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Long time beta tester (and CoX fan)'s review.
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Mod edit - quoting deleted post. GaiusMarius
To the OP: good write-up. Thanks for taking the time to put it all together. I'm semi-interested in CO, but I think I'm going to wait a while until things get smoothed out.
Current: None
Played: WoW, CoX, SWG, LotRO, EVE, AoC, VG, CO, Ryzom, DF, WAR
Tried: Lineage2, Dofus, EQ2, CoS, FE, UO, Wurm, Wakfu
Future: The Repopulation, ArcheAge, Black Desert, EQN
Good review overall, Fion. There are a few things I'd like to comment on.
But it's not like CoX were you have your melee guys and your blasting guys but you also have your tanks, your buffers, your healers, your control guys.
There are Defensive, Offensive, and Support roles. It would be nice to be able to visibly see what role a player is in since its a lot like their class. There is nothing wrong with saying that you need a defensive hero in your group rather than saying you need a Tanker. They kinda mean the same thing, right?
The real problem is that the content hasn't been tweaked for a well rounded group. Some day it may be tweaked so that players can really take advantage of the combined roles, but right now its not. You can play in the roles and there are tangible benefits, but most people won't be able to or care about building a diverse group.
Few monsters are able to do things like knock you into the air and few player powers do anything but strait damage.
Grondlings? Man those things throw me all over the place. I get held all the time my MOB's. I'd say that the MOB types in CO are even MORE memorable than they are in CoX. And ALL player powers do more than straight damage. In fact, I can't think of a single power that does only damage and nothing else.
The big problem is you can never tell what gear goes were.
Yes, its confusing at first, but after you see where it says things like "Primary Offense" or "Secondary Support" then its a no brainer. It really doesn't take long before you don't even notice the difference between CO's system and a traditional Head, Body, Legs, Ring slot system.
Hell you cant even move the hotbars around and for the longest time you only had 7 powers lots (that includes 'shift' and 'T' keys, for block and travel power.)
You can press F11 and move anything in the UI to wherever you want.
Think Tabula Rasa crafting.
Now you're heading into ridiculous territory. CO crafting is nothing, not even close to how poor TR crafting was at launch. CO's crafting system isn't bad at all once you get it worked out. The various node buffs are genius. All players can craft consumables and bags. Each specialization focuses on certain stats over others. There are costume pieces, power replacers, devices, consumables, gear. Its very diverse.
... and so they did that, they took every aspect of CoX that players wanted changed or liked better and implemented them in CO.
You say that as if there is something wrong with it. It sounds like a wonderful vision to have and has for the most part been realized in CO. I get the feeling that you have gotten so acclimated to CoX and so used to overlooking its faults that you are no longer able to see anything else without seeing it through CoX colored goggles.
There are a LOT of things that need polish and work in CO. I think you did a good job of pointing those out in general.
I don't understand this being in the 'bad' category. One of the main reasons that I didn't play CoX very long is that I was tired of going into the same warehouses/office buildings over and over.
Wasn't that impressed with this review to be honest... rather dull.... made worse by the fact he kept using CoX as a leverage to his own preferences "the mobs aren't memerable in CO compared to CoX", really they were memorable.
Hogger is memorable, Strom is memorable... no mob in City of Heroes ever stood out for me... it was a "meh".
Crafting does suck, but then so was WoW's and LotRO's crafting to begin with. .. WARs crafting and Tabula Rasa's crafting was miles worse than this though... it's rough around the edges but some of the things created aren't "useless".
CoX's crafting was non existent.. hell... it's still pretty crappy when they did release something along those lines.... very poor MMO in my opinion. Cyptic certainly has done better this time around. just.
Although in CO, not much has stood out for me either... i did like that puny supervillian that you fight with Defender during the tutorial, he drops occassional good things (a nice piece of armour, and a crappy helmet so far) but at least they have little PQ's (less annoying and constant than WAR) running.... the first you see when helping Ironclad. (better you do...
Me i find it anyone who says ("i'm not one of these people", "i often play beta's") complete BS when starting a review. I don't care how many beta's people play... for me that shows their gamers not fanboys, but MMORPG gamers do tend to bounce around a lot and get some stigma from their "first MMO which was the greatest thing ever". And this OP's stigma is CoX. (as saw when he said if it was released now with modern technology).
It's a niche market... if CoX was released now... even upgraded, it'd still be pretty crap and have a very small subscription base. It's time to accept that.... CoX's time hasn't past but it's dying... and it will die. Maybe NCsoft will create CoX2... hopefully not.
move on. Try DC Online when it comes out... me... i don't personally care. already bored.
"nothing actually matters, we're just slightly evolved monkeys clinging to a dying piece of rock hurtling through space waiting for our eventual death." - Frankie Boyle, Mock The Week
Your review had some very good points, some of which I would argue Aganazer had already pointed out. If anything were to be said about the UI its that CO doesn't really come out and tell you what options you have if you don't like something... for instance, the outlines or the UI placement, or even how the Auto Attack end builder slot is handled... all these items can be changed in the menus if you just knew how... CO doesn't do the best job at hand holding where thats concerned.
I also feel there are a lot of enemies that stand out to me. Most of which would be the grondlings that aganazer mentioned, the hunter patriots are another... and one of my favorites.. the manimals of monster island.. and lemurians of course. Not to mention my own nemesis' minions who just happen to be demons. Then again, just as in CoX, they didn't become memorable after my first run through of the game, it was repetition that made it memorable... and knowing which enemies to stay away from.
Good informative review. I think my big question that has been burning with Champions Online is what really sets it aside from City of Heroes? A updared character creation process? Newer graphics? Mission terminal system replaced with quests that get eventually get repeatitve?
I have played City of Heroes on and off for a while now. Lately I have been getting the Super Hero itch again, but I really can't decide whether to just reactivate City of Heroes or give Champions a try. I have gotten to briefly playtest the game, and it is neat, but again what does it have that CoX doesn't? Plus there are things in CoX like Superhero bases that CO does not have (which CoX didn't have aty launch as well and was a major complaint of the playerbase that Emerit and company seem to be missing again). Plus CoX has the Mission Architect syste, something that si appealing.
So what does Champions have that makes it more than a updated City of Heroes?
Oh and one other question, does CO have costume slots like CoX?
I played CO since the end of Alpha and all the reviews I have seen so far have been pretty honest and reasonble imo. This one perhaps encapsulates my own views most closely...the interesting thing is that most reviewers broadly agree on the good and the bad, the overall opinion really shifts based on the importance the reviewer places on those individual items.
Enemies in CO are imo a very bland bunch the game presents everything a'la fantasy beasts so that absence of personality is less damaging on a real beast creature grondling/manimal etc..... though I would have to be critical in that the character designs are quite dismal and often have to contend with a misplaced piece of in game humour.
This game could easily be reskinned as a sword and sorcery fest and would probably fit the theme better than a comicbook world, the comic book theme is really the aspect that is missiong so maybe some of those that turned off for that reason will actually enjoy it...(though making it look like one thing but behave like another seems self defeating).
Edit CO really doesn't have anything new over any other mmo out there, its just in the detail of how it does what it does...thats perhaps the biggest dissapointment.
CO can be considered an updates CoH in the same sense as WAR is an updated WoW. It has similarities and it has differences. The powers and combat are different enough to win an honorable mention, the costume creator is similar as are some of the overall gameplay mechanics. Don't look at CO to break the MMO mold and you'll probably find a game worth a month or so of play.
CO also has costume slots as well. I don't think you can change them on the fly though, I think it has to be done at a tailor. You can also pick up new weapons and armor and such.. and those items can be used in the costume creator as well.
Skipped the PvP aspect, but it's such a little thing it's no big deal.
You do notice early on how imbalanced some powers are though. I can envision people seeking X build for harder encounters.
I played it for about 3 days and had my fun and it didn't have anything that would keep me there.
I only toyed with crafting, but I think there is more to it than the OP let on.
Great review. Well thought out and some major effort went in to getting your point across. I can see where you are coming from on some angles tho, for the most part I would tend to disagree.
Did you not have some NPC run up to you out of nowhere to give you quests? I had some real interesing ones come up.
Crafting - You can make bags for your inventory. Dunno if that was in when you last gave it a test. Probably not. Crafting was one of the things I like best. Only been testing it for the last month or so, probably long after you gave up on it.
I have not played too much with the builds on these characters. So, I do not know how the roles work and tweaking the various CC and utility options in the game. I know the Darkness powers seem to be the most AoE CC that I could find so far. Something I do not understand ( and do not really mind it much ) is that the roles tend to not be very different from each other until you get into the late teens to twenties. Which is about the time most games start really emphasising group play ( basically meaning solo-ability becomes scarse ).
I keep saying this and I do not know how to put it any differently. One night I had just this AHA moment where everything seemed to click and I just 'got it' ???? Does that make sense? It is like, yeah.. You can play the whole game with 3 powers. But... WHY? Do you want to? Go ahead and do it. If you do not, here are other subtle options.
Say hello, To the things you've left behind. They are more a part of your life now that you can't touch them.