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Finally tried City of Heroes
jpnole
Member UncommonPosts: 1,698
I have always been intrigued by the superhero/villian MMOs but hadn't tried one yet. After watching some gamplay vids of DC Universe (and falling in love with the fast paced gameplay and variety of characters/abilities) I decided to try COH to see what the superhero buzz was all about. Now I've only gained a few levels so this is more of an impression. If I get something wrong please jump in and correct me. So here goes:
After spending some time in the starting areas I must say I'm pleasantly surpised. I haven't seen the same character costume twice. The variety and customization options for characters and their powers is amazing. Whether it's a cheesy outfit or a badass looking set up it is fun to see what everyone comes up with.
I love the wide open area in Paragon City. You can fight the bad guys (or good guys in COV) on the sidewalk, in the middle of the road, on fire escapes, back alleys, open parks, in fountains, from a dumpster, cartop or rooftop... just about anywhere.
I like the speed running and fllying abilities I've seen on the higher level players, occasionally seeing someone launch into the air like a rocket or burn a path of flames as they race off on foot. You just don't get that in the standard fantasy mmo!
You can group pretty easily. I went into the sewers with a group of 8 and it was honestly a ton of fun. No worrying about how many "tanks", "DPS" and "healers" but rather just getting into the action. There is a feature that brings all of the group members up to a similar level... and your powers go up while grouped too!
You don't have to worry about micromanaging a ton of loot drops as the game's loot system is a bit different. It centers more around character power/ability upgrading and crafting. Basically you auto loot and nothing gets left on the ground. You can pretty much use, sell or recycle (combine 3 unwanted into 1 of something you need) anything you get.
Not intended to be a full review. Like many things in life, you can usually tell right away if you like something or not. That being the case I would definitely recommend COH to anyone who hasn't tried it yet.
PS - never tried CO either. Feel free to drop any comparisons in your reply. (yes I know COH was Cryptic's baby which was adopted out LOL!)
Comments
I used to enjoy CoH/CoV until they introduced creating your own missions. That completely killed it for me since that's how everyone power leveled after that, like they had to get to end game for some reason, the whole point of playing the game was the leveling experience then they introduced that and it just killed it.
Between the devs nerfing xp and the newness of it wearing off, AE is not as busy as it once was. The devs also have made power leveling more difficulty by exemping/sk'ing people to the mission holder's level. If those were your main problems with the game, you might want to come back during one of those free trials to check it out again.
The main complaints I've seen about CoX is the instancing and repetitavness of the missions. I like the mission instancing, and I find all video games repetitive after some time. I've played the game over 42 months and still have fun with it from time to time. I'm a little buned out, but I still think it is one of the best MMOs I"ve played. I'm looking forward to Going Rogue.
The biggest problem I'm having is not being able to commit to a character! I keep making alts because I want to play all the different combos. As for the AE I was astounded to find over 3000 pages of user created stories. I think it's pretty fun so far. I just can't believe I hadn't played it before and it's been out since before WoW. Although not the same, the AE gives you an alternative to levelling similar to the way WoW's dungeon finder does. All in all I have to give props to the game's deep character customization and wide variety of builds/powers. As an added bonus, I was pleased to find that I had 90 days of COH time in my plaync account from back when Tabula Rasa went down. So I'm good through Dec 8th... wait that will overlap with the first month of DC Universe!
First, consider the age of the game. The game launched in April of 2004, and was - in my opinion - revolutionary in terms of customization in the character creation process. It set the bar in that regard - also, my opinion. If the gameplay is a bit dated, just consider the age of the core game. Sure, devs have had the opportunity to fine-tune and tweak, but the core elements remain the same.
While I agree that there have been some missteps, I think the game is still decent. Didn't care much for Champions, and DCUO could be good, but will have to wait for beta to form a better opinion. What I saw of it at E3, though, was pretty good.
Welcome to Altaholics Anonymous. Coffee and Cookies are over in the corner.
I like the concept of AE but it falls short in its rating system and search engine (i.e. separting wheat from the chaff among the arcs) and the inability to do some sort of light scripting of events. Of course, we cannot have something as deep as the Aurora Toolkit for NWN, but I'd like some freedom in placement of particular mobs and the use of scripting to push stories along (e.g. force the death of an npc, swap out an npc, etc.)
Glad you're enjoying the game though. The powerset combinations along with teaming makes for, imho, a better gaming experience than traditional mmos.
This is a common disease that runs rampant through the CoH community. It is commonly known as "Altitis" and everyone suffers from it to a varying degree. It took me ten or so characters before I created a character I felt I could count as my main, and I still like going back and putting time into my other alts.
CoH has actually been designed by the CoH devs to encourage altitis, and this is one huge draw to the game in my opinion. You can really let your creativity fly with new and unique character concepts and designs.
Also reading your post reminded me a bit of what it was like to play CoH for the first time. The feeling of awe at seeing someone shoot into the sky, or suddenly speed away. I remember thinking "one day, that will be me." The unique costumes that people have come up with, sending messages to people complimenting them on a cool character design and sometimes getting messages complimenting me on a character I'm proud of. Being asking by level 50s to play a few missions with them and me saying "I'm only level 10
" and then they invite me anyway and we have a super great time killing Praetorians or something high level. I'd never experienced any of that in an MMO before and that made the game magical for me.
I've played both games and am currently playing CO. However, I would say that CoHs is still the better overall game. That is not a fair comparison since it has been out longer. But having played CoH for 4 years, I pretty well did all there was to do (which took a long time).
I feel the combat is a bit faster in CO. The active blocking is really nice and I think the travel powers and knockback is done better. Still, it doesnt have the content that CoH has. CO looks better but I think CoH has more options (again not a fair comparison).
I didn't get sucked in to the MA Powerlvling because I already had so many level 50s. I really only played those missions on lvl 50s anyway and was usually very impressed with players' creativity.
"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 main problem I have with CoX and why I never continued on with it was the expansions. They are not linear expansions. Allowing you to take your character into new and more expansive areas.
All of their expansions have been parrallel. Meaning you are starting all over to either go through the content or re-doing some content in a different way. I wanted to be able to take my characters off into more powerfull areas, where the Heroes / Villians played out on EPIC levels.
Not basically have a new area with some new powers and have to start all over from scratch. The game does not really promote you to maintain one charater to the highest level. It is more of an altohaulic nightmare. Basically a den of alt parlors feeding your habits.
Say hello, To the things you've left behind. They are more a part of your life now that you can't touch them.
Seems like you're well on your way of liking the Super Hero genre.
There's some weak points later on, but for the first 6 to 10 months of CoH/V feeling out the game is really fun. The end game revolves mostly around the community and rolling alts, and that's really my biggest complaint.
CO has a pretty slow progression compared to CoH/V because all of your xp comes from doing missions and the story design is sadly EXTREMELY lacking. Great creator, good graphics, the combat system in design is great, the execution is somewhat lacking compared to CoH/V and it's really disturbing.
I'm thinking DCUO will have a better chance to catch on because of the IP and they took their time (SONY TOOK THEIR TIME FOR ONCE!?) and picked out the bad things of the super hero MMO genre and simplified them.
I kill other players because they're smarter than AI, sometimes.
That was my complaint. The game was great. You work on building a nice character with some nice IO's and such. You do all of this, cap your character so you get all of your best skills. Then, you realize there's nothing to use your buff character on. There is zero endgame outside of that 1 silly task force.
I happened to like the combat. I always felt if CoH had a WoW/EQ2 endgame it would be MUCH more popular.
The endgame content is coming in issue 19 "Incarnate"
The journey is the point of it. Rushing to 50 means you miss stuff along the way. The fun begins at level 1 (or two, as it were), not 50. Some people do enjoy playing their 50s anyways, regardless of what you felt about the lack of end-game material. For me, "end-game" is rolling another alt; I rarely manage to finish a toon off at 50 before I move on anyways.
But yeah - just wait, end-game stuff is just around the corner!
Jane, stop this crazy thing!
Hey i use to LOVE this game, Drink eat, sleep it!!!...I still like the game, but i dont know if its b cuzz i have played it off and on for 5 years now. or if its just that im getting older myself (32) but i dont play as much as i used too... Btw my wife and 2 girls play too. but we only have mind and my wifes account.
Moderate vet here, about to get my 45 months badge also my name is John and I am a alt-aholic, lol. 50 plus, most are over lvl 10, have 3 capped and think about half are 20 - 40 range. With GR and the devs hopefully keeping the issues coming on a regular basis I think that the game is going fairly well. Lately the server population has been very heavy thanks to GR now if they just add so more endgame (i really hate that word though) we will be really good to go.
Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.
Groucho Marx
What 1 Task Force are you speaking of? The Justine Augustine TF, or the Faathim the Kind, or Lady Grey, or Imperius, or Dr. Khan, or Mender Silos, or Statesman, oe maybe Sara Moore?
Or were you maybe talking about the villain-side Strike Forces? Also the Lady Grey. Mender Silos, and Imperius, or maybe you mean Barracuda's or Lord Recluse's SF...
The Devs have stated the the game is geared towards alting and they give you the tools to do it, but they also recognize the people that want more end-game content, and supposedly Issue 19 will have more end-game content for those folks. I think that GR was focused around 1-20 because there has been a bigger call for that than end-game. They've also mentioned that GR level content will eventually be expanded and Primal Earth characters will have access.
Very true although a Forcefield/Gravity controller is still probably the toughest to level up. I'm still working on mine from launch day ( ' ;
Controllers in general are almost impossible to level without a team, at least until you hit 32/33 and get your pet. Even then I know what you're saying about Grav/FF. All the good bubbles are Target: Ally and not castable on yourself so it's very slow going. At least the Singularity is a decent pet for agro control purposes.
I'm about a month away from my 72 month vet badge. My wife gets the 24 month badge in 3 days, wait does August have 31 days... maybe 4 days then. Anyway. I have been playing off and on (mostly on) since launch and each new issue makes me happy to stick with it. I have a serious case of Altitis and only have one 50 on blueside (heroes) and one 50 on redside (villains) I have about 40 characters in the 15 - 40 range and a few in the high 40s that I can't seem to get to 50.
I understand people's desire for more endgame but I think that has been getting better for the last several issues. I actually have the opposite problem in that there is so much content that I end up turning off XP in the options to slow my leveling so I can be sure to get the safeguard missions and high merit story arcs for any given level range. Going Rogue has only increased my excitement about this game and I foresee myself continuing to play for some time. Only slowing down to play SW:TOR. Even when TOR does come out (or I get a beta invite) I'll likely keep playing CoX because my wife is 4 years behind me and no where near burned out yet.
Your wife plays City of? Does she have a single sister or female cousin in the 20 - 30 age range? <Chuckle> ;-)
She does, but they don't play. Sorry ;O)
I rolled an Electirc/Storm controller in the new area and just blazed to 20 cause of the tesla cage and the other powers that lock down mobs, got the aoe toggle conductive aura that saps endurance and even if I can't lock down some bosses they almost never hit me for much damage because my powers just drain their endurance and the aura keeps it drained till I dispatch them MUAHAHAHAHA.
But yeah trollers are sometime not the easiest to solo at the lower levels but are cool at upper ones for sure. Glad to see some many people on the servers lately and hope it continues and the devs keep it going, woot.
Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.
Groucho Marx