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City Of Heroes/Villains vs. World of Warcraft
I know that LotRO is basically a reskinned WoW, and I know people say that CoH/V is too, but then I've heard people saying there's actually some major differences. I got bored pretty quick with WoW when I played it. But I loved raids, and I want to play an MMO again. I'm considering starting up WoW again just because I and all my friends have it, but I wanted to know before I did, whether I might like City of Heroes better.
The things I'd most like to know:
Depth of crafting between WoW and City of...
Complexity of "strategy" in PvE. (In WoW I felt that it was pretty formulaic, and not particularly difficult. Does Cities make you vary your attack patterns based on enemy types?) [I tried a hunter, warlock and paladin, each for about 20 levels, and a rogue for almost 40, so I did have a feel for a number of the classes.]
Overall "feel" of the game. I kind of diliked WoW's look and feel. Does Cities FEEL as cool as the idea of playing a comic book character sounds?
Soloing vs. Grouping. WoW was pretty much groups only for Raids. and those could be difficult to find. Does Cites have more grouping? (Not to the FFXI extreme.) How easy is it to find groups? Are there things like raids? How long do they take and at what level do they start being viable?
Thank you in advance for your help. Also, if you know of some other game that might fit my needs (I esp. want good crafting, a fairly non-formulaic PvE, and a good community) that is not EVE, please let me know.
Comments
Just want to point out that while LOTRO is basically reskinned WoW, it does fit two of your points - much better look (subjective of course), and much more balanced grouping through the whole game. You probably can solo the whole way without grouping, but you will have a hard time, as about half of the quests are designed for groups, and some of the quests for your level are fairly hard without a group (depending on your class).
Back on topic, my friend played the CoH games for a while, and he thought the comic feel is really good (he's one of the biggest comic fans I know), and grouping was pretty important, iirc. He only played it for a few months before becoming bored though, I think it gets repetitive. But that's no reason not to try it, if it can be a fun WoW break for a few months.
Honestly, I don't get the WoW clone thing leveled at so many games. There are basically a few types of MMO's. An instanced game like guild wars or dungeon runners; a sandbox game like eve or atitd; or a quest/level treadmill, like WoW and many others. Within the types there are many similarities and a few differences. Whether or not something is similar to another game is not what's important. What's important is if it is fun and different enough for those who want to try something else. This can pretty much only be decided by playing.
*Scratches head* whoever told you that CoX is a reskinned WoW is talking out of their arse. WoW is a far more complex game than CoX, with far more options.
CoX is (or was until recently, when they introduced a crafting system) a fairly one-dimensional game. It's a purely combat-oriented game, with heavily instanced missions (with non-respawning mobs) that after a while become quite repetitive in their layout (once you've gotten one hero to 50). The other huge difference between WoW and CoX is that CoX has no endgame (well, very, very little compared to WoW, although again, that has improved a bit recently - there's more endgame content, although still only a couple of what one might consider "raids").
Having said that, CoX has three things going for it that keep its head above the MMO water:
1) the combat is superb;
2) the character creation is an absorbing mini-game in itself, and really bonds you to your toon; and
3) the ease with which it's possible to set up PUGs, and the ease with which most PUGs can work together, mean that although it has a lot of the "traditional MMO features" missing, CoX is still a hugely social game, and fulfils that MMO requirement admirably.
Not a great crafting person so I can't offer any great insight here. CoX's crafting system is: you get drops which are components for permanent power-ups that you can make when you get a recipe, which is also a drop. Fairly standard and simple, but the list of possible enhancements you can make is quite huge and intricate, and there's a thriving market for components and recipes.
CoX's combat is extremely easy to pick up, but has that nice quality of having a decent level of mastery: that is to say, you can "get by" quite easily, but if you really want to make an art of it, you can, and you can go quite deep into it and play very elegantly. It's formulaic for the first 20 levels or so, but as your powertray starts filling up as you climb levels, it starts getting quite strategic, especially if you are a Controller or Defender archetype (buffer/debuffer/healer or CC).
CoX's combat is hugely immersive, looks and sounds fantastic - and most important of all, it's FAST. The majority of powers you can fire off while moving (being rooted is considered a cost for uber powers); put travel powers into the mix and combat becomes fast and furious, and in an 8 person team it's a veritable ballet of destruction.
Absolutely, but then I'm a biased 3 year vet who's only recently got bored with it.
Again, considering there are so many "traditional MMO elements" missing from CoX, it's really quite a remarkable thing that the game is still flourishing. That it is still a fairly well subscribed MMO is a testament to the high level of quality of the stuff that is in the game. It's really a f**k-off cool game if you've ever loved the superhero idea. I would say that very few people who try it don't enjoy it; granted many who enjoy it only do so for a short while (e.g. 6 months), but most would agree that the pleasure derived in the time of one's addiction to CoX is intense and immense.
There is NOTHING in any MMO extant that's as fast, intense and spectacular as an 8 man team in the CoX endgame. But don't take my word for it - give it a try!
Soloing is possible, and actually quite rewarding as some of the story arcs are quite cool, and if you read all the "clues" it is quite like being in your own comic.
But teaming is the heart and sould of CoX - SGs (supergroups=Guilds) of course, but more especially PUGs. See my point 3 above.
Put it this way, since getting bored with CoX I've been looking for another "home" MMO and I've tried them all (gotten characters to roundabout late 20s/30s or equivalent) - WoW, EVE, LOTRO, PoTBS, AO, AoC, EQ2, DDO, etc, etc. And they're all great games with their own things they do well and things they do badly. But the one thing I noticed is that in all of those games I was soloing far more than I was teaming. In CoX it was the other way round - I rarely soloed. I even used to form PUGs to do my own missions, because a) it was such fun, and b) it was easy to do because of the way the lft system is designed (it's not anything stunningly different, just something subtle about the way it's designed that makes it easy to find people and form teams quickly).
Community in CoX is widely recognised as one of the best MMO communities out there. Most people go out of their way to help newbies and explain the system to them. Very little childishness. It's also a game in which you find a fair number of females playing it (iirc it has one of the highest female/male ratios in any MMO, still not half and half, and I can't remember the exact figure, but it's quite an interesting phenomenon). Also couples and families love to play it.
A typical CoX mission is filled with superhero banter. For some reason, everybody gets into the spirit of the thing and there are quips and wisecracks whizzing about all the time. I think it may be something to do with the fact that it's possible to be IC and speak normally when you don't have to filter your roleplaying through a "mediaeval fantasy" way of talking. You can just quip and wisecrack as you would normally, and it feels like you're roleplaying a superhero quipping and wisecracking.