It is a matter of opinion, CO gameplay is more appealing to me, taping, maintaining, charging, blocking is more flexible than the classic attack chain used in CoH. I think CO has more potential than CoH, which is squeezing the game. The whole going rogue is not more than a huge power proliferation, so besides the 2 powersets there is nothing really new(talking power wise, not taking into account the new zone).
I like CoH, it was a good game which I enjoyed for long time, but I prefer CO because of its gameplay, maybe I will change to DCUO if its gameplay is more appealing to my taste, we'll see in November.
Indeed all we can offer are opinions but for me CO is the very definition of grind, there is a total absence in mechanical variety in any task, a total absence of choice or individuality once you step out of the avatar creator, its a single unwavering journey unresponsive and unsympathetic to the theme or player style or choice. The resulting level of immersion and involvement is lower than any other game I can think of, including those grindy free mmo's. imo Tis a result of a profound lack of ambition and imagination in the original design, the implementation of the potentially awesome nemesis feature you mentioned is testerment of that for me, its difficult to imagine a more basic and rudimentary delivery and someone signed that off as adequet despite much brighter ideas in the beta forum =/.
If by the lack of choice you mean lack of content, that was true at release, now you have many more options and alternative path during leveling, including VB from lvl 34-40 and now the adventure packs(the first one was just released this week). Now about immersion is pretty much the same, I played CoH for 2 years and I don't find any difference in the level of immersion, the lore is moreless at the same level, story arcs are repetitive in both games with few exceptions of creativity in some taskforces/lairs. I respect your opinion, but I can't find any objective figure here. The level of choices in CO is pretty high, but still you need to make a minimum of smart choices, nothing different from CoH, in both games you could gimp your character without the minimum care.
As regards CoH, Power proliferation is actually the least benefit of Going Rogue, what it really delivers is conceptual and thematic responses to choice, it extends the players ability to customise, not just the avatar's superficials of appearence or power composition, but rather the avatar's life, their journey (actually the very thing you spend 95% of your time doing in game). CoH has actually used it as a mechnism to involve and immerse the player in the gameworld beyond the sterile 'avatar progression soley for its own sake' conceit. Indeed All the more recent extentions in CoH (since Cryptic seperated interestingly) have been to tackle those areas of the game that were lacking, its appeal, variety and diversity are enhanced as a result, these are aspects CO DESPERATELY needs not because, like all mmo's they are lacking, but rather because in Champions they are virtually non existent.
Still you are not making examples or anything so it is pretty much difficult to argue, so far I got that you think CoH is better because you empathize more with CoH world. If you could get a little more specific, I could understand your point better.
I guess it boils down to what you think is acceptible, imo if CO had arrived seven years ago it would still have struggled to impress or distinguish itself amid other embryo mmos (including the bare bone CoH)...... you can admire a game that aspires to be more even when it crashes and burns but when a game doesn't even try as imo we have in this case....well I think there we begin to find the answer to the OP of this thread.
Not sure what you mean about the evolution of CoH. For example power proliferation was the most intelligent move, they have powerset availability differences between heroes and villains so they just make them available to both of them, so in the end they are trying to do a less restrictive power selection process, which is Co has. The AE was just the opening of the cookie cutter process of making missions to the players, which ended up at the beginning in an exploitfest until the thing was so obvious that the whole feature loss its actual value. Make no mistake, I think the idea was good but incomplete in terms of freedom out the maps that CoH has available. What actually made the difference in CoH was the community, which is probably the best community in all mmos.
This CO v CoH discussion is pretty pointless. CoH is pretty much dead these days (sadly), while CO's numbers are grandually bounching back.
So dispite personal taste, the communities have spoken as for their general opinion.
Also compairing a game that has been out for several years, to one that is has only been so for severl months is just crazy. At this point in development, CoH was lacking more than CO was at launch.
This CO v CoH discussion is pretty pointless. CoH is pretty much dead these days (sadly), while CO's numbers are grandually bounching back.
So dispite personal taste, the communities have spoken as for their general opinion.
Also compairing a game that has been out for several years, to one that is has only been so for severl months is just crazy. At this point in development, CoH was lacking more than CO was at launch.
Based on what? Seems like CoH is doing pretty good with getting a new expansion while CO is still slowly fading away with a bunch of lifetimers defending it.
If WoW = The Beatles and WAR = Led Zeppelin Then LotrO = Pink Floyd
This CO v CoH discussion is pretty pointless. CoH is pretty much dead these days (sadly), while CO's numbers are grandually bounching back.
So dispite personal taste, the communities have spoken as for their general opinion.
Also compairing a game that has been out for several years, to one that is has only been so for severl months is just crazy. At this point in development, CoH was lacking more than CO was at launch.
Based on what? Seems like CoH is doing pretty good with getting a new expansion while CO is still slowly fading away with a bunch of lifetimers defending it.
I have seen recently a new flow of people trying CO, it might be just my perception, but the game is growing slowly but steadily. I can't talk about CoH being dead or not but the new expansion might get them a new breath. In any case, I don't see why we should hate neither CO nor CoX., they are good games and they have their particular style.
It is a matter of opinion, CO gameplay is more appealing to me, taping, maintaining, charging, blocking is more flexible than the classic attack chain used in CoH. I think CO has more potential than CoH, which is squeezing the game. The whole going rogue is not more than a huge power proliferation, so besides the 2 powersets there is nothing really new(talking power wise, not taking into account the new zone).
I like CoH, it was a good game which I enjoyed for long time, but I prefer CO because of its gameplay, maybe I will change to DCUO if its gameplay is more appealing to my taste, we'll see in November.
Indeed all we can offer are opinions but for me CO is the very definition of grind, there is a total absence in mechanical variety in any task, a total absence of choice or individuality once you step out of the avatar creator, its a single unwavering journey unresponsive and unsympathetic to the theme or player style or choice. The resulting level of immersion and involvement is lower than any other game I can think of, including those grindy free mmo's. imo Tis a result of a profound lack of ambition and imagination in the original design, the implementation of the potentially awesome nemesis feature you mentioned is testerment of that for me, its difficult to imagine a more basic and rudimentary delivery and someone signed that off as adequet despite much brighter ideas in the beta forum =/.
If by the lack of choice you mean lack of content, that was true at release, now you have many more options and alternative path during leveling, including VB from lvl 34-40 and now the adventure packs(the first one was just released this week). Now about immersion is pretty much the same, I played CoH for 2 years and I don't find any difference in the level of immersion, the lore is moreless at the same level, story arcs are repetitive in both games with few exceptions of creativity in some taskforces/lairs. I respect your opinion, but I can't find any objective figure here. The level of choices in CO is pretty high, but still you need to make a minimum of smart choices, nothing different from CoH, in both games you could gimp your character without the minimum care.
As regards CoH, Power proliferation is actually the least benefit of Going Rogue, what it really delivers is conceptual and thematic responses to choice, it extends the players ability to customise, not just the avatar's superficials of appearence or power composition, but rather the avatar's life, their journey (actually the very thing you spend 95% of your time doing in game). CoH has actually used it as a mechnism to involve and immerse the player in the gameworld beyond the sterile 'avatar progression soley for its own sake' conceit. Indeed All the more recent extentions in CoH (since Cryptic seperated interestingly) have been to tackle those areas of the game that were lacking, its appeal, variety and diversity are enhanced as a result, these are aspects CO DESPERATELY needs not because, like all mmo's they are lacking, but rather because in Champions they are virtually non existent.
Still you are not making examples or anything so it is pretty much difficult to argue, so far I got that you think CoH is better because you empathize more with CoH world. If you could get a little more specific, I could understand your point better.
I guess it boils down to what you think is acceptible, imo if CO had arrived seven years ago it would still have struggled to impress or distinguish itself amid other embryo mmos (including the bare bone CoH)...... you can admire a game that aspires to be more even when it crashes and burns but when a game doesn't even try as imo we have in this case....well I think there we begin to find the answer to the OP of this thread.
Not sure what you mean about the evolution of CoH. For example power proliferation was the most intelligent move, they have powerset availability differences between heroes and villains so they just make them available to both of them, so in the end they are trying to do a less restrictive power selection process, which is Co has. The AE was just the opening of the cookie cutter process of making missions to the players, which ended up at the beginning in an exploitfest until the thing was so obvious that the whole feature loss its actual value. Make no mistake, I think the idea was good but incomplete in terms of freedom out the maps that CoH has available. What actually made the difference in CoH was the community, which is probably the best community in all mmos.
The grind definition is a result of zero mechanical variety in Champions Tasks and quests (the words exusing it may change but the routes and methods are resolutely fixed, regardless of zone, regardless of surroundings, regardless of build, regardless of role, regardless of style, regardless of any influence, choice you can or wish to make.) By contrast the AT's in CoH all play differently solo and all play as different again in a team, less power choice ironically has more meaningful physical benefits when you replay.
There is no involvement or immesion in CO because the world is dogmatically ignorant of and determinedly resistant to any choice you make, any direction you move in. Enemy and Objective distribution is clumsy and cluttered, game enforced contradictions and inconsistencies are shoved in your face repeatedly...go save xxx in the woods, next mission go kill yy of zz which leads you past XXX who's now respawed. Kill a of b, find cure for B realising they are now curable run back to point D forcing you to kill any number of these now potential innocents... its dismal and contradictory in a profound way, as if delveloped by someone who never plays the game and has no concept of what being a hero is or what being an individual is all about. All the power choices in the world count for nothing in a world where one path is available to one and all.....you can choose to do it in a different order but one way or the other you'll meet it all eventually and regardless of your build nothing changes, regardless of your timing nothing changes, regardless of your needs nothing different is offered. That is grind, its bad enough in CoH but at least the instances keep contradicitons to a minimum and the AT choice define a different set of missions that are tailoered to make you feel its relevent to what you are.
Agree about the community CoH had a great one. For me the scarcity of teaming and community in CO (curiously even when you stand in a crowd of players) is a direct result of the game design - the experience doesn't change with a team, for the most part the team simply defeats any sense of individuality - join in, don't join in, go solo, don't go solo....nothing makes the game feel different or changes how you approach objectives and all you are left with is getting lost in a crowd so you don't bother and there isn't much of a community feel because the only sense of purpose or identity arises when you remain solo.
Haven't played CO since the last free weekend, but all the elements that made me despair of the game in alpha and beta were still very much in evidence - so I admit I haven't seen the adventure packs but they seem just like yet walls of text to set us doing the exact same few tasks over and over and add a few more instances to top things off, by contrast Going Rogue (and to a lesser extent the AE) allow you to find a role in the ongoing story, they give you a material AND conceptual sense of accomplishment becuase they begin to demonstrate consequence and dynamism based on your journey....these are elementary RPG facets in the wake of Biowares games yet CO didnt make any attempt to deploy them. I maintain that if CO had arrived seven years ago in its present state, it still would not have been considered fresh or imaginitve, its that devoid of creative development and the only progress is really the superficial skin it places on its engine (in turn a muted benefit by the alienation some feel by its stylised design...again more a case of 'hmm never read a comic but I think they look like this' than any invested or commited fan.)
Of course this is a personal opinion, I claim nothing more, I have pretty much played CoH to death and was eager to contiue my caped life, but sadly nothing in CO feels fresh, or new, or interesting or tbh even that much different and for a game delveloped a full seven years later, that is more than just a dissapointment imo.
It is a matter of opinion, CO gameplay is more appealing to me, taping, maintaining, charging, blocking is more flexible than the classic attack chain used in CoH. I think CO has more potential than CoH, which is squeezing the game. The whole going rogue is not more than a huge power proliferation, so besides the 2 powersets there is nothing really new(talking power wise, not taking into account the new zone).
I like CoH, it was a good game which I enjoyed for long time, but I prefer CO because of its gameplay, maybe I will change to DCUO if its gameplay is more appealing to my taste, we'll see in November.
Indeed all we can offer are opinions but for me CO is the very definition of grind, there is a total absence in mechanical variety in any task, a total absence of choice or individuality once you step out of the avatar creator, its a single unwavering journey unresponsive and unsympathetic to the theme or player style or choice. The resulting level of immersion and involvement is lower than any other game I can think of, including those grindy free mmo's. imo Tis a result of a profound lack of ambition and imagination in the original design, the implementation of the potentially awesome nemesis feature you mentioned is testerment of that for me, its difficult to imagine a more basic and rudimentary delivery and someone signed that off as adequet despite much brighter ideas in the beta forum =/.
If by the lack of choice you mean lack of content, that was true at release, now you have many more options and alternative path during leveling, including VB from lvl 34-40 and now the adventure packs(the first one was just released this week). Now about immersion is pretty much the same, I played CoH for 2 years and I don't find any difference in the level of immersion, the lore is moreless at the same level, story arcs are repetitive in both games with few exceptions of creativity in some taskforces/lairs. I respect your opinion, but I can't find any objective figure here. The level of choices in CO is pretty high, but still you need to make a minimum of smart choices, nothing different from CoH, in both games you could gimp your character without the minimum care.
As regards CoH, Power proliferation is actually the least benefit of Going Rogue, what it really delivers is conceptual and thematic responses to choice, it extends the players ability to customise, not just the avatar's superficials of appearence or power composition, but rather the avatar's life, their journey (actually the very thing you spend 95% of your time doing in game). CoH has actually used it as a mechnism to involve and immerse the player in the gameworld beyond the sterile 'avatar progression soley for its own sake' conceit. Indeed All the more recent extentions in CoH (since Cryptic seperated interestingly) have been to tackle those areas of the game that were lacking, its appeal, variety and diversity are enhanced as a result, these are aspects CO DESPERATELY needs not because, like all mmo's they are lacking, but rather because in Champions they are virtually non existent.
Still you are not making examples or anything so it is pretty much difficult to argue, so far I got that you think CoH is better because you empathize more with CoH world. If you could get a little more specific, I could understand your point better.
I guess it boils down to what you think is acceptible, imo if CO had arrived seven years ago it would still have struggled to impress or distinguish itself amid other embryo mmos (including the bare bone CoH)...... you can admire a game that aspires to be more even when it crashes and burns but when a game doesn't even try as imo we have in this case....well I think there we begin to find the answer to the OP of this thread.
Not sure what you mean about the evolution of CoH. For example power proliferation was the most intelligent move, they have powerset availability differences between heroes and villains so they just make them available to both of them, so in the end they are trying to do a less restrictive power selection process, which is Co has. The AE was just the opening of the cookie cutter process of making missions to the players, which ended up at the beginning in an exploitfest until the thing was so obvious that the whole feature loss its actual value. Make no mistake, I think the idea was good but incomplete in terms of freedom out the maps that CoH has available. What actually made the difference in CoH was the community, which is probably the best community in all mmos.
The grind definition is a result of zero mechanical variety in Champions Tasks and quests (the words exusing it may change but the routes and methods are resolutely fixed, regardless of zone, regardless of surroundings, regardless of build, regardless of role, regardless of style, regardless of any influence, choice you can or wish to make.) By contrast the AT's in CoH all play differently solo and all play as different again in a team, less power choice ironically has more meaningful physical benefits when you replay.
In CO you have different roles you can change even during a fight, healers can dps solo or expend their energy on healing in groups. I played CoH and I didn't see anything you are talking about blasters plays as blasters, the only ones that have some variety are the support ones (defenders, controllers and their villains counterparts) which is moreless the same for the support oriented builds in CO. The only thing that I could agree is that the role of a controller is pretty reduce since most cc are of short duration (and with strong diminish returns) and you are not expected to win a fight by encasing your enemies over and over defeating them eventually. This is because CO fights tends to be faster and CC is mostly applied for slow fights.
Most mechanics in CO are less forgiving than CoX. For instance, while most dps characters are less fragile than their equivalent in CoX, there is not tank herding so keeping aggro is not an easy task in CO. Healing is also full of dangers since the tank task is more challenging healer often catch aggro and die.
To be honest, I find the problem is that many people try to minmax their solo character and then see him as not especialized for a group.
There is no involvement or immesion in CO because the world is dogmatically ignorant of and determinedly resistant to any choice you make, any direction you move in. Enemy and Objective distribution is clumsy and cluttered, game enforced contradictions and inconsistencies are shoved in your face repeatedly...go save xxx in the woods, next mission go kill yy of zz which leads you past XXX who's now respawed. Kill a of b, find cure for B realising they are now curable run back to point D forcing you to kill any number of these now potential innocents... its dismal and contradictory in a profound way, as if delveloped by someone who never plays the game and has no concept of what being a hero is or what being an individual is all about. All the power choices in the world count for nothing in a world where one path is available to one and all.....you can choose to do it in a different order but one way or the other you'll meet it all eventually and regardless of your build nothing changes, regardless of your timing nothing changes, regardless of your needs nothing different is offered. That is grind, its bad enough in CoH but at least the instances keep contradicitons to a minimum and the AT choice define a different set of missions that are tailoered to make you feel its relevent to what you are.
So essentially because CoX lacks of outdoors missions then they are right, moreless like just hide the dirt. Without phasing there is no claim of changing the world. Besides, praetorian farming is pretty much a staple in the last 10 levels. In CoX I learned the concept of bridge, powerleveling and farming.
Agree about the community CoH had a great one. For me the scarcity of teaming and community in CO (curiously even when you stand in a crowd of players) is a direct result of the game design - the experience doesn't change with a team, for the most part the team simply defeats any sense of individuality - join in, don't join in, go solo, don't go solo....nothing makes the game feel different or changes how you approach objectives and all you are left with is getting lost in a crowd so you don't bother and there isn't much of a community feel because the only sense of purpose or identity arises when you remain solo.
Certainly there is less teaming in CO but it goes more to the wow style where normal leveling is mostly solo and teaming is reserved for dungeons. The main reason for teaming in CoX is that reduce the grind to cap level, and street wiping is an option.
Haven't played CO since the last free weekend, but all the elements that made me despair of the game in alpha and beta were still very much in evidence - so I admit I haven't seen the adventure packs but they seem just like yet walls of text to set us doing the exact same few tasks over and over and add a few more instances to top things off, by contrast Going Rogue (and to a lesser extent the AE) allow you to find a role in the ongoing story, they give you a material AND conceptual sense of accomplishment becuase they begin to demonstrate consequence and dynamism based on your journey....these are elementary RPG facets in the wake of Biowares games yet CO didnt make any attempt to deploy them. I maintain that if CO had arrived seven years ago in its present state, it still would not have been considered fresh or imaginitve, its that devoid of creative development and the only progress is really the superficial skin it places on its engine (in turn a muted benefit by the alienation some feel by its stylised design...again more a case of 'hmm never read a comic but I think they look like this' than any invested or commited fan.)
Did you have the chance of trying Vibora Bay? more specifically Therakiel Temple?
Going Rogue looks good to me mainly because they are putting strong content, which is expected from a payed expansion. However, the whole good going bad and bad going good is just a squeeze of the powersets and the current content. Provided that villains archetypes except masterminds are combinations of primaries and secondaries of heroes, I would question a bit the value of replay the hero content on a villain provided you already have a capped villain and capped hero.
Of course this is a personal opinion, I claim nothing more, I have pretty much played CoH to death and was eager to contiue my caped life, but sadly nothing in CO feels fresh, or new, or interesting or tbh even that much different and for a game delveloped a full seven years later, that is more than just a dissapointment imo.
I think you were expecting too much on current mmos. Most stuff in mmos have gone to graphics and when there is money to content. Even wow as the most resourceful mmo has evolved pretty slowed. The phasing feature was pretty primitive and in most occasions annoying. I doubt we will get something too different from DCUO, I am just expecting a fun game that I could play.
This CO v CoH discussion is pretty pointless. CoH is pretty much dead these days (sadly), while CO's numbers are grandually bounching back.
So dispite personal taste, the communities have spoken as for their general opinion.
Also compairing a game that has been out for several years, to one that is has only been so for severl months is just crazy. At this point in development, CoH was lacking more than CO was at launch.
Based on what? Seems like CoH is doing pretty good with getting a new expansion while CO is still slowly fading away with a bunch of lifetimers defending it.
By playing both, which by your statement you clearly don't. I'm afraid you have it very much the wrong way round.
CoH is a good game, buy you're in denial. Its dated and showing its age, hence why so many are leaving. While CO is bouncing back.
Bringing out expansions is simply an indicator its still financially viable, or they are hoping for it to swing a decline.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
It is a matter of opinion, CO gameplay is more appealing to me, taping, maintaining, charging, blocking is more flexible than the classic attack chain used in CoH. I think CO has more potential than CoH, which is squeezing the game. The whole going rogue is not more than a huge power proliferation, so besides the 2 powersets there is nothing really new(talking power wise, not taking into account the new zone).
I like CoH, it was a good game which I enjoyed for long time, but I prefer CO because of its gameplay, maybe I will change to DCUO if its gameplay is more appealing to my taste, we'll see in November.
Indeed all we can offer are opinions but for me CO is the very definition of grind, there is a total absence in mechanical variety in any task, a total absence of choice or individuality once you step out of the avatar creator, its a single unwavering journey unresponsive and unsympathetic to the theme or player style or choice. The resulting level of immersion and involvement is lower than any other game I can think of, including those grindy free mmo's. imo Tis a result of a profound lack of ambition and imagination in the original design, the implementation of the potentially awesome nemesis feature you mentioned is testerment of that for me, its difficult to imagine a more basic and rudimentary delivery and someone signed that off as adequet despite much brighter ideas in the beta forum =/.
If by the lack of choice you mean lack of content, that was true at release, now you have many more options and alternative path during leveling, including VB from lvl 34-40 and now the adventure packs(the first one was just released this week). Now about immersion is pretty much the same, I played CoH for 2 years and I don't find any difference in the level of immersion, the lore is moreless at the same level, story arcs are repetitive in both games with few exceptions of creativity in some taskforces/lairs. I respect your opinion, but I can't find any objective figure here. The level of choices in CO is pretty high, but still you need to make a minimum of smart choices, nothing different from CoH, in both games you could gimp your character without the minimum care.
As regards CoH, Power proliferation is actually the least benefit of Going Rogue, what it really delivers is conceptual and thematic responses to choice, it extends the players ability to customise, not just the avatar's superficials of appearence or power composition, but rather the avatar's life, their journey (actually the very thing you spend 95% of your time doing in game). CoH has actually used it as a mechnism to involve and immerse the player in the gameworld beyond the sterile 'avatar progression soley for its own sake' conceit. Indeed All the more recent extentions in CoH (since Cryptic seperated interestingly) have been to tackle those areas of the game that were lacking, its appeal, variety and diversity are enhanced as a result, these are aspects CO DESPERATELY needs not because, like all mmo's they are lacking, but rather because in Champions they are virtually non existent.
Still you are not making examples or anything so it is pretty much difficult to argue, so far I got that you think CoH is better because you empathize more with CoH world. If you could get a little more specific, I could understand your point better.
I guess it boils down to what you think is acceptible, imo if CO had arrived seven years ago it would still have struggled to impress or distinguish itself amid other embryo mmos (including the bare bone CoH)...... you can admire a game that aspires to be more even when it crashes and burns but when a game doesn't even try as imo we have in this case....well I think there we begin to find the answer to the OP of this thread.
Not sure what you mean about the evolution of CoH. For example power proliferation was the most intelligent move, they have powerset availability differences between heroes and villains so they just make them available to both of them, so in the end they are trying to do a less restrictive power selection process, which is Co has. The AE was just the opening of the cookie cutter process of making missions to the players, which ended up at the beginning in an exploitfest until the thing was so obvious that the whole feature loss its actual value. Make no mistake, I think the idea was good but incomplete in terms of freedom out the maps that CoH has available. What actually made the difference in CoH was the community, which is probably the best community in all mmos.
The grind definition is a result of zero mechanical variety in Champions Tasks and quests (the words exusing it may change but the routes and methods are resolutely fixed, regardless of zone, regardless of surroundings, regardless of build, regardless of role, regardless of style, regardless of any influence, choice you can or wish to make.) By contrast the AT's in CoH all play differently solo and all play as different again in a team, less power choice ironically has more meaningful physical benefits when you replay.
In CO you have different roles you can change even during a fight, healers can dps solo or expend their energy on healing in groups. I played CoH and I didn't see anything you are talking about blasters plays as blasters, the only ones that have some variety are the support ones (defenders, controllers and their villains counterparts) which is moreless the same for the support oriented builds in CO. The only thing that I could agree is that the role of a controller is pretty reduce since most cc are of short duration (and with strong diminish returns) and you are not expected to win a fight by encasing your enemies over and over defeating them eventually. This is because CO fights tends to be faster and CC is mostly applied for slow fights.
Most mechanics in CO are less forgiving than CoX. For instance, while most dps characters are less fragile than their equivalent in CoX, there is not tank herding so keeping aggro is not an easy task in CO. Healing is also full of dangers since the tank task is more challenging healer often catch aggro and die.
To be honest, I find the problem is that many people try to minmax their solo character and then see him as not especialized for a group.
There is no involvement or immesion in CO because the world is dogmatically ignorant of and determinedly resistant to any choice you make, any direction you move in. Enemy and Objective distribution is clumsy and cluttered, game enforced contradictions and inconsistencies are shoved in your face repeatedly...go save xxx in the woods, next mission go kill yy of zz which leads you past XXX who's now respawed. Kill a of b, find cure for B realising they are now curable run back to point D forcing you to kill any number of these now potential innocents... its dismal and contradictory in a profound way, as if delveloped by someone who never plays the game and has no concept of what being a hero is or what being an individual is all about. All the power choices in the world count for nothing in a world where one path is available to one and all.....you can choose to do it in a different order but one way or the other you'll meet it all eventually and regardless of your build nothing changes, regardless of your timing nothing changes, regardless of your needs nothing different is offered. That is grind, its bad enough in CoH but at least the instances keep contradicitons to a minimum and the AT choice define a different set of missions that are tailoered to make you feel its relevent to what you are.
So essentially because CoX lacks of outdoors missions then they are right, moreless like just hide the dirt. Without phasing there is no claim of changing the world. Besides, praetorian farming is pretty much a staple in the last 10 levels. In CoX I learned the concept of bridge, powerleveling and farming.
Agree about the community CoH had a great one. For me the scarcity of teaming and community in CO (curiously even when you stand in a crowd of players) is a direct result of the game design - the experience doesn't change with a team, for the most part the team simply defeats any sense of individuality - join in, don't join in, go solo, don't go solo....nothing makes the game feel different or changes how you approach objectives and all you are left with is getting lost in a crowd so you don't bother and there isn't much of a community feel because the only sense of purpose or identity arises when you remain solo.
Certainly there is less teaming in CO but it goes more to the wow style where normal leveling is mostly solo and teaming is reserved for dungeons. The main reason for teaming in CoX is that reduce the grind to cap level, and street wiping is an option.
Haven't played CO since the last free weekend, but all the elements that made me despair of the game in alpha and beta were still very much in evidence - so I admit I haven't seen the adventure packs but they seem just like yet walls of text to set us doing the exact same few tasks over and over and add a few more instances to top things off, by contrast Going Rogue (and to a lesser extent the AE) allow you to find a role in the ongoing story, they give you a material AND conceptual sense of accomplishment becuase they begin to demonstrate consequence and dynamism based on your journey....these are elementary RPG facets in the wake of Biowares games yet CO didnt make any attempt to deploy them. I maintain that if CO had arrived seven years ago in its present state, it still would not have been considered fresh or imaginitve, its that devoid of creative development and the only progress is really the superficial skin it places on its engine (in turn a muted benefit by the alienation some feel by its stylised design...again more a case of 'hmm never read a comic but I think they look like this' than any invested or commited fan.)
Did you have the chance of trying Vibora Bay? more specifically Therakiel Temple?
Going Rogue looks good to me mainly because they are putting strong content, which is expected from a payed expansion. However, the whole good going bad and bad going good is just a squeeze of the powersets and the current content. Provided that villains archetypes except masterminds are combinations of primaries and secondaries of heroes, I would question a bit the value of replay the hero content on a villain provided you already have a capped villain and capped hero.
Of course this is a personal opinion, I claim nothing more, I have pretty much played CoH to death and was eager to contiue my caped life, but sadly nothing in CO feels fresh, or new, or interesting or tbh even that much different and for a game delveloped a full seven years later, that is more than just a dissapointment imo.
I think you were expecting too much on current mmos. Most stuff in mmos have gone to graphics and when there is money to content. Even wow as the most resourceful mmo has evolved pretty slowed. The phasing feature was pretty primitive and in most occasions annoying. I doubt we will get something too different from DCUO, I am just expecting a fun game that I could play.
Heres hoping DCUO will be a bit more ambitious
Thank you for taking the time to respond but I suspect we are playing games for very different reasons, when you talk about power levelling, farming and teaming soley for exp you talk about playing a game essentially for the sole purpose of playing or at least racing past the theme element of the content simply to get to the level cap (I dont do any of those thinsg and have never farmed in Preatoria - essentially I cant see any evidence of an endgame worth playing...so it just seems like rushing ahead for the sake of getting bored quicker??)
I may be a rarity in that I play mmo games generally with the itent/ambition to feel part of the online world, take a break from hum drum reality, become a member of a community of likeminded people and in this case a superhero, these are areas CO fails big time! Fun is the one sole key to this, if soemthing isnt physically challenging or fun then there has to be some coneptual or immersive reward that compensates...theres too little in CoH but none whatsoever in CO imo.
The lack of mechanical (physical) variety in CO quests is acute - before the tutorial is over you experiece pretty much every kind of mission it has to offer....it doesnt disguise those do x of Y quests very well and worse the gameworld doesnt deliver any illusion/sense of purpose or fulfillment in the larger world to help you to over look the mindnumbing monotony of it all. The physical mechanics of combat also fail to need to vary, the powers all respond and react identically, the same tactics pretty much work for everything, I find you dont actually need to watch the screen to level through wave after wave of enemies. Enemy Ai is really really limited there may be a few difering kinds but the world is so cluttered and clumsy in its layout you invariably find every encounter has pretty much the same mix so every encounter with every kind of enemy ends up feeling exactly the same.
I hear what you say about roles and teaming but there is no encouragement to vary either aside from your own boredom, the same appraoch nets you the same reaction and same experience...this is markedly difenret from CoH in my experiecence where solo, teamed, tank, blaster, controller, corrupter, brute, stalker, master mind all require different tactics to avoid ending up on your face and more importantly they all deliver a unique fictional justification that justify's or excuses your journey.
There seems nothing in Champions that ultimately makes any material differnce to your gameplay experience either in real physical terms or in any form of conceptual or themeatic regard... CoH for all its faults is bound and elevated by the conviction it has in the theme, the enthusiasm of the devs and the community...CO has none of these elemants and you end up playing with one sole thing in mind...the ONLY thing changing is that my toon is levelling, but for why, and what happpens when it gets there (neither CoH or CO have any endgame of value, no involvement, no immersion a sterile and souless slog is all I can convince myself is going on.
It's not that I dislike Champions, it's that I do not feel I could support Cryptic. If Cryptic dropped Champions and it was taken over by someone else, I'd probably subscribe to it.
Ok...When Champions Online first came out of Beta And went Live...I was tottally Against it 100% cause I thought Cryptic was messin up and wasnt on accedent either....But then I had friends say to me that the game got better and Cryptic actually took time and listened to what people want and did it in Champions. Well of corse I told them No way...Didnt happen....But.....Then I went home and tried it...And i have to say..I have changed my whole opinion On Cryptic and the Champions Online MMORPG...I got back on and to my suprise it was 100% better than what it was right after the Live release...I know people Will say mean things here about this post but I rather dont care cause I see it for myself....I just wondered why people still have the Hate for the game?? Cause it has changed for the better and that tells me Cryptic is trying to work with the Gamers....
In short Champions is a mediocre game from a less than desirable dev with a so so IP. Truthfully I am so glad that Marvel pulled it's license after seeing this game. It is so bland and generic it isn't funny and seeing how badly Cryptic translated STO I'm sure many a Marvel exec is breathing a sigh of relief.
The one point that you can usually find people pushing as a strong point for this game is the character creator and honestly even that is not as good as I'd heard, I really enjoyed COH better which is some four or so years older than Champions. IMO Cryptic is riding high on having created the COH customization but nothing they've done since has come close, they swore it would be a strong point in Champions (again it isn't even better than it's predecessor in COH) and again with STO and again I spent countless hours in COH just making toons that I sometimes never played but wouldn't erase because they looked so cool I've never been able to dedicate even a single hour to either the Champions or STO creator.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
It had good ideas in the alpha and beta stages, then later on beta stages the devs started defending their bad ideas rather than changing them to good feedback. Then they used horrible feedback to make the game less dynamic. There's a LOT of MMO gamers who really like static things, contrary to what this community thinks.
Then the pricing model became CRAZY!
I am not paying half the price of a full fledged expansion that other companies offer, for a bit of 'F2P' inspired content & a monthly fee.
Plus even still how they advertise most of their 'unique' features isn't what they're actually talking about.
It was a disappointing sophmore effort from Cryptic.
I kill other players because they're smarter than AI, sometimes.
Ok...When Champions Online first came out of Beta And went Live...I was tottally Against it 100% cause I thought Cryptic was messin up and wasnt on accedent either....But then I had friends say to me that the game got better and Cryptic actually took time and listened to what people want and did it in Champions. Well of corse I told them No way...Didnt happen....But.....Then I went home and tried it...And i have to say..I have changed my whole opinion On Cryptic and the Champions Online MMORPG...I got back on and to my suprise it was 100% better than what it was right after the Live release...I know people Will say mean things here about this post but I rather dont care cause I see it for myself....I just wondered why people still have the Hate for the game?? Cause it has changed for the better and that tells me Cryptic is trying to work with the Gamers....
In short Champions is a mediocre game from a less than desirable dev with a so so IP. Truthfully I am so glad that Marvel pulled it's license after seeing this game. It is so bland and generic it isn't funny and seeing how badly Cryptic translated STO I'm sure many a Marvel exec is breathing a sigh of relief.
The one point that you can usually find people pushing as a strong point for this game is the character creator and honestly even that is not as good as I'd heard, I really enjoyed COH better which is some four or so years older than Champions. IMO Cryptic is riding high on having created the COH customization but nothing they've done since has come close, they swore it would be a strong point in Champions (again it isn't even better than it's predecessor in COH) and again with STO and again I spent countless hours in COH just making toons that I sometimes never played but wouldn't erase because they looked so cool I've never been able to dedicate even a single hour to either the Champions or STO creator.
The customization is clearly better in CO. You can modify individual parts of the body and face, different stances, more parts of the body to change. The only advantage that CoH has is the number of pieces that is pretty much the result of 5 years of being alive. One of the free weekend of CoH I tried to make a new character and even with the power coloring it felt so limited that I gave up. I got spoiled by CO character creator.
What I observed is that the trend of "disappointed on CO" people is more related to CO not being more like CoH or wow in one sense or the other.
CoH people were expecting that CO was CoH powerset were you could choose from all powers in powerset. CO is a faster paced game, so the system is quite different that those people were expecting.
For once, tanking was not so trivial, in CoH tanks could even tank afk, the herding stuff was pretty too brainless. CO tanking is more wow like, need to taunt and have your aggro high, a tank cannot be just a meatshield because it wont hold aggro without pulling enough damage. It is more along the classic comic were superman was tough to kill but at the same time damaging, in CoH superman build is Super Strenght/Invulnerability making a weak version of superman.
Healing, buffing and debuffing is less relevant, full support people fans were disappointed when they weren't worship for being healazor, buff/debuff vending machine. If you heal like crazy and you will be dead soon, aggro is a serious thing in CO. It could be argue that it is diminish the sacred trinity of roles but the idea is to soft it more in the lines of the actual comics and less in the tradition of sword and magic mmos. You might not like it but still it has a reason behind it.
Anyway, there is not much to be done about this perception. However, more people are trying the game and the population is slowly increasing, my SG is receiving more people every week, and this even with all the hate that has been spread.
The only thing I have to say that is mean is your use of . . .instead of just a period. I do that a lot though so I can't call you out on that. One thing to do that is more acceptible is to change them to a dash instead.
Aside from that I don't think there is anything wrong with your post. I have a hard time believing that the game is 100% better. I can see some improvements but not that large. I hope you don't get flamed too bad. Everyone is entitled to their opinion - and you are allowed to share yours. See how I used the dash there. . . I just think it looks nicer. . oh now see I am not
omg I do that all the time too. I really need to get my point across by adding the extra dots so people understand the pause in between what I say...I think it's because of Anime....
Ok...When Champions Online first came out of Beta And went Live...I was tottally Against it 100% cause I thought Cryptic was messin up and wasnt on accedent either....But then I had friends say to me that the game got better and Cryptic actually took time and listened to what people want and did it in Champions. Well of corse I told them No way...Didnt happen....But.....Then I went home and tried it...And i have to say..I have changed my whole opinion On Cryptic and the Champions Online MMORPG...I got back on and to my suprise it was 100% better than what it was right after the Live release...I know people Will say mean things here about this post but I rather dont care cause I see it for myself....I just wondered why people still have the Hate for the game?? Cause it has changed for the better and that tells me Cryptic is trying to work with the Gamers....
In short Champions is a mediocre game from a less than desirable dev with a so so IP. Truthfully I am so glad that Marvel pulled it's license after seeing this game. It is so bland and generic it isn't funny and seeing how badly Cryptic translated STO I'm sure many a Marvel exec is breathing a sigh of relief.
The one point that you can usually find people pushing as a strong point for this game is the character creator and honestly even that is not as good as I'd heard, I really enjoyed COH better which is some four or so years older than Champions. IMO Cryptic is riding high on having created the COH customization but nothing they've done since has come close, they swore it would be a strong point in Champions (again it isn't even better than it's predecessor in COH) and again with STO and again I spent countless hours in COH just making toons that I sometimes never played but wouldn't erase because they looked so cool I've never been able to dedicate even a single hour to either the Champions or STO creator.
The customization is clearly better in CO. You can modify individual parts of the body and face, different stances, more parts of the body to change. The only advantage that CoH has is the number of pieces that is pretty much the result of 5 years of being alive. One of the free weekend of CoH I tried to make a new character and even with the power coloring it felt so limited that I gave up. I got spoiled by CO character creator.
What I observed is that the trend of "disappointed on CO" people is more related to CO not being more like CoH or wow in one sense or the other.
CoH people were expecting that CO was CoH powerset were you could choose from all powers in powerset. CO is a faster paced game, so the system is quite different that those people were expecting.
For once, tanking was not so trivial, in CoH tanks could even tank afk, the herding stuff was pretty too brainless. CO tanking is more wow like, need to taunt and have your aggro high, a tank cannot be just a meatshield because it wont hold aggro without pulling enough damage. It is more along the classic comic were superman was tough to kill but at the same time damaging, in CoH superman build is Super Strenght/Invulnerability making a weak version of superman.
Healing, buffing and debuffing is less relevant, full support people fans were disappointed when they weren't worship for being healazor, buff/debuff vending machine. If you heal like crazy and you will be dead soon, aggro is a serious thing in CO. It could be argue that it is diminish the sacred trinity of roles but the idea is to soft it more in the lines of the actual comics and less in the tradition of sword and magic mmos. You might not like it but still it has a reason behind it.
Anyway, there is not much to be done about this perception. However, more people are trying the game and the population is slowly increasing, my SG is receiving more people every week, and this even with all the hate that has been spread.
I only hear a lot of hate here. CO has the most helpful forums I've seen in a long time. I always read official forums and see what people that like the game are complaining about. People that hate a game may have valid objective points, but it is hard to distinguish them from "this game is not the type that I like."
I love both games but, there is no way that COX has better customization than CO. Not visually and obviously not in power choices.
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
I think the main problems people have with Champions Online stem from 5 main things:
1) Not what they were used to.
2) Emmert, the original lead developer for CoH, leaving to start this game with all the ideas he told CoH fans they couldn't have.
3) Learning curve.
4) First-time trying the game was a bad experience.
5) Lack of End-Game Content
--------------------------------------
To break these issues down and explain:
1) Most people who tried CO were coming from that type of game already, CoH, the only other super-hero MMO. They were expecting the whole "Pick your powers", "Team up", "Easy tanking/healing" type of game, and were caught off-guard. Champions has pretty much a solo-leveling atmosphere like WoW. Most teaming is simply for public quests and dungeons. Otherwise people tend to stick to themselves unless they need help with something, and then only team briefly. This didn't ruin WoW, and in fact is what WoW capitalized on, but coming from CoH, this was a shock to many gamers, who were comfortable with their healer just sitting on the sidelines as a heal/buff-bot with only the one required attack move at lvl 1. In Champions, they are expected to solo and pull their weight at least somewhat in more ways than healing. Tanks are expected to pull off some damage and AoEs in order to keep aggro, rather than having threat given for free with taunting auras and an AoE full Taunt move, not to mention their inhrent power that gives them free aggro for simply punching, no matter how weak the attack.
2) Emmert, or Statesman, used to work for the Dev Team on CoH, and was notorious for nerfing, telling fans that their requests could not be done simply because the game wasn't designed to ever be able to do that, and had a general pessimism with how he ran the development of CoH. When he left with Cryptic to create Champions, fans of CoH had more of a "don't let the door hit you on the way out" mentality about his leaving, mixed with some outrage that his new project was a hero game with all the stuff fans wanted in CoH that he told us was impossible. This made CoH fans feel betrayed and almost robbed, and that is what kept me from wanting to try CO. Prejudice against the guy in charge and the principle of it all.
3) There is a slight learning curve to Champions, for two main reasons. First of all, the stat system is unlike anything done before it. Sure some of the stats match other MMO stats in either name or purpose, but how the stats interract with your powers is what makes it so unique. In CoH, you have damage, accuracy, defense, resistance, healing, etc., but in CO, how these stats in your individual powers are affected by your actual character stat points varies. If you change your role from combat/dps to tanking, your powers scale completely different. If you then go to a support role, some of your stats even reverse in purpose, such as Presence. As a tank, you can heal yourself well, but not others, and your Presence stat raises your threat generation. As a healer, you heal everyone well, and your Presence stat reduces your threat generation. If you take a forcefield support move, it doesn't scale with the same stats as other heal-based support classes, and uses Endurance/Ego instead. A tank could be built with Constitution (for HP, obviously a good choice), but as a second stat focus could choose Strength if using the power armor tanking passive, or Recovery if taking the regeneration passive. No one job has one stat set required, like in WoW or CoH. This is confusing to someone new to Champions Online, and I won't lie, my first two or three characters sucked miserably. I didn't know what to use for what, but as I leveled and learned what stats I would need, my later characters were amazing. I have someone who literally takes 4 or more people to bring down in PvP. He is a tank in every sense of the word, and yet he still can kill people. It took time to learn how to do this, and not all gamers like the experience of learning these things and like to jump in and have fun right off the bat. There is nothing wrong with that, as everyone has their own idea of "fun", but this lends to some of the dislike of CO.
4) My friends who refuse to try CO won't try it because they claim they "already did." This meaning they played the beta or right after launch. I admit, the game had major flaws before beta that were cracked down on at release, to which my friends refered to as a "Mass-nerfing" when the game went live. Even after release, the game had tons of issues, some of which only recently got ironed out. They said this was bad design that the game needed altered so much, but I would like to remind people of all the bugs in CoH/CoV that these very same haters tend to overlook, lol. If I had a dollar for every geometry hole I fell through when CoV went live, I could fund my own MMO. How about the nearly unrecognizably different version of WoW we have now (not to mention when Cataclysm comes out) compared to Vanilla WoW? Games are never released as a 100% final product anymore, and are fluid, living creations. They never stay the same for long, especially when gamers like all the CO haters out there are so frustrated by these problems. The fact that so many people were mad at release time was proof the game was going to undergo some more changes. Obviously the devs would love to see you return, and have been listening rather well in the meantime to what the fans want.
The game as of last year was great, and I'm a huge CoH fan. I do not consider Champions to be Cryptic's replacement for CoH/CoV, but I DO consider it to be a great competitor for my attention. The only, I repeat, ONLY reason I do not play Champions at the moment is simply because all the people I would like to play with are either on WoW or CoH, and show no signs of ever leaving. If I play CO, it means I play alone, and who wants to play a Massively-multiplayer online game without that multiplayer aspect?
5) Some people, most of which I can say play WoW, like tons of end-game content. For me, the journey is the real experience of an MMORPG, or any RPG for that matter. Sometimes it's fun to just go ape-sh** on something with your strongest character, but frankly, it's the leveling up, gaining new powers, developing your characters, and experiencing the game itself that is the most fun. If you like this, then you will probably like CO just fine. If you want to have a billion 25-man raids, dozens of epic dungeons, and several "tiers" of gear to work your way up only for them to make it all obsolete at the next expansion, then WoW is probably more your style. Even when it comes to PvP, I find it more fun in mid-game levels, because there's that true, comic book sense of "You may have won this time, but I'll be back, and stronger than ever! Just you wait!" that makes even late-game pvp feel stale in other MMOs. Champions does not disappoint in pvp, except for where all MMOs fail in pvp: support classes are too easy to kill, and are the first to be targetted and killed. Only Warhammer Online found a way to defeat this problem, and did it well, but Warhammer is a discussion for another thread. PvP or PvE, regardless of your preferences, is always more fun to me when I'm NOT max-level. Once you get to the end of the game, there's nowhere to go from there really. So I start an alt and enjoy the game all over again.
On a side-note, people forget that the only games with tons of end-game content only have all that content because of the sheer population of gamers they have subscribed. Most end-game content: WoW. Most players: WoW. Not a coincidence, hehe. Champions is newer and less played. The more people who play it, the better it will get. The same goes for any MMO, and if Champions and Warhammer, and any of the other less-played games actually had the subscriptions to back them up, they'd be leaps and bounds ahead of WoW in overall game quality. The lack of end-game content is actually a direct result of nobody actually sticking with and playing the game for very long. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
--------------------------------------
I think that anyone who hated the game should give it another shot. It's worlds beyond what it used to be, has incredible customizability, and some of the most innovative and original attacks I've seen yet. Never has a game re-awakened my inner child quite like when I first tried Swinging (travel power) in Champions Online. I can't tell you how many times I screwed around just trying to see if I could accurately swing through/under/around small windows, balconies, and ledges, just to see if I could hit the mark with it. I rolled an acrobat with pistols and super-reflex-style dodging abiltiy, and built him to be a tank, and he is one of the most elegant killers I have ever witnessed in a game. The first time I activated my Orbital Strike power and gave it the Anvil of Dawn upgrade, I swear I just stopped fighting and watched the enemies run in terror, laughing like an evil genius. There are experiences in CO I simply have no comparison for in other MMOs, and it's a shame so many people hate the game too much to ever experience such fun for themselves.
I highly recommend people put down their presumptions about Champions Online like I did, and honestly try it out again, even if only for a month. Try it out, learn the stat system, level past 10, try the PvP, try different powers, and make several characters. Learn what you like, and give the game a real chance. It's actually quite good. Don't forget, I used to be in your shoes hating this game too, lol.
(Note: Sorry for the wall of text, heh. I figured if I was going to address the thread, I might as well do it all in one shot. That's why I broke it down into the 5 numbered points. If you don't care about one of the reasons, you can easily skip to one more relevant to your experience with CO. I figured a "table of contents", so to speak, would beat a typical wall of text, lol.)
I must admit I get some of the reasons for the CO hate, but I don't agree with it. CO is a decent game. It's not a "second job" type of MMO, but not everybody wants a second job for their MMO. Like CoX it's a fun game to dip into, and a fun game for those of us who suffer from alt-itis, but it could benefit from being bigger, with more content, that's for sure. However, you can generally be having fun as soon as you log in, if you don't mind soloing a lot in an MMO.
Grouping is the only place CO really lets me down. I just don't understand why they didn't just use the brilliant lft system and little tricks they had in CoX that made it such a great game for teaming. I've heard the "classless" argument, but I don't buy that - CoV was pretty much like CO in terms of everyone being pretty much able to dish out damage, take it, and mitigate it, and the teaming effect in CoV was simply "steamrollering", which is plenty fun for a team. I guess it's that the incentives aren't right in CO. Some things have improved a wee bit (like difficulty scaling having been introduced), so hopefully they'll get the teaming sorted out at some point.
But even if they didn't, this is a good game to have on rotation - every time you play it again, the combat system is like a breath of fresh air, fun and fast-paced, and the build system is deep enough, and quirky enough, to get your teeth into.
I must admit I get some of the reasons for the CO hate, but I don't agree with it. CO is a decent game. It's not a "second job" type of MMO, but not everybody wants a second job for their MMO. Like CoX it's a fun game to dip into, and a fun game for those of us who suffer from alt-itis, but it could benefit from being bigger, with more content, that's for sure. However, you can generally be having fun as soon as you log in, if you don't mind soloing a lot in an MMO.
Grouping is the only place CO really lets me down. I just don't understand why they didn't just use the brilliant lft system and little tricks they had in CoX that made it such a great game for teaming. I've heard the "classless" argument, but I don't buy that - CoV was pretty much like CO in terms of everyone being pretty much able to dish out damage, take it, and mitigate it, and the teaming effect in CoV was simply "steamrollering", which is plenty fun for a team. I guess it's that the incentives aren't right in CO. Some things have improved a wee bit (like difficulty scaling having been introduced), so hopefully they'll get the teaming sorted out at some point.
But even if they didn't, this is a good game to have on rotation - every time you play it again, the combat system is like a breath of fresh air, fun and fast-paced, and the build system is deep enough, and quirky enough, to get your teeth into.
You hit the nail on the head. It's a great MMO if you just want to get in for a month, quest, level up, do some PvP scenarios, etc., just don't look to team very often. Only a select few harder missions have teaming involved, and even those can sometimes be solo'd. This game is a lot like WoW, quest-wise; most people just solo until they want to do a dungeon or pvp scenario. Otherwise, teaming is dead. Unlike WoW, again I have to agree, the combat is unbelievably dynamic and exciting. I find myself getting 2 or 3 levels in one session, never having quested all day. I just took on hordes of zombies in the zombie apocalypse pvp scenario, or got into a cage fight 5v5. It's like the best parts of Warhammer PvP plus WoW-style questing.
What I think Champions Online (and Warhammer Online, since I mentioned it, lol) need is SUBSCRIBERS. The reason WoW dominates is because it has the financial backing to provide new, updated, and amazing content regularly. Warhammer is a better game all-around if you ask me, but doesn't have enough players to fund adding much new content, and for the most part has been slowly shriveling in the shade next to WoW. City of Heroes/Villains is a team oriented atmosphere, and does it well. Because it thrives on that closer, more social community, it lasts despite games with more subscribers like WoW, simply through fan loyalty. This nearly guaranteed stream of income lets CoH/V offer new free expansions every few months, plus small optional micro-transactions to keep things interesting. If CO and WAR had the subscriptions to back it up, they would easily be tough competition for CoH/V and WoW. CoH may be good at getting out new power sets and other content into the game, but imagine if a game as free-form as CO got its hands on the kinds of funds the other MMO giants have. And Warhammer, look at how many races aren't playable yet, how many troops in the tabletop game haven't been represented yet... that's easily a dozen WoW expansions of content. But it all comes down to "who has the money to accomplish it?" and frankly... not CO and WAR. :-/
I must admit I get some of the reasons for the CO hate, but I don't agree with it. CO is a decent game. It's not a "second job" type of MMO, but not everybody wants a second job for their MMO. Like CoX it's a fun game to dip into, and a fun game for those of us who suffer from alt-itis, but it could benefit from being bigger, with more content, that's for sure. However, you can generally be having fun as soon as you log in, if you don't mind soloing a lot in an MMO.
Grouping is the only place CO really lets me down. I just don't understand why they didn't just use the brilliant lft system and little tricks they had in CoX that made it such a great game for teaming. I've heard the "classless" argument, but I don't buy that - CoV was pretty much like CO in terms of everyone being pretty much able to dish out damage, take it, and mitigate it, and the teaming effect in CoV was simply "steamrollering", which is plenty fun for a team. I guess it's that the incentives aren't right in CO. Some things have improved a wee bit (like difficulty scaling having been introduced), so hopefully they'll get the teaming sorted out at some point.
But even if they didn't, this is a good game to have on rotation - every time you play it again, the combat system is like a breath of fresh air, fun and fast-paced, and the build system is deep enough, and quirky enough, to get your teeth into.
You hit the nail on the head. It's a great MMO if you just want to get in for a month, quest, level up, do some PvP scenarios, etc., just don't look to team very often. Only a select few harder missions have teaming involved, and even those can sometimes be solo'd. This game is a lot like WoW, quest-wise; most people just solo until they want to do a dungeon or pvp scenario. Otherwise, teaming is dead. Unlike WoW, again I have to agree, the combat is unbelievably dynamic and exciting. I find myself getting 2 or 3 levels in one session, never having quested all day. I just took on hordes of zombies in the zombie apocalypse pvp scenario, or got into a cage fight 5v5. It's like the best parts of Warhammer PvP plus WoW-style questing.
What I think Champions Online (and Warhammer Online, since I mentioned it, lol) need is SUBSCRIBERS. The reason WoW dominates is because it has the financial backing to provide new, updated, and amazing content regularly. Warhammer is a better game all-around if you ask me, but doesn't have enough players to fund adding much new content, and for the most part has been slowly shriveling in the shade next to WoW. City of Heroes/Villains is a team oriented atmosphere, and does it well. Because it thrives on that closer, more social community, it lasts despite games with more subscribers like WoW, simply through fan loyalty. This nearly guaranteed stream of income lets CoH/V offer new free expansions every few months, plus small optional micro-transactions to keep things interesting. If CO and WAR had the subscriptions to back it up, they would easily be tough competition for CoH/V and WoW. CoH may be good at getting out new power sets and other content into the game, but imagine if a game as free-form as CO got its hands on the kinds of funds the other MMO giants have. And Warhammer, look at how many races aren't playable yet, how many troops in the tabletop game haven't been represented yet... that's easily a dozen WoW expansions of content. But it all comes down to "who has the money to accomplish it?" and frankly... not CO and WAR. :-/
Can't disagree with that. For me it is a great game because I tend to get bored of ANY MMO for more than 10 hours a week no matter how much content there is, so I tend to have 2 or 3 subs going at any time. At that rate, they are feeding content at the rate I consume it. But for the gamers with a lot of time, who like to devote it to one game, I'm sure it would feel lacking.
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
Ok...When Champions Online first came out of Beta And went Live...I was tottally Against it 100% cause I thought Cryptic was messin up and wasnt on accedent either....But then I had friends say to me that the game got better and Cryptic actually took time and listened to what people want and did it in Champions. Well of corse I told them No way...Didnt happen....But.....Then I went home and tried it...And i have to say..I have changed my whole opinion On Cryptic and the Champions Online MMORPG...I got back on and to my suprise it was 100% better than what it was right after the Live release...I know people Will say mean things here about this post but I rather dont care cause I see it for myself....I just wondered why people still have the Hate for the game?? Cause it has changed for the better and that tells me Cryptic is trying to work with the Gamers....
Comments
This CO v CoH discussion is pretty pointless. CoH is pretty much dead these days (sadly), while CO's numbers are grandually bounching back.
So dispite personal taste, the communities have spoken as for their general opinion.
Also compairing a game that has been out for several years, to one that is has only been so for severl months is just crazy. At this point in development, CoH was lacking more than CO was at launch.
Based on what? Seems like CoH is doing pretty good with getting a new expansion while CO is still slowly fading away with a bunch of lifetimers defending it.
If WoW = The Beatles
and WAR = Led Zeppelin
Then LotrO = Pink Floyd
I have seen recently a new flow of people trying CO, it might be just my perception, but the game is growing slowly but steadily. I can't talk about CoH being dead or not but the new expansion might get them a new breath. In any case, I don't see why we should hate neither CO nor CoX., they are good games and they have their particular style.
The grind definition is a result of zero mechanical variety in Champions Tasks and quests (the words exusing it may change but the routes and methods are resolutely fixed, regardless of zone, regardless of surroundings, regardless of build, regardless of role, regardless of style, regardless of any influence, choice you can or wish to make.) By contrast the AT's in CoH all play differently solo and all play as different again in a team, less power choice ironically has more meaningful physical benefits when you replay.
There is no involvement or immesion in CO because the world is dogmatically ignorant of and determinedly resistant to any choice you make, any direction you move in. Enemy and Objective distribution is clumsy and cluttered, game enforced contradictions and inconsistencies are shoved in your face repeatedly...go save xxx in the woods, next mission go kill yy of zz which leads you past XXX who's now respawed. Kill a of b, find cure for B realising they are now curable run back to point D forcing you to kill any number of these now potential innocents... its dismal and contradictory in a profound way, as if delveloped by someone who never plays the game and has no concept of what being a hero is or what being an individual is all about. All the power choices in the world count for nothing in a world where one path is available to one and all.....you can choose to do it in a different order but one way or the other you'll meet it all eventually and regardless of your build nothing changes, regardless of your timing nothing changes, regardless of your needs nothing different is offered. That is grind, its bad enough in CoH but at least the instances keep contradicitons to a minimum and the AT choice define a different set of missions that are tailoered to make you feel its relevent to what you are.
Agree about the community CoH had a great one. For me the scarcity of teaming and community in CO (curiously even when you stand in a crowd of players) is a direct result of the game design - the experience doesn't change with a team, for the most part the team simply defeats any sense of individuality - join in, don't join in, go solo, don't go solo....nothing makes the game feel different or changes how you approach objectives and all you are left with is getting lost in a crowd so you don't bother and there isn't much of a community feel because the only sense of purpose or identity arises when you remain solo.
Haven't played CO since the last free weekend, but all the elements that made me despair of the game in alpha and beta were still very much in evidence - so I admit I haven't seen the adventure packs but they seem just like yet walls of text to set us doing the exact same few tasks over and over and add a few more instances to top things off, by contrast Going Rogue (and to a lesser extent the AE) allow you to find a role in the ongoing story, they give you a material AND conceptual sense of accomplishment becuase they begin to demonstrate consequence and dynamism based on your journey....these are elementary RPG facets in the wake of Biowares games yet CO didnt make any attempt to deploy them. I maintain that if CO had arrived seven years ago in its present state, it still would not have been considered fresh or imaginitve, its that devoid of creative development and the only progress is really the superficial skin it places on its engine (in turn a muted benefit by the alienation some feel by its stylised design...again more a case of 'hmm never read a comic but I think they look like this' than any invested or commited fan.)
Of course this is a personal opinion, I claim nothing more, I have pretty much played CoH to death and was eager to contiue my caped life, but sadly nothing in CO feels fresh, or new, or interesting or tbh even that much different and for a game delveloped a full seven years later, that is more than just a dissapointment imo.
Heres hoping DCUO will be a bit more ambitious
By playing both, which by your statement you clearly don't. I'm afraid you have it very much the wrong way round.
CoH is a good game, buy you're in denial. Its dated and showing its age, hence why so many are leaving. While CO is bouncing back.
Bringing out expansions is simply an indicator its still financially viable, or they are hoping for it to swing a decline.
I totally forgot about CO. No hate here.
I liked CO when I played it for a month or two. I only felt they needed more content, what they had was too little.
It gave me that superhero-vibe though, and I like the options in character and powers customisation.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Oh No You Didn't
Thank you for taking the time to respond but I suspect we are playing games for very different reasons, when you talk about power levelling, farming and teaming soley for exp you talk about playing a game essentially for the sole purpose of playing or at least racing past the theme element of the content simply to get to the level cap (I dont do any of those thinsg and have never farmed in Preatoria - essentially I cant see any evidence of an endgame worth playing...so it just seems like rushing ahead for the sake of getting bored quicker??)
I may be a rarity in that I play mmo games generally with the itent/ambition to feel part of the online world, take a break from hum drum reality, become a member of a community of likeminded people and in this case a superhero, these are areas CO fails big time! Fun is the one sole key to this, if soemthing isnt physically challenging or fun then there has to be some coneptual or immersive reward that compensates...theres too little in CoH but none whatsoever in CO imo.
The lack of mechanical (physical) variety in CO quests is acute - before the tutorial is over you experiece pretty much every kind of mission it has to offer....it doesnt disguise those do x of Y quests very well and worse the gameworld doesnt deliver any illusion/sense of purpose or fulfillment in the larger world to help you to over look the mindnumbing monotony of it all. The physical mechanics of combat also fail to need to vary, the powers all respond and react identically, the same tactics pretty much work for everything, I find you dont actually need to watch the screen to level through wave after wave of enemies. Enemy Ai is really really limited there may be a few difering kinds but the world is so cluttered and clumsy in its layout you invariably find every encounter has pretty much the same mix so every encounter with every kind of enemy ends up feeling exactly the same.
I hear what you say about roles and teaming but there is no encouragement to vary either aside from your own boredom, the same appraoch nets you the same reaction and same experience...this is markedly difenret from CoH in my experiecence where solo, teamed, tank, blaster, controller, corrupter, brute, stalker, master mind all require different tactics to avoid ending up on your face and more importantly they all deliver a unique fictional justification that justify's or excuses your journey.
There seems nothing in Champions that ultimately makes any material differnce to your gameplay experience either in real physical terms or in any form of conceptual or themeatic regard... CoH for all its faults is bound and elevated by the conviction it has in the theme, the enthusiasm of the devs and the community...CO has none of these elemants and you end up playing with one sole thing in mind...the ONLY thing changing is that my toon is levelling, but for why, and what happpens when it gets there (neither CoH or CO have any endgame of value, no involvement, no immersion a sterile and souless slog is all I can convince myself is going on.
It's not that I dislike Champions, it's that I do not feel I could support Cryptic. If Cryptic dropped Champions and it was taken over by someone else, I'd probably subscribe to it.
I'm free on Friday.
In short Champions is a mediocre game from a less than desirable dev with a so so IP. Truthfully I am so glad that Marvel pulled it's license after seeing this game. It is so bland and generic it isn't funny and seeing how badly Cryptic translated STO I'm sure many a Marvel exec is breathing a sigh of relief.
The one point that you can usually find people pushing as a strong point for this game is the character creator and honestly even that is not as good as I'd heard, I really enjoyed COH better which is some four or so years older than Champions. IMO Cryptic is riding high on having created the COH customization but nothing they've done since has come close, they swore it would be a strong point in Champions (again it isn't even better than it's predecessor in COH) and again with STO and again I spent countless hours in COH just making toons that I sometimes never played but wouldn't erase because they looked so cool I've never been able to dedicate even a single hour to either the Champions or STO creator.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
It had good ideas in the alpha and beta stages, then later on beta stages the devs started defending their bad ideas rather than changing them to good feedback. Then they used horrible feedback to make the game less dynamic. There's a LOT of MMO gamers who really like static things, contrary to what this community thinks.
Then the pricing model became CRAZY!
I am not paying half the price of a full fledged expansion that other companies offer, for a bit of 'F2P' inspired content & a monthly fee.
Plus even still how they advertise most of their 'unique' features isn't what they're actually talking about.
It was a disappointing sophmore effort from Cryptic.
I kill other players because they're smarter than AI, sometimes.
The customization is clearly better in CO. You can modify individual parts of the body and face, different stances, more parts of the body to change. The only advantage that CoH has is the number of pieces that is pretty much the result of 5 years of being alive. One of the free weekend of CoH I tried to make a new character and even with the power coloring it felt so limited that I gave up. I got spoiled by CO character creator.
What I observed is that the trend of "disappointed on CO" people is more related to CO not being more like CoH or wow in one sense or the other.
CoH people were expecting that CO was CoH powerset were you could choose from all powers in powerset. CO is a faster paced game, so the system is quite different that those people were expecting.
For once, tanking was not so trivial, in CoH tanks could even tank afk, the herding stuff was pretty too brainless. CO tanking is more wow like, need to taunt and have your aggro high, a tank cannot be just a meatshield because it wont hold aggro without pulling enough damage. It is more along the classic comic were superman was tough to kill but at the same time damaging, in CoH superman build is Super Strenght/Invulnerability making a weak version of superman.
Healing, buffing and debuffing is less relevant, full support people fans were disappointed when they weren't worship for being healazor, buff/debuff vending machine. If you heal like crazy and you will be dead soon, aggro is a serious thing in CO. It could be argue that it is diminish the sacred trinity of roles but the idea is to soft it more in the lines of the actual comics and less in the tradition of sword and magic mmos. You might not like it but still it has a reason behind it.
Anyway, there is not much to be done about this perception. However, more people are trying the game and the population is slowly increasing, my SG is receiving more people every week, and this even with all the hate that has been spread.
Because it reminds me of my father. I HATED my father!
So make a super villan and rampage across Champios with burning hatred for him
omg I do that all the time too. I really need to get my point across by adding the extra dots so people understand the pause in between what I say...I think it's because of Anime....
I only hear a lot of hate here. CO has the most helpful forums I've seen in a long time. I always read official forums and see what people that like the game are complaining about. People that hate a game may have valid objective points, but it is hard to distinguish them from "this game is not the type that I like."
I love both games but, there is no way that COX has better customization than CO. Not visually and obviously not in power choices.
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
I think the main problems people have with Champions Online stem from 5 main things:
1) Not what they were used to.
2) Emmert, the original lead developer for CoH, leaving to start this game with all the ideas he told CoH fans they couldn't have.
3) Learning curve.
4) First-time trying the game was a bad experience.
5) Lack of End-Game Content
--------------------------------------
To break these issues down and explain:
1) Most people who tried CO were coming from that type of game already, CoH, the only other super-hero MMO. They were expecting the whole "Pick your powers", "Team up", "Easy tanking/healing" type of game, and were caught off-guard. Champions has pretty much a solo-leveling atmosphere like WoW. Most teaming is simply for public quests and dungeons. Otherwise people tend to stick to themselves unless they need help with something, and then only team briefly. This didn't ruin WoW, and in fact is what WoW capitalized on, but coming from CoH, this was a shock to many gamers, who were comfortable with their healer just sitting on the sidelines as a heal/buff-bot with only the one required attack move at lvl 1. In Champions, they are expected to solo and pull their weight at least somewhat in more ways than healing. Tanks are expected to pull off some damage and AoEs in order to keep aggro, rather than having threat given for free with taunting auras and an AoE full Taunt move, not to mention their inhrent power that gives them free aggro for simply punching, no matter how weak the attack.
2) Emmert, or Statesman, used to work for the Dev Team on CoH, and was notorious for nerfing, telling fans that their requests could not be done simply because the game wasn't designed to ever be able to do that, and had a general pessimism with how he ran the development of CoH. When he left with Cryptic to create Champions, fans of CoH had more of a "don't let the door hit you on the way out" mentality about his leaving, mixed with some outrage that his new project was a hero game with all the stuff fans wanted in CoH that he told us was impossible. This made CoH fans feel betrayed and almost robbed, and that is what kept me from wanting to try CO. Prejudice against the guy in charge and the principle of it all.
3) There is a slight learning curve to Champions, for two main reasons. First of all, the stat system is unlike anything done before it. Sure some of the stats match other MMO stats in either name or purpose, but how the stats interract with your powers is what makes it so unique. In CoH, you have damage, accuracy, defense, resistance, healing, etc., but in CO, how these stats in your individual powers are affected by your actual character stat points varies. If you change your role from combat/dps to tanking, your powers scale completely different. If you then go to a support role, some of your stats even reverse in purpose, such as Presence. As a tank, you can heal yourself well, but not others, and your Presence stat raises your threat generation. As a healer, you heal everyone well, and your Presence stat reduces your threat generation. If you take a forcefield support move, it doesn't scale with the same stats as other heal-based support classes, and uses Endurance/Ego instead. A tank could be built with Constitution (for HP, obviously a good choice), but as a second stat focus could choose Strength if using the power armor tanking passive, or Recovery if taking the regeneration passive. No one job has one stat set required, like in WoW or CoH. This is confusing to someone new to Champions Online, and I won't lie, my first two or three characters sucked miserably. I didn't know what to use for what, but as I leveled and learned what stats I would need, my later characters were amazing. I have someone who literally takes 4 or more people to bring down in PvP. He is a tank in every sense of the word, and yet he still can kill people. It took time to learn how to do this, and not all gamers like the experience of learning these things and like to jump in and have fun right off the bat. There is nothing wrong with that, as everyone has their own idea of "fun", but this lends to some of the dislike of CO.
4) My friends who refuse to try CO won't try it because they claim they "already did." This meaning they played the beta or right after launch. I admit, the game had major flaws before beta that were cracked down on at release, to which my friends refered to as a "Mass-nerfing" when the game went live. Even after release, the game had tons of issues, some of which only recently got ironed out. They said this was bad design that the game needed altered so much, but I would like to remind people of all the bugs in CoH/CoV that these very same haters tend to overlook, lol. If I had a dollar for every geometry hole I fell through when CoV went live, I could fund my own MMO. How about the nearly unrecognizably different version of WoW we have now (not to mention when Cataclysm comes out) compared to Vanilla WoW? Games are never released as a 100% final product anymore, and are fluid, living creations. They never stay the same for long, especially when gamers like all the CO haters out there are so frustrated by these problems. The fact that so many people were mad at release time was proof the game was going to undergo some more changes. Obviously the devs would love to see you return, and have been listening rather well in the meantime to what the fans want.
The game as of last year was great, and I'm a huge CoH fan. I do not consider Champions to be Cryptic's replacement for CoH/CoV, but I DO consider it to be a great competitor for my attention. The only, I repeat, ONLY reason I do not play Champions at the moment is simply because all the people I would like to play with are either on WoW or CoH, and show no signs of ever leaving. If I play CO, it means I play alone, and who wants to play a Massively-multiplayer online game without that multiplayer aspect?
5) Some people, most of which I can say play WoW, like tons of end-game content. For me, the journey is the real experience of an MMORPG, or any RPG for that matter. Sometimes it's fun to just go ape-sh** on something with your strongest character, but frankly, it's the leveling up, gaining new powers, developing your characters, and experiencing the game itself that is the most fun. If you like this, then you will probably like CO just fine. If you want to have a billion 25-man raids, dozens of epic dungeons, and several "tiers" of gear to work your way up only for them to make it all obsolete at the next expansion, then WoW is probably more your style. Even when it comes to PvP, I find it more fun in mid-game levels, because there's that true, comic book sense of "You may have won this time, but I'll be back, and stronger than ever! Just you wait!" that makes even late-game pvp feel stale in other MMOs. Champions does not disappoint in pvp, except for where all MMOs fail in pvp: support classes are too easy to kill, and are the first to be targetted and killed. Only Warhammer Online found a way to defeat this problem, and did it well, but Warhammer is a discussion for another thread.
PvP or PvE, regardless of your preferences, is always more fun to me when I'm NOT max-level. Once you get to the end of the game, there's nowhere to go from there really. So I start an alt and enjoy the game all over again.
On a side-note, people forget that the only games with tons of end-game content only have all that content because of the sheer population of gamers they have subscribed. Most end-game content: WoW. Most players: WoW. Not a coincidence, hehe.
Champions is newer and less played. The more people who play it, the better it will get. The same goes for any MMO, and if Champions and Warhammer, and any of the other less-played games actually had the subscriptions to back them up, they'd be leaps and bounds ahead of WoW in overall game quality. The lack of end-game content is actually a direct result of nobody actually sticking with and playing the game for very long. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
--------------------------------------
I think that anyone who hated the game should give it another shot. It's worlds beyond what it used to be, has incredible customizability, and some of the most innovative and original attacks I've seen yet. Never has a game re-awakened my inner child quite like when I first tried Swinging (travel power) in Champions Online. I can't tell you how many times I screwed around just trying to see if I could accurately swing through/under/around small windows, balconies, and ledges, just to see if I could hit the mark with it. I rolled an acrobat with pistols and super-reflex-style dodging abiltiy, and built him to be a tank, and he is one of the most elegant killers I have ever witnessed in a game. The first time I activated my Orbital Strike power and gave it the Anvil of Dawn upgrade, I swear I just stopped fighting and watched the enemies run in terror, laughing like an evil genius. There are experiences in CO I simply have no comparison for in other MMOs, and it's a shame so many people hate the game too much to ever experience such fun for themselves.
I highly recommend people put down their presumptions about Champions Online like I did, and honestly try it out again, even if only for a month. Try it out, learn the stat system, level past 10, try the PvP, try different powers, and make several characters. Learn what you like, and give the game a real chance. It's actually quite good. Don't forget, I used to be in your shoes hating this game too, lol.
(Note: Sorry for the wall of text, heh.
I figured if I was going to address the thread, I might as well do it all in one shot. That's why I broke it down into the 5 numbered points. If you don't care about one of the reasons, you can easily skip to one more relevant to your experience with CO. I figured a "table of contents", so to speak, would beat a typical wall of text, lol.)
I must admit I get some of the reasons for the CO hate, but I don't agree with it. CO is a decent game. It's not a "second job" type of MMO, but not everybody wants a second job for their MMO. Like CoX it's a fun game to dip into, and a fun game for those of us who suffer from alt-itis, but it could benefit from being bigger, with more content, that's for sure. However, you can generally be having fun as soon as you log in, if you don't mind soloing a lot in an MMO.
Grouping is the only place CO really lets me down. I just don't understand why they didn't just use the brilliant lft system and little tricks they had in CoX that made it such a great game for teaming. I've heard the "classless" argument, but I don't buy that - CoV was pretty much like CO in terms of everyone being pretty much able to dish out damage, take it, and mitigate it, and the teaming effect in CoV was simply "steamrollering", which is plenty fun for a team. I guess it's that the incentives aren't right in CO. Some things have improved a wee bit (like difficulty scaling having been introduced), so hopefully they'll get the teaming sorted out at some point.
But even if they didn't, this is a good game to have on rotation - every time you play it again, the combat system is like a breath of fresh air, fun and fast-paced, and the build system is deep enough, and quirky enough, to get your teeth into.
You hit the nail on the head.
It's a great MMO if you just want to get in for a month, quest, level up, do some PvP scenarios, etc., just don't look to team very often. Only a select few harder missions have teaming involved, and even those can sometimes be solo'd. This game is a lot like WoW, quest-wise; most people just solo until they want to do a dungeon or pvp scenario. Otherwise, teaming is dead. Unlike WoW, again I have to agree, the combat is unbelievably dynamic and exciting. I find myself getting 2 or 3 levels in one session, never having quested all day. I just took on hordes of zombies in the zombie apocalypse pvp scenario, or got into a cage fight 5v5. It's like the best parts of Warhammer PvP plus WoW-style questing.
What I think Champions Online (and Warhammer Online, since I mentioned it, lol) need is SUBSCRIBERS. The reason WoW dominates is because it has the financial backing to provide new, updated, and amazing content regularly. Warhammer is a better game all-around if you ask me, but doesn't have enough players to fund adding much new content, and for the most part has been slowly shriveling in the shade next to WoW. City of Heroes/Villains is a team oriented atmosphere, and does it well. Because it thrives on that closer, more social community, it lasts despite games with more subscribers like WoW, simply through fan loyalty. This nearly guaranteed stream of income lets CoH/V offer new free expansions every few months, plus small optional micro-transactions to keep things interesting. If CO and WAR had the subscriptions to back it up, they would easily be tough competition for CoH/V and WoW. CoH may be good at getting out new power sets and other content into the game, but imagine if a game as free-form as CO got its hands on the kinds of funds the other MMO giants have. And Warhammer, look at how many races aren't playable yet, how many troops in the tabletop game haven't been represented yet... that's easily a dozen WoW expansions of content. But it all comes down to "who has the money to accomplish it?" and frankly... not CO and WAR. :-/
Can't disagree with that. For me it is a great game because I tend to get bored of ANY MMO for more than 10 hours a week no matter how much content there is, so I tend to have 2 or 3 subs going at any time. At that rate, they are feeding content at the rate I consume it. But for the gamers with a lot of time, who like to devote it to one game, I'm sure it would feel lacking.
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
The dots are making me blind!
http://theultimatecombo.com/blog/
Dual blog with 2 nerds:)