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New Found Appreciation for CO
Duvious
Member Posts: 116
I took NCSoft up on their CoX reactivation weekend simply to see where their game is at currently. I must say I found the graphics lackluster, the gameplay boring (maybe because I played for 3 years) and it just felt dated. Then I logged back into CO and it was like night and day. I'm having a lot of fun in this game again getting my toons ready for the new expansion. CO has way more potential and while it may not be as complete as CoX I am extremely excited about Vibora Bay and the future of the game. I know Cryptic has made their mistakes along the way but all in all this is still a good game. Anyone else go back and play CoX this weekend? If so what are your thoughts?
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Yea after a six months break, I went back to CoX this weekend for the dxp as well as the dual pistols set. It's still prolly my favorite MMO of all time, but I start to think the game is becoming a little outdated. I'm starting to be pissed off by a few aspects of CoX actually :
- PvP totally broken since i13, and they've totally ignored their pvp community despite the huge numbers of threads on this matter.
- Absolutely no new content since i12 (like 1.5 years ago), only the AE and color customization. People on my guild/community are still doing the roman task force on a loop. Furthermore TF/SF difficulties have been bugged since i16, and you can only run those on easy mode, that's really a shame.
- The game feels more empty than ever. Many people have left for the reasons I've mentionned.
- Dual Pistols, that was supposed to be their signature set for Going Rogue, but it feels weak and sluggish. I stopped mine at 24 to reroll a new scrapper instead.
On the Champions side, I really enjoyed the game last time I played it. But I dont think its core drawbacks are being adressed : it's too much of a solo game for a MMORPG. Not playing with other players alot makes it boring quickly after a few weeks for me. They had a brave idea by allowing a full customization to their players, but it really turned back against them because of course everyone is making the same kind of solocentric mage/tank character and then you lose any kind of team dynamics. I wish they could address that by making meaningful tiers 4 involving more specialization in a single powerset, but I'm not sure that's the way they're taking. Also I keep rerolling in CoX, but after leveling one character in CO and trying everything in the powerhouse, I dont have incentives to play more characters : that's sad for a game that should have a huge replay value to keep its customers. Actually it hasnt any replay value. But other than that, it's really a good game with good mechanics and a very fun combat.
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In fact, that is exactly what they are doing with the Tier 4 powers. To get a Tier 4 power you need to have 10 powers in that category, so the Tier 4 powers can't be cherry picked; you can only have one and it has to be the one that fits your theme.
So they are slowly taking the steps you want, but I will admit that the Tier 4 powers are not going to totally change the solo-centric tankmage nature of the game. Some other things they are doing to address the soloing issues are:
1. Adding a difficulty slider, like CoX, to make the content hard enough for teams.
2. Continuing to balance powers, part of the reason soloing is easy is that we can cherry pick overpowered skills.
3. The big new lair with the expansion will put an end to boss-zerging, so healers and even resurrection moves become way more important.
I am not claiming that they are changing the game overnight, and if you gave it a fair chance but quit due to these soloing issues, it might still be a good idea to wait a few more months.
On the otherhand, although I want CO to have more socializing, I feel that it has other good qualities like responsive gameplay and deep character building that still make it a great game. If you want to try the free demo, I suggest coming to the official CO forums and checking one of the many threads where we give out referral keys for an expanded 14 day demo. The expanded demo has about 8 hours of gameplay, and it gives a good basis for judging the game (the basic demo is 45 minutes, and only really tells you whether your comp can run CO).
Cryptic is trying a Customer Development approach to MMO creation.
Just spent some time browsing the forums, unsubscribed since December. Based on the changes I saw, overnerfings, complete inability to balance skills in a timely, orderly fashion, not attending to crucial issues quickly, I still believe that CO is being run by the most incompetent team of dev(s) (hey it could happen, there could actually be more than one dev on CO now) in any MMO I've ever played... and that includes AOC. To be fair, it's only part due to incompetence, and part due to being run on a skeleton crew while STO obviously takes most of Cryptic's resources.
Every patch still messes up more than it fixes, the devs appear to listen to a super minority of Ur-fanbois, most of whom likely have no MMO experience other than WoW, are plainly developmentally challenged and motivated solely subjectively by the toons they play as opposed to objectively measuring what would be good for the game. What a great recipe for fail in an MMO that I have seen too many times. Lazy, incompetent devs = poor game.
This game is dead in the water, will never recover, and represents the greatest loss of potential in any game I've ever seen. Stating again, I will NEVER play another Cryptic product, nor one run by any of the devs running CO regardless of what company they move on to after Cryptic fails.
I have an idea of exactly which dev is most responsible and most incompetent, but will refrain from naming names. Hope he changes his handle before the next game he works on, if he is ever allowed to have any kind of management position in a game again... hopefully not.
You and I are on the same page, Sanskrit.
There are countless of threads on why Cryptic is inept, that was not the purpose of this thread. Go find one of those if you want to gripe about or bash the game. I even started one bashing them a few month or so back. The point of this thread was that after playing the CoX free weekend last weekend, I have a new found appreciation for CO in comparison, nothing more. Did you? It doesn't even sound like you played CoX over the past weekend. I am simply looking for opinions from people who have played both games recently, not for opinions of someone who hasn't been subscribed for three months.
I however, like you, was down on the game a bit too as of lately, especially with the news of VIbora Bay being a paid expansion to a lacking game. I agree it has flaws but I think they are trying to do the right things right now with their improved communication, announcing VIbora Bay would be free and other positive changes. All I am saying is I still have hope for the game and can appreciate what they've done and look past some of the flaws seeing as how much more ahead of CoX it is. Everyone should remember when CoX first started all of the content and features it has now were not present, as is the case with CO. I think in due time it will be a great game. And the content did seem a little thin in terms of available missions and I think we all experienced a content gap or two at first. I have recently rerolled a few toons and so far I am consistently 2-3 levels ahead of the missions I haven't finished. So there is plenty of content to progress through without any content gaps. This is even proving true in the late 20's. I have yet to hit 30 so I can't speak for that part but I highly doubt I will hit one seeing as I'm a few levels ahead of my current missions anyway.
If you wanted to limit responses as you claim to, and define your topic precisely, you would have used the last sentence in your OP instead of "New Found Appreciation for CO" which is a fairly nebulous, generic thread title, and invites replies such as mine.
Truthfully, I was -thinking- about resubbing for a try since I haven't played since December, but after reading the CO forums and how incompetently the devs are continuing to nerf the hell out of the game and pander to a braindead group of ever-diminishing forum squeaky wheels, thought I'd spare myself the cash and just come here and bitch instead. There is no "super hero" left in CO, just some bozos in well designed clothing.
The character generator/tailor is the only aspect of CO that will survive.
I resubscribed for a month. The game is still fun, combat punchy, PvP minigames alot of fun... It's a good game overall, I think its biggest mistake is that it tried to copy WoW a bit too much on the leveling system/quests, but without the content to follow at the end. So there is very few replay value contrarily to CoX. People get fast to 40, mostly alone, see there is not alot more to do then and unsub. But they certainly had fun during that time, and only for that.... it's a really decent game. Players would certainly get less pissed at Cryptic however if it had a different business model like GW, because as it is now it doesnt really justify the monthly sub.
Anyway as the OP I got a little bored with CoX recently, and devs there havent done many good things last months/issues, so CO remains certainly a nice alternative.
Check my blog on mmorpg.com.
The only reason I didn't do that is because the last time I had CoX in a thread title and even though it was about CO and also had CO in the title it was moved over to the CoX forums here. I didn't want that to happen again since I think I have a pretty good idea what I think the opinions would be from CoX players. I was wanting to hear from CO players. That is my reasoning for the somewhat vague title. Make sense?
That was pretty much where it was when I left it around the same time you did. I picked it up again recently just out of curiosity and it's improved a hell of a lot since then. They seem to have nailed the balance, even with non-cookie cutter characters and it feels a lot more super-heroic than it did in the first few months after launch.
The funny thing is the official forums don't seem to be very representative of how the game has changed. As you say there are a lot of "squeaky wheels" there who, by this point, are probably going to be squeaky no matter what changes.
I was the same way before I left the first time, I'd just got tired and demoralised by the lack of apparant progress to making the game more fun and super-heroic.
The most miserable thing about the forums is that whenever someone posts something, anything, positive about CO it gets derailed almost immediately with moans and complaints which are totally unrelated to the original posts.
The last thing I expected when I came back was to be sucked right back in having the kind of fun with it that I expected after release.
If you've got $15 you don't mind not seeing again, give it a go. You might be pleasantly surprised. Steer clear of the forums though
The only thing (now this is my opinion) I found fun on my return was the Zombie Apoc PvP. After trying the new expansion out on the test server I had to uninstall again, it's unfortunate because I loved this game until I got to max level. The game was FUN, just like the STO guys are saying (until they reach max level).
For those who have returned and enjoying the game, I wish you the best of luck and money well spent. Unfortunately for me I will have to wait on the sidelines and see how this game is closer to next year.
I've been on a bit of a roller-coaster ride with this. Loved it at first (new shiny), then hated it (multiple flaws - esp. lack of teaming, esp. compared to the PUG heaven of CoX), but now, after re-subbing recently, I've grown to really like the game a lot. I suspect that, now the hullabaloo has died down, and as CoX is (bless its little spandex heart) getting a bit long in the tooth, superhero MMO lovers are just going to quietly drift to CO.
It was touch and go with the Vibora Bay fiasco (now dubbed the Revelation expansion), but Cryptic did the right thing, and it sort of reawakened my faith in them. The problems ARE being sorted out, slowly but surely. My take on it is that it's a bit like AoC - for a long time there were a crapload of problems, but they did get ironed out eventually, and AoC is now stable and a decent MMO. I think something similar will happen with CO, it will gradually accumulate players the more polished it gets, the more it approaches what it ought to have been on release, had it not been rushed. (The single server model really helps with this - even when there are only a few players on, it still feels like there's a decent amount of people on. Clever move on Cryptic's part.)
One thing's for sure - unless you're really a fan of "complex" gameplay with lots of buttons to press that do different things, you're likely to find that after playing CO, it's hard to go back to other MMOS, because the gameplay is just so slow in comparison. CO's core combat (like CoX's a generation before) is one of its best features - fast paced, easy to get into, great for casual play.
If they can just sort out the teaming ...
Actually someone nailed it above: they tried to do the WoW model, but that only works if you have tons of content, which CO doesn't have. They would have done better to simply have gone with the instanced model they pioneered with CoX, only made it better (more varied mission layouts). But none of it is irresolvable. The core gameplay is great.
I am still playing CO and enjoying it. It is my causal friendly MMO and I like super hero games (There are not enough good ones). I agree, that like AOC the game will improve and has improved a great deal. It was not nearly in as bad a shape as AOC when launched and the core gameplay mechanics in CO are fun.
Looking forward to the new expansion for my high level characters. If Cryptic is wise they would greatly expand the low to mid level stuff next and add a new lower level or mid level crisis zone or three. I heard something about a space station, that would be awesome. There are lots of opportunities here for them to expand in a fun way.
I love CO, I switched the controls from "MMO style" to "FPs style" and that was a huge improvemtn to game play, for pve and pvp.
CO is a great game but, like everyone agrees, the game is like Single player with chat.
"you are like the world revenge on sarcasm, you know that?"
One of those great lines from The Secret World
After much time spent in the powerhouse I finally ended up with a Dual Blades build. Even if i wanted to avoid melee builds because they're not working that well atm, especially in PvP. Well, it's ALOT of fun. I'm glad I resubbed to CO, the combat is really the best I've ever seen so far in a MMO : it's even fun to watch
Check my blog on mmorpg.com.