so. I did not see real effort in beta nor now. In the long run it will be likely only with small tinkerings here and there. I am just so fed up with Sword and Sorcery atm, so I wished they would push it. Making two MMOs at the same time was bad. Very bad.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
[quote]Originally posted by Stradden
MMORPG.com's C.A. Thomas writes this list of overall improvements that need to be made to Cryptic's newest superhero MMORPG, Champions Online.
First of all, I don't know about other people that play the game but I hate it when any blogger, journalist or any writer generalizes things like this. Actually, it should be mentioned that there is also a large and vocal group defending the game, if you look in the forums of the game itself.
Again with the generalizations, written as if to say the whole community of players feels this way not the case at all.
Not the strongest, but where the most discussion of the game itself takes place, of course its amplified (on both sides)
Now that last one is the clincher. WTF?! Does anyone really believe its doomed to fail? Writing off a game in its first months is harsh anyway but silly to do so when the game isn't failing, its just got roughness to work out. I've said it before and I'll say it again. The mmo scene has way too many critics and not enough true players that are out to have fun. The community as a whole wastes so much energy scrutinizing every little detail, that I don't understand how they could have even had a chance to play at all!
The redeeming fact in this article is that there are legitimate points and things that could be improved upon. I just hate the tone that was set, and.. well I already ranted enough.
I think Cryptics big mistake with this game is assuming that because they were creating a super hero mmo they could do an action based game with little depth and that people would just be content with the more action oriented focus of this game. Just a bad assumption to me. I think COH suffered from the same lack of depth but just not as visible as it seems to be in CO. I just hope in the end they don't make STO another game lacking both depth and content as they seem to have done with CO.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
The problem I believe stems not from Champions but the current resources allocations.
Cryptic might say that they have more then enough folks working on Champions and Star Trek, but knowing how priorities are worked out from Top Management down. Atari is probably putting MUCHO pressure on Cryptic to make sure that STO launches with great success.
STO is such a large IP. With a HUGE fan base that they cannot fully focus on Champions till after a few months from STO launch date. You can point me to any source from so and so saying that they are not cutting resources on Champions to STO, but any person with some understanding on corporate standard business practice knows. You always focus on the cash cow. You never want that money to stop rolling in. STO will be a HUGE cash cow for Atari and they are making sure it gets fed well.
Faranthil Tanathalos
EverQuest 1 - Ranger
Star Wars Galaxies - Master Ranger
Everquest2 - Ranger WarhammerOnline - Shadow Warrior
WOW - Hunter
That's right I like bows and arrows.
I've wanted to love this game from the start. On the main CO boards I was vehement in my defense of Cryptic and the game until I burnt out on it and realized the number one person I was trying to convince is myself.
Here's a list of what I think needs fixing:
1) Improve the learning curve: The game's open-ended, classless skill system makes for fantastic uber-powered skill combos (which tend to get nerfed to bejesus), but also make it possible to really gimp your character to where gameplay is difficult. Every set has 3-4 (or less!) very useful powers and the rest are junk, for the most part. Buffing many of those weak skills (and properly balancing OP ones) to where there is little or no chance of making a "broke" character is the first thing they need
2) Stat simplification: The game has a bajillion stats. Understanding which ones you need (and let me assure you it really DOES matter) is difficult. I wrote a guide to it on the forums (as did others), but lack of official documentation makes it hard.
3) Content. Look, there's JUST enough content to get 1-40 right now. Maybe a little more than just, given the new additions. First off, much of the quests are chains; you can miss tons of xp just because you missed a radio mission 5 levels ago that opened up 15 other things. Secondly, the low amoutn of content leads to every single character having the exact same level up progression, which is boring. Two or three more zones, especially in the 10-25 and 30-35 range, would really help.
4) Social function. Twitter. In-game blogs, SGs, IMs. Email. Honestly this game has more communication and social options than most MMOs, yet no one uses them. Mostly due to the clunky UI, but also due to Cryptic not pushing them as much.
5) Clunky UI: Nuff said.
6) Lack of team content: The article NAILED it here.
7) Communication: While Daeke and crew have made massive strides at responding to the community, there's still a long way to go.
The STO devs once joked that maybe people may be able to one day play Champions Online in an in-game holodeck.
It doesn't seem so funny or unrealistic anymore...
I just want to point out if the two major issues with the game are content and balance - adding more content as the blog suggests will tend to cause futher balance issues.
To a certain degree I do agree with the authors assertions but I joined CO about 2 weeks after launch and to this point in time, the issues that I and many others face are one not just of content but of hardware/software stability. Customer retention is one thing but if the customer base is too low then this would definitely effect the revenues of the company. My sincere belief is that Cryptic must focus first on securing a viable customer base before focusing on customer retention. This is basic for all start-up companies or in this particular case, a start-up MMO.
Customer retention is for games which have already had their presence established in the market for a certain period of time, e.g. WoW, EQ, LOTRO etc. Once the customer base reaches a point whereby revenues can be (moderately) guaranteed to sustain the operations of the company, then the company can focus on customer retention. Unfortunately for Cryptic, I really do doubt that they have reached that break-even point yet.
For the past 2 months or so now, quite a few people have been plagued by (1) Launcher failures, (2) Server crashes (granted, not many but the one which occurred a couple weeks ago during the STO beta launch was horrendous), (3) severe lag, (4) Rubber-banding (a symptom of the lag I would assume), (5) Long load times, (6) graphic issues or even simply an inability to log into the game for unknown reasons and (7) server downtime/maintenance that do not seem to fix anything. Sadly, all these have been ignored by CO with the exception of the proxy server proposed fix, which for many were not a fix at all.
And before all the various flames start coming in from current players of CO on the above, Yes, I do realise that the majority of the issue can be attributed to ISPs and also to Graphic Card compatibility issues. But if one does take the time to check through various threads on the Technical Issues forums, one will find that, again, quite a few have done their 'homework' and attempted all the fixes proposed to no avail. ISPs were contacted and responses were received that there were no issues with the ISPs. Graphics cards were replaced, drivers were upgraded, and in some cases, downgraded. The fixes worked for some, while not for others. No reasonable explanation was ever provided, or at least none that I can find or accept. Statements such as "It's your ISP, or your graphics card. Get a new card or don't play." is unacceptable for a company attempting to sell a product to the general public. NOTE - these comments come from the general public on the forums and not from Cryptic representatives.
In my case, it has reached a point where I would casually attempt to log in a couple times a night and if I can get in then I will play and if not I will simply go do something else. This should not be the mindset that Cryptic should want to cultivate in their customer base if they want their product to be successful.
The issue is not with the grunts working on the game, I believe the issue comes from senior management of Cryptic where, for some unknown reason, they have chosen to focus almost completely on content and balancing over the hardware/software issues. This needs to be addressed by Mr. Roper and the rest of the senior management of the company.
Mr. Roper, at the end of the day, it's really very simple, i.e. there is no need to focus on customer retention if, you have no customers.
More open Missions? I play that game too damn much and always choose the populated server unless doing solo missions to avoid kill competing/stealing. I rarely see people doing the open missions. Unless it a time zone 12 hours difference from pst. But then again I end up playing then too.
Early level is great the way it is. There is a learning curve but when people decide tonotice the reasoning behind stats, levels, powers and how they interact, Its all in their forums under powers and builds, they will blow thru the first 15 levels in a few days. I take that back. The first character should always go thru the tutorial, it takes an hour or two to level 5. Its the character creator that eats time once you discover all the details available.
Team based stuff I cant comment on.
PVP I Tried once in very beginning before I discovered there is a reason for the stats, levels, powers and how they interact and compliment each other when you read how and why. Havn't noticed the type pvp their is. Like capture the flag or other team based games other FPS games have.
This post is intentionally written as to not make any sense what so ever. Thank You Very Much.
The guy who made that article didnt even add the playable villains as a needed feature. WTF? IF there is no serious pvp, i wont play Champion. They have to give us reason to fight all around the world. I dont want to do those bullshit arena or BG's. They dont even need to add villains, but a pvp server where we can fight everywhere would be needed. A politic system that can affect the world over guilds vs guilds would also be cool. You know like there could be a guild name justice league, marvel alliance... With pvp goal that are set around the world, it would be great. There also need to be a risk vs reward system for pvp. Can be anything, but i need a reason to kill random players.
Currently, if i had to chose between city of heroes/villains or champion online, i would just COH/V. Even my friend still play COH/V because of the pvp.
C:\Users\FF\Desktop\spin move.gif
Grats Thomas on a outstanding suggestions and review list of improvements for CO. But heres the thing, if they are copy pasta`ing COX to CO why even play it when the features you want are already in their first title?
You would think that CO would be a break away from the features of Cryptics first incarnation and more towards the future of what can be in MMOS. To me you sorta except the fact that CO is more so, or exactly like COX? Why bother?
If we as a player and customer base want change and want originality why do we keep paying for games that basically are the same as the last ones we played?
The common MMO player will say "well, thats the way it is". But, it doesnt have to be if we stop paying for games that basically take on the exact same characteristics of the last game we played, with little to no real difference in mechanics and systems.
Time to stop "settling" for mediocre MMOS and demand that the developers of the industry start spending more time creating something for the future and stop worrying bout making enough money to own a 100 acre circular driveway plastered with Mercedes as driveway ornaments!
Say it with me......."HELL NO, NOT IN MY MMO!"
"It's a bit confusing why something so big in their first game, namely the supergroup base feature, is nowhere to be seen."
Because CoH/V's supergroup bases were implemented during CoV and are generally seen to have fallen far short of their development potential.
ChampO obviously needs a lot more content, but I don't think bases would really be a great thing to implement at this stage.
They promised new content every 3 months.
So far they delivered.
Granted, they were one power set short, and the idea of 'holiday content' that goes away seems like a poor choice of priorities.
City of Heroes didn't start out with bases, pvp or villains. Give it some time.
The theory is solid and the spirit of this article is to be applaunded however it misses what are imo the deepest and most fundamental problems with CO - the total lack of player involvement in the world, the absence of any genuine mechanical variety in any task, the overly rigid and inflexible journey that every quest demands, the complete lack of illusion of interaction or reaction in the world, and most seriously the inconsistent and mostly irrelevent application of the core theme.
There seems to be a delusion that just adding yet 'more of the same' will somehow disguise or bury the bland and lifeless experience that faces you outside the avatar creator, they are even adding restrictions and requirements on content to encourage (read force) group interaction...but this world is already dangerously restrictive and inflexible, it is a world with no variety of reward.
If the desire is to simply appeal to the same people this may be enough but If the intention is to broaden the games appeal their approach to quest and world mechanics/design is going to have to radically alter, it desperately needs an influx of imagination, it desperately needs some conviction in the theme....stuff that makes you care about what you are doing beyond the souless perpetuation of your own avatar, then it might appeal to more than those currently playing.
The number one issue with this game is lack of good and fun PvP. The scenarios are bland and boring and there is still no way to do PvP besides instanced ones.
Even LOTRO, a PvE game, had better PvP than this and if CO is to grow it needs more fun PvP. PvP instances need an overhaul,new zone/zones for PvP, that are not instanced and supgergroup vs supergroup PvP needs to be implemented.
Second most important issue is the lack of group content. There needs to be more of them and the one that are in game needs much better rewards. Why would one go through the effort to gather enough people and spend 2 hours doing team content if the rewards are virtually the same as solo content? No, that will not do and needs to be fixed.
These two areas are, in my opinion, what must be fixed with CO. Everything else is good to have but not a neccessity.
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Some very good points being said here, both in the article and responses.
The only thing i would like to see in CO is, instead of team missions(wich would mean i would just delete them and finf normal missions) is scalable missions, leave team missions for special things like what exist now(villains lairs, special areas, etc). This way i can just solo a mission or if i'm in a team the content and difficulty of the mission scales with the amount of players in the team.
Other than that i agree with most of the sugestions said before, especially new areas for leveling. Having to do the almost the exact same quests if leveling an alt is atrocious.
As an extra i would like that crafting needs alot of improvement as well but than can be done after the main issues are solved.
I'm currently playing CO and one thing i can say it definately needs is more team-orientated content. I dont know about anyone else but the game really does feel like a single player game with random super hero's who might possibly be other humans roaming around.
It could all be a trick though - they might be bots!
Why are there so many cutesie, fantasy, childish MMO's. Give me blood, gore and a long lasting challenge. I don't need my hand being held along the way. Thanks.
Much of the game is soloable but the main reason I'm not buying it was because of a forced grouping mission that was critical to the character quest progression in the early levels.
It was the one in the desert zone where you have to get the codes to disarm the nuke. Perhaps I was playing a gimped class or made the wrong power choices (Straight Power Armor set, no power outside of it) but I tried repeatedly to complete the quest and constantly died.
I had a choice of either grinding or grouping. I grouped to finish it which is how I know you need it to continue progressing your character.
I don't have anything against content that requires grouping for the better content/loot but for a game that seems to want to make it solo-friendly it was annoying and stupid to find an early level quest where I *had* to group if I wanted to progress my character AT ALL.
f Cryptic wanted to make this game so solo-friendly then the BASIC storyline should be kept soloable. Grouping can be used for those who want more content but the BASIC story/character progression doesn't have to have it.
Cryptic needs to make up their mind. Either force all their players to group or don't. This half-baked system of occasionally forcing it doesn't accomplish anything. Except lose players on both sides.
I'd say an end game that was worthwhile would be a better place to start than worrying about a improving the low level experience. The game's system is just too shallow too. When you are in a small group of two or three, you have to use a wider complement of abilities. When you are in a full team of five, the game really breaks apart. If you are DPS, it's pretty much mindless, especially if you are a hybrid character and clearly have one attack that is far better than the others. There's a lot to like about the game, but it just doesn't have very good mechanics.
The five points all make sense to me however I feel that Cryptic are placing all their energy into STO and that Champs will take a back seat to that whether we like it or not.
Seeing STO probably does not stand a chance against SWTOR then all is lost for Cryptic and my lifetime sub to champs was a foolish choice on my part.
I used to visit this site a lot however in recent years it has become the home of negative forum posts, illogical opinions and tantrums so I visit less often.
Played or Beta'd: UO / DAOC / Horizons / EQ2 / DDO / EVE / Archlord / PirateKingsOnline / Tabula Rasa / LOTRO / AOC / Champions / Darkfall / Mortal Online / DCUO / Rift / STO / SWTOR / TSW