Things to do?

jet05

Hey all I have played COH (city of heroes) for almost a year in the past and was thinking of picking up this game, while I believe that the combat in a way is a step up from COH, I'm just worried that it falls victim to the thing I disliked about COH, and that was that the game was essentially just go kill people on the streets or go kill people in a building. While this is a harsh generalization of the game its what eventually made me quite. So i was wondering how some of you who have spent some time playing the game if you can comment on the diversity offered in the game, or how it may differentiate itself from COH in this area.

 

championsFan

The biggest differentiator from CoX for me, besides the combat, is that CO has way fewer randomly generated grind missions, in favor of having more story arcs that end with huge lair and boss encounter (these encounters begin at lvl 28).   Maybe you have played so far as to see Grond in the desert?   The huge foes in CO are more well done than in CoX.  The flaming ape on the loading screen is a real giant creature that you will encounter on the Monster Island crisis.

So there are some nice missions later, and most reviews agree that playing through the game in about a month (less grind than CoX) is worth the purchase (and that was before all the discounts).  If you are like me and you love exploring the different powerset combinations then you may be able to enjoy the game for many months like I am doing.

 

gurugeorge

Actually, although I agree with the above poster mostly, I'd just say one thing: although CO has way fewer instanced missions, the ones that are there are far inferior to CoX's.  They're even more generic than CoX's (at least CoX's had some "dungeon" feel about them, even though you knew the layouts eventually, you didn't know the layouts till you'd been playing for a while).  

However, the shared-world missions are great, there are lots of cool little stories and twists and turns (not War & Peace, you understand, but decent for an MMO, certainly not inferior to WoW's type of quests).  Sometimes you come across mission opportunities in your travels (given by citizens, or by the crime computer).  All nice and immersive.

If you're a CoX fan, you'll probably like CO, maybe even prefer it, except for one thing (and it's a HUGE thing for an ex-fan of CoX like me): bizarrely, although CoX was the MMO par excellence for the casual player who likes to team (as opposed to the casual player of most MMO devs' imaginations, who, apparently, only likes to solo), CO doesn't have much PUG-ing at all, well at least up to the mid 20s or so.  There are a few missions and instances in the early stages, but not many.  It's mostly a solo-ers game.

It beggars belief that devs who invented one of the slickest, easiest to use teaming systems, and designed instances so well so you could pretty much guarantee finding a group to do your quests, could have dropped the ball on this with CO.  It smacks either of doctrinaire imposition of "standard" MMO design, or of the game being rushed - probably a bit of both.

One thing's for sure: if they don't introduce a ton of new content, very soon (hopefully the early 2010 update) and if they don't sort out teaming, this game, sadly, will dwindle to death.  The system as it is HAS to have more content.

If they aren't able to put in tons of unique content, the only thing that could rescue the game is to make it more like CoX with respect to teaming and - you guessed it - generic, instanced missions.  At least, CoX Mark 2 would be better than a failed unique CO.

I just don't understand why they didn't simply improve on CoX's generic instanced missions generation.  It wasn't the fact that it was the umpteenth office or warehouse that did your head in eventually, it wasn't the tilesets per se, it was the fact that it was the same office MAP LAYOUT that you'd seen a zillion times before and knew like the back of your hand.  If they put a system in place in CO that made that map layout generator better, so there was more variety and more surprises even for a long-term player, that would even be an improvement on CoX.

 

tyanya

CO certainly has the edge in avatar variety, the combat system is more of a mixed bag - different rather than really better or worse hence it becomes a matter for the individual. But what is the point of any of the customisation, or any ability to kill in the profoundly linear and inflexible gameworld that Cryptic have lumbered the title with?

What there is to do is a victim of very very clearly not mattering to anyone or anything, interaction in CO, such as it is,  is as bland, generic and meaningless as is possible to imagine. Mission arcs, quest variety, world interaction, player choice, player involvement, immersion, RP, consistent theme/style/mood, teaming, community, all those elements which make gameplay deeper, more fun and add more dimensions or variety are substantially inferior in both quantity and quality to CoH/V and in fact are among the worse and most uninspired implementations of any mmo still operating. This is a direct result of the design philosophy employed and as such is not something likely to improve with future updates unless they get some radical new blood involved.