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Community => Other Games => Champions Online => Topic started by: Kaiser Tarantula on August 17, 2013, 05:44:18 PM
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Today I was challenged to about 5 duels (three by one person who kept chasing me down and calling me 'pussy' in tells) trying to cross Ren Cen.
I can't make a character I like, or am interested in, because my powers are wholly chosen for me.
I can't get motivated to keep playing the story because it's the same damn story every time, with no variation until Canada and the Desert unlock.
Stupid bugs that should have been fixed ages ago keep locking me out of missions, causing me to permanently miss perks, and are generally pissing me off.
Lockboxes are everywhere. The whole game keeps waving a giant flag saying BUY OUR pancake OR YOU WILL SUCK in my face.
None of this is convincing me that subscribing will be worth it. Why spend money on something that doesn't make you happy to begin with? Subscribing won't magically turn Champions into a better game - it just gives you a marginally better (if your build is good) character to play in it with.
I thought coming back to Champions with a friend or two would alleviate the problems. One quit the minute he saw archetypes were the only option. Another continues to play, but has made it clear it's only because he enjoys my company.
Why do I still keep giving this game a chance?
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pretty much all of this. In nearly two months of playing, I've made precisely one character that actually speaks to me. one character who talked about her powers and her back story and her mindset.
meanwhile, in Paragon City, characters would be incessantly talking to me before I even finished the costume generation, let alone actually clicked the enter game button.
I was never the most social gamer in all of Paragon but the option for me was always there. there were always dozens of people more than happy to just run a DFB or three, or say "hey, nice costume" or "love your character concept" (hell, one CoH ton actually became the protagonist in an original fiction, so many times did people read and love her bio)
and the villains roster? in Paragon I was fighting a mixture of street gangs, zombies, warlocks, ghosts, and dimension-jumping robots (among other things). I FELT like a comic book character saving the world on a daily basis. In Millenium? "oh, go arrest three dozen more members of the purple gang for us, would you?" It feels like that episode of Power Puff girls where the cops just get too lazy to do their jobs. I damned sure don't feel like a superhero.
Thus far i've managed to mostly avoid trolls in CO, but I know they are there, lurking in every corner, with their bland clones of the hulk and virtual genital waving behavior. it's why I keep my chat channel tuned to the NPC mode. in two months no one has said one interesting thing to me.
I always wonder "if i don't even enjoy this game for free, why the frell would I actually throw money at it in hopes it would get any better?" It's like those horror stories you see on CSI shows where the rich guy marries the stripper in hopes that money will make her a better person. it never ends well.
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It's mainly because everyone is on the same server. There are very friendly people in this game, and many of them are RPers, too. There are also people who only play to duel or abuse. The best you can do is report them in the help menu and ignore them. Your ignore list will never fill up like in CoH, where it dumped global handles off to make room, so ignore away!
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I have met some very friendly people in Champions Online. Some, like me, were COH vets. Others were just fans of Champions-- I had a very pleasant hour or two in the game a four or five months just telling a CO Vet how COH was different. It helped me learn a lot about CO as a result.
It may be that CO is not your cup of tea and never will be. It's certainly not COH-- but it wasn't built to be so, either. It's a game in its own right with things it's done well and things it's done poorly.
You fight the Purple Gang up to level 10 or so. After that, in MC, you have the chance to fight Hi Pan's gang and the Maniacs. At 11, you can go to Canada or the Desert Crisis and fight different kinds of enemies. At level 19 or so, you can do the Queen City Arc which is the introduction to Vibora Bay (one of my favorite zones.)
You also have missions in MC in the 20s to fight Mind, Inc and a chance to fight in Dr. Destroyer's Factory.
In the mid 20s you can go to Monster Island and in the early 30s you have the option of visiting the underwater zone of Lemuria and then returning to Vibora Bay in a bid to save the earth from the Apocalypse.
There is plenty to do in Champions Online-- in my opinion.
It may not be right for you.
That doesn't mean that it's a bad game or you're a bad person. It just may not be a match for you.
But no game-- no matter who makes it-- will ever be COH.
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Today I was challenged to about 5 duels (three by one person who kept chasing me down and calling me 'pussy' in tells) trying to cross Ren Cen.
I'm undoubtedly an extremist, but I only get challenged to a duel once... that's because, every time someone has "dropped the bomb" on me, I have blocked the player. Yes, I have a lengthy blocked list.
The challenges always come wordlessly, with no introductory bantering nor asking if I want to duel. It's my new characters that get challenged the most. So, there I am in Ren Center, straight out of the tutorial, level 6, I'm playing an archetype, not a free-form character, and I've typed a nice roleplaying biography on my character screen. I'm sure, the players who challenge me look at my character and figure, easy prey, maybe a newbie. They're not looking for a competitive fight; they just want to slaughter a hapless, over-matched opponent.
I'm not pleased that CO allows any bored, bratty teenager to toss a "challenges you to a duel!" window on my screen, interrupting my play session and forcing me to process the window. If there's an option in the interface where I can toggle off the ability for other players to challenge me to a duel, I have not found it. If such an option doesn't exist, it surely should.
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Press O. Look below. Click Privacy Options. Tick Whitelist Duels.
When they cry to you, ignore them anyway.
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There are very friendly people in this game, and many of them are RPers, too.
I have met some very friendly people in Champions Online.
I never see them. I never get to play with them. I have a hard time identifying them, and finding them to talk to even when I do.
You fight the Purple Gang up to level 10 or so. After that, in MC, you have the chance to fight Hi Pan's gang and the Maniacs. At 11, you can go to Canada or the Desert Crisis and fight different kinds of enemies. At level 19 or so, you can do the Queen City Arc which is the introduction to Vibora Bay (one of my favorite zones.)
You also have missions in MC in the 20s to fight Mind, Inc and a chance to fight in Dr. Destroyer's Factory.
In the mid 20s you can go to Monster Island and in the early 30s you have the option of visiting the underwater zone of Lemuria and then returning to Vibora Bay in a bid to save the earth from the Apocalypse.
There is plenty to do in Champions Online-- in my opinion.
Just so you don't get the wrong impression about me, I'm not some Johnny-come-lately to the game. I played a Glacier archetype and a Grimoire all the way to 40, only to delete them when I ran out of things to do that weren't more of the same.
I realize there's different villain groups and such, but no matter what character you play and what backstory you have, you will always take one of a few similar paths through the game.
You will always fight the Qularr in the tutorial. You will always fight the Purple Gang from 6-10. You will always fight The Maniacs, the Red Dragons, Foxbat's Foxbattlebots, the Black Aces, and the Cobra Lords throughout the rest of the Westside storyline. You will always go through the Westside Storyline, in fact.
You're given a binary choice around 20 to go to either Canada or the Desert. It's always either one or the other, or both if you're feeling masochistic and don't mind running content beneath your level. Both of 'em will eventually send you back to Millenium City for the ARGENT/MIND Inc. arcs, and then you get sent back to the Desert or Canada, or both, until you get your first taste of Vibora Bay with the Black Mask storyline. And then you can't go back until you get the Vibora Bay Apocalypse. Then there's Monster Island, and finally everyone winds up in Lemuria after a stint back in Millenium City.
That is, if you don't get sick of it all and just Alert your way to 40. Speaking of, Alerts spoiled the fact that Valerian Scarlet was actually a villain, which had me dreading the whole Vibora Bay apocalypse. I knew from the word 'go' that I was being had, and yet I had no choice but to go along with it, or miss out on content.
I hate to make the comparison to CoH, but in CoH I had the choice of three different tutorials, three different factions on my way to 20 (and two factions thereafter, not counting switching allegiance through morality mishes). Within Praetoria alone, there was four concurrent lines of contacts, two for each allegiance, with the option to switch allegiance several times during those storylines. The depth of content available meant that I didn't have to play the same storylines with every character I made. Content in CO never really expands beyond two, maybe three concurrent storylines, where in CoH that was kinda the minimum most of the time.
The biggest thing that bothers me about CO is how blatant the monetization is. I continually feel like I'm being dick-slapped in the face by CO's ever present desire for the contents of my wallet. There are reminders everywhere. Little zen icons on all the locked-out archetypes in character creation. Zen icons on all the costume parts I'm not allowed to use unless I buy them (and the option to not show them is something you have to check every. single. time.) Zen store button built right into the minimap. Grayed-out bag slots with zen icons if you mouse over them. Oh, and those costumes in the tailor? If you mouse over them, you're told how to get them... except it only mentions the cash shop option, even if there's a way to earn them in-game. CoH, even CoH Freedom, locked a lot of things behind a paywall, but they never had lockboxes cluttering up your inventory, giving you over a hundred of them before you even hit level 30. CO not only gives into Perfect World's crazy Lockbox Extravaganza, but a lot of stuff worth having is sealed up tight in lockboxes. Vehicles? Lockboxes, or drifter salvage from Lockboxes. Costume parts? Lockboxes, or drifter salvage. Legion equipment? Lockboxes! Legacy devices and costume parts that used to be craftable? Drifter salvage from Lockboxes!
CoH didn't offer quite the freedom that CO's freeform characters offer, and yes there were some archetypes and powersets behind the paywall, but even without them, you had a lot of choice in character creation. You could make a darkness-oriented character, for instance. Sure, he couldn't have Dark Control unless you paid for it, but he could have Dark Armor, Dark Melee, Dark Blast, or Dark Miasma. In CO, you wanna make a Dark character, you have to either subscribe, pay 50 bucks worth of zen for a freeform character slot, or pay 11 and a half bucks worth of zen to unlock The Void archetype. Even in the latter case, you don't get to customize its powers any. As a free player in CO, I have to shoehorn all of the concepts I want to see portrayed into just ten archetypes (11 with the Alienware promo that unlocks the Devastator). And if I have a character that just won't fit those eleven archetypes? Tough luck, can't make it. Unless I'm willing to shell out real money to either subscribe (and get locked out later if my subscription lapses) or unlock it on a silver character through zen.
It's alleviated somewhat by the questionite system, but I really don't have the kind of free time to farm the amount of questionite needed to unlock anything really worthwhile, like archetypes or freeform character slots. Y'know, the things that would really alleviate my grief with this game. With zen going at a price of 205-207q currently, and only being able to refine 8000 questionite per character a day, with 2 character slots by default, that's just a bit less than half a month of questionite farming up to the limit each and every day to unlock an Archetype. To unlock a freeform slot, that's over two months.
This is a game that I play for fun. Not an occupation. Not a job. If it's fun to begin with, then I'm encouraged to spend money on it. That's why I subbed for CoH - even before Freedom, and the shift to hybrid subscription w/cash shop, the demo period of just ten days floored me with the freedom offered to me, and so I happily said, "NCSoft, take my money!" The only reason I even let my sub elapse was because my financial situation forced my hand (and even then, I kept it going far longer than I should have, because it was that good.)
If CO is not fun, then I'm not going to try and spend money to make it fun. I'm going to find something that is fun, and then spend money to make it better, and support it.
Don't get me wrong. I want to like CO. I really do. I enjoyed pen-and-paper Champions. I think some of the characters they have and their universe is fascinating. I find Grond oddly charming - he's like the Incredible Hulk crossed with Godzilla, only he has a personality. Foxbat is a riot, and it's always fun to smack him down. Destroyer is about as raving and lugubrious a villain as you could ask for, and watching him and Shadow Destroyer go at it at the end of Resistance was immensely cathartic (The dark, edgy, world-conquering New Destroyer gets put in his place by good ol' Destroyer Original-Formula.)
It's just that a lot of times it feels like it's doing everything in its power to make me hate it.
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Nobody will tell you want to like.
If you are giving the game multiple chances, does that mean you like it, but don't want to like it? What's the conflict?
If you believe something sucks, you have every right to not pay for it. You also have every right to voice your displeasure where the people in charge will see it. What do you expect of us? I say this in the sincerest way, without a tinge of annoyance. How can we possibly answer such an internal question?
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It's only peripherally relevant, but it shows that nothing says that you have to play the game the same way as everyone else. :)
http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/08/05/wow-player-levels-pandaren-to-60-without-picking-a-faction/
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I honestly think a lot of what you're not happy with is simply a syndrome of the free to play MMO. They want to make money off the players. Naturally, they want to entice you to buy a subscription or make some microtransactions.
Remember, for most of its history COH was sub only-- if you stopped paying cash you were locked out of ALL your characters.
I listen and interact in the COX channel a lot, but occasionally there are people in Zone chat I enjoy talking to as well. (And a few I flat tune out 'cause they're jerks.)
I've played DC Online, and I still play it a bit, but I enjoy CO more because I don't have to grind and I can feed my altitis.
The freeform slot isn't cheap by any means, but it may be something you'd want to consider as-- as I understand it-- you keep the purchased freeform slot even if you don't have a sub.
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I'm not entirely sure that Cryptic/PWE wants us to sub at all. I think they make more, per person, from the micro-transactions than from subs. I'm basing that solely off the fact that the majority of PWE games don't even have a sub option yet continue to thrive and from comments from Posi about profits before and after Freedom.
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I'm not entirely sure that Cryptic/PWE wants us to sub at all. I think they make more, per person, from the micro-transactions than from subs. I'm basing that solely off the fact that the majority of PWE games don't even have a sub option yet continue to thrive and from comments from Posi about profits before and after Freedom.
Well in general, yeah a quote on quote free to play usually end up spending more than $15 a month before they even realize. It's marketing 101. They see free, they assume they are getting the deal of a life time. So they enter game. Free as advertise. Now what they didn't say was that lot of popular features aint there. So guy don't have $15 a month to spend or his income is spotty or what ever the case may be, maybe they not sure whether or not they like the game or not. But they want, that feature, without paying a sub. So they spend about $10-$15 right there. Then they want a few extra costumes or maybe a power that is gated. $5-$10 right there. Up to $25 dollars which is enough to cover one month sub and part of one to make up for one that caught on and didn't buy anything...yet.
Even if they never play again after a few days or so, they already spent more than a person that subbed and left within that same month all the while of having the customer thinking they are only doing a "test run" for free or they keep the player not willing to walk away from their purchases and thus the player either continue to spend or sub. Win-win for the game maker.
Even notice how must games with life time sub hardly ever even mention the option after a coupe of years?
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Yeah, I think we're going to see the F2P model become the only option for new games. I know someone else has already said it, but I couldn't find where, but this is really hurting the MMOs. It doesn't improve anything except the profits, as studios put out more and more dumbed-down games aimed at drawing as many players as possible and keeping them occupied long enough for the studio to grind out the next one. This is why I plan on supporting all three Plan Z projects, to the best of my ability. I doubt that I'll afford being able to sub all three, but they at least show the promise of still holding to the content- and story- driven games that we seem to be losing.
That said, I will be watching Champs closely over the next year. If the Cryptic North folks can show the game the love that I still think it deserves, I will scrape together the money to go LTS. City of Heroes was a better adaptation of the Champions PnP game, but Champions Online still has a really good game buried in there, somewhere.
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I sometimes think I'm unnecessarily harsh with Champs. Despite its flaws, it does have some good in it.
It's costume creator is, and I know I'm going to catch flak for saying this, better than CoH's. CoH's didn't support asymmetry with most costume pieces. You couldn't, for instance, have asymmetrical shoulders unless you chose a shoulder piece that featured such. CO allows you to mix and match features on each limb pretty much freely, which is something I appreciate. CO also doesn't have the three 'base body types' of CoH, with separate costume features for each - instead you can adjust numerous sliders to get the proportions you want. You can actually have a muscular female character in CO, with some definition - something you couldn't do in CoH. CO could still be better about that, but it is better than what CoH provided.
I'm not put off by the action-y nature of gameplay. It doesn't really bother me that a well-designed character can get by with just 2-4 attack powers, compared to the 6-10+ you'd have in CoH (and that's not counting temporary powers). Freeform character design is a brilliant thing, allowing you to build characters with much, much wilder concepts than what CoH and its "two powersets, each must fulfill certain roles according to your achetype" system allowed for. It's a shame that Silver players don't get to experience that without paying for a freeform slot or subscription, because they could probably make a fortune selling retcon tokens for players who want to fiddle with their power choices constantly.
The crafting system in CO was pretty cool, giving you something to do with those old pieces of equipment aside from vendor-trashing it... until they decided to, for no well-explained reason, all but excise it from the game, and leave the pale mod fusion system in its place. I suspect monetization was involved, because everything that used to be from crafting is now part of the Drifter Store, which requires opening lockboxes to get the proper currency for.
Part of me is saying, "go ahead and subscribe for a few months, it'll make the game better and might justify scraping together enough for a lifetime subscription." Another part is saying, "This game is Perfect World's redheaded stepchild - everyone knows they acquired Cryptic just so that they could obtain STO, and that's why CO doesn't see hardly any work that doesn't involve more monetization of the game. They just wanna wring as much as they can out of CO. Besides, with CoH dying last year, the fate of superhero MMOs is in jeaopardy - who can say whether CO will last another two years to justify the cost of a lifetime sub?"
Every time I look at CO, I see more monetization. More lockboxes. More vehicles released exclusively to the Drifter store and Zen store. Travel powers moved out of the questionite store and recognition stores and into the Zen store or Drifter store. More alternative currencies added, some of which require cash shop investiture to get (like Drifter salvage). Systems gimped for non-subscribing players, often in subtle ways. It turns me off. Oddly enough, I'm more likely to spend money on games that don't beat me over the head with how much better things would be if I spent money on them. Getting the benefits of subscription constantly rubbed in my face discourages me instead of encourages me.
I guess I'm at the point where I have to make a decision - being a Silver player is not enough for me to continue enjoying the game. I've exhausted all the available archetypes to me, I've gotten tired of running the same content with the same types of characters over and over again, and all the stuff that I want to try out is stuffed behind the pay-wall. The decision must be made to either subscribe, or quit playing and find something else out there that'll run on my limping dinosaur of a computer.
So the question is - is subscribing worth it, at this point? Will it change my mind about the game? Or will it be more of the same frustrations that bother me now?
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That's a decision only you can make.
As for me, I admit when I buy Zen or when I got my lifetime sub I was worried about the prospects of the game shutting down at any time.
That being said, I enjoy the game far more on a Freeform character than I ever did on the one AT I had. And with a Sub I get a Retcon token and a free slot with every 40.
And since I do like to game and I would probably be buying console games if I wasn't playing CO, the lifetime sub that I have has probably saved me some money. :D
Life is short. Tomorrow CO might be given a closure announcement.
Or maybe it'll have a renaissance and last for another ten years.
Even knowing that the game ended and I have nothing to show for all the money I spent in COH, I am still glad I played it.
I think I'll have the same feeling about that when CO's time comes, and that's really all you can ask of a game.
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yeah, sounds like the time for a decision have come. It will be sad to see you go, as you are one of the better gamers out there but at the same time the purpose of a game is fun and enjoyment. When it no longer becomes that, then it might be time to go. The time and enjoyment of a player is not charity any more than running a game is.If the game don't delivers for what is expected then the person have to make a choice. The good thing is that you at least actually gave it a try and seem to almost trying to force yourself to like it. Most took one look at it, said it wasn't CO and refused to play.
But I think what is going on in CO is the trend with monetization. Some do it a bit different but I see the end result is the same. Although with lockboxes, the stuff in there is totally voluntary and not even really needed at all. Compared to many other games where stuff a person actually needs to progress is locked behind a pay thing.
And non-subscribing, it should be "gimped" for "free players. If it wasn't then the people that pay sub and LTS would be highly upset and would see absolutely no point in subscribing. . I think the whole F2p system is stupid (although I understand business why the point of it.).
People expect everything for free and want it to where they don't have to spend anything to enjoy the game on the same level as people that do spend money. But then payers feel free to play get too much of the stuff, and it nullifies the point of having a sub. It should go back to sub or some form of it like buy it once like regular game and call it a day or something. Either you have $15 to play or you don't play and that be the need of it. If you subscribe to a website and fail to pay, then you get locked out website until you can pay sub. Back with magazines. You pay sub, you get magazine in the mail. No pay sub, no magazine. Entering dance clubs, you either have the money to enter or you will sit outside in the freebie area no matter how many months prior you entered as paying customer (this assuming you are not famous or know someone important to get in free. That is a different animal in itself.)
F2p is a situation where it's impossible to please the players. The more they give the more they want, all for free. And the more they HAVE to come up with ways to make money with unlockable content to make up for it. Which then free to play complain it's all monetizing and they have to pay for stuff that subs get, while sub people complain that free are getting too much. They should go back to pay a sub or go home and keep the market for extra stuff. As much flack as lockboxes get, there isn't a single item in there that is exclusive to lockboxes and actually needed for gameplay in any shape or fashion which make it easy to simply not buy keys to open them. Thus although it is said that is a big money maker I'm sure many feel that lockboxes are a waste of money and go free. They have to have ways to cover the expense of those people being there and make it seem a sub is worth it and that wont happen if everything is given away for absolutely free because free players are either too cheap don't like the game enough or don't have the expense to pay a measly $15 a month. While at the same time those that do pay $15 a month expect more and more and increasingly more and more for that $15 to "keep them there and paying". All the while not expecting them to ever shut down the game. People forget sometimes that gaming industry is still a business like any other business that must make money to keep operating.
Kaiser, how would you do it? The balance of free to play and subscribers?
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Perhaps you keep giving CO a chance because its the only available superhero MMO that lets you make a highly customized hero, without having to inevitably diminish you in comparison to a pantheon of godlike feature characters from Marvel or DC.
I played CO since it first came out because I liked its differences. If you want to find certain kinds of players or SGs, you have to give it a couple of days, soliciting the open zone channel, moving yourself to more crowded instances of the zone you are in to see more people in person (and interact with them), and post on the CO forums. Like-minded players will network with you, the game just has a different communication structure.
CO was made differently because it had to be its own game. I see a lot of CoH players ambling around miserably, complaining that they don't have CoH anymore, and wishing CO would fix itself and become CoH. That is a problem with -you-, not the world around you. Don't get me wrong, I'd love for CoH to come back too. But if it doesn't, we will regret the time we wasted feeling bitter about it.
I guess the bottom line is, do you really want to be a super hero, or not? If that is really not the point for you, then consider the other products on the market - there are other great MMOs out there with strong communities and organized social features
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Kaiser, how would you do it? The balance of free to play and subscribers?
Under the current system, there are two 'big draws' for subscribers. The 500 zen/month subscription stipend, and the ability to make freeform characters without spending $50 worth of zen on each of them. On that scale, if you make six freeform characters on a lifetime subscription, then it's already paid for itself, and just subscribing ensures that you have eight slots at a minimum. Everything else is just fringe benefits - even the doubled questionite refinement veteran reward (as a subscriber, you already have more character slots, and more potential character slots, than any free player, so the questionite refinement limit is already a nonissue for you.)
Stuff that subscribers get that free players don't that I'm fine with:
- 6 more character slots, with the ability to earn more: I'm not as prone to altitis as some. Two characters is sufficient, if I can make characters I can be happy with
- Power Tinting: I can get by without this. Most powers in the game come in the color I'd want them anyway.
- Extra Costume Slots: One regular costume and one SG costume is enough for me - anything more would be gravy.
- Forum Access: I don't use Cryptic's forum anyway.
- Veteran Rewards: subscribers alone should get these, as they exist for supporting the game
- Unlimited use of the ingame mail system: the existing mail system is fine for what I use it for
- 500 Zen/mo. Stipend: I don't purchase from the zen store much anyway
- Expanded Market House Lots I rarely have more than 10 items to put on the market at once
- Expanded Resource Cap: What am I ever going to spend over 250G on, besides overpriced stuff in the player market?
- Ad-Free Voice Chat: If I want to voice chat with someone, there's teamspeak, Ventrilo, or plenty of other options
- Priority Login If CO's population ever becomes big enough that this is an issue, then the game's healthy enough that I could probably buy a lifetime subscription without worry.
- Inventory Bag Slots: I rarely have enough loot to fill my two bags unless I'm being lazy about selling it. CO is very convenient about putting Collections Officers where and when you need them. The only thing that bothers me is the grayed-out slots with zen-store icons on them - do you have to rub it in my face like that?
Stuff that subscribers get that free players don't that bothers me:
- Freeform Characters: I can understand locking these off, in a way, because they're one of the biggest draws to subscribing, but Champions was designed with Freeform characters in mind. Content was built around them. While Archetypes are capable (some more than others), you really feel it if you're an AT trying to be a credit to your team. Especially if you're doing anything other than DPS or support. AT tanks, in particular, get sneered at.
- Gold Archetypes: It's bad enough that they locked freeform characters off. But then they went ahead and locked half the damn archetypes, too. Gold archetypes really don't offer much advantage over silver ones, so I don't see why these archetypes are put behind the pay wall. It's particularly irksome that only 2 tank ATs and 1 hybrid AT are available to Silver players, when there's five tanks and six hybrids available in the game total. For silver players to learn they only have two options if they want to be a tank and one option if they want to be 'a little of everything,' that's offputting. It limits your potential playerbase - players that enjoy tanks and hybrid characters won't subscribe or spend money on the game because their preferred playstyle isn't fairly represented among the silver archetypes. This is kind of the boat I'm in - I enjoy tanking, but I only have two options if I want to be a so-called tank!
- Special Costumes: What bothers me about these is that they're for sale in the Zen store. More importantly, they're not obviously marked as such. So you, as a Silver player, could purchase Zen with real money, and then buy a costume pack that includes costumes you'd get anyway if you went Gold. I made this mistake, and while "buyer beware" is sort of a watchword these days, I still see it as underhanded. Further, these costume packs that you'd get for going Gold? They're not less expensive than any other costume pack for a silver player - there is literally no way to tell at a glance. Or at least there wasn't when I made the mistake. Either make them available through subscription only, make them free to both gold and silver players, or make both gold and silver players have to buy them.
- Special Travel Powers: This is the same problem as special costumes. Once again, they're purchaseable in the Zen store, but if you're a silver player, purchase one, and then later go Gold, and especially Lifetime, that's Zen wasted. I do not like it when games willingly set up a cash-shop system where you can waste previous purchases as a free player by subscribing later. It disincentivizes subscribing. Either make them subcription-only, free to both silver and gold, or make both silver and gold have to buy them. Any of those methods would eliminate the problem.
If I had my dearest wish with CO, it would be as simple as being able to convert an Archetype character to a Silver Freeform for free at level 40, even if it was at the cost of resetting him down to level 1 (albeit keeping his inventory, perks, and currencies earned). Y'know, give Silver players something to work for. Remove that shitty deal on Silver Freeform Character Slots in the Zen Store ($50 worth of zen? Come on, that's ridiculous.) It'd give Silver players something to work for, just as Gold players earn more character slots and retcon tokens by reaching 40.
At a minimum? Unlock the gold archetypes. All of 'em, for everybody. With a couple of exceptions, ATs are gimpy enough as it stands that there's not a lot of advantage to them, gold or otherwise. It would allow a wider representation of playstyles and mechanics among the ATs, encouraging more types of player to stick with the game and potentially subscribe (as I've mentioned, Tanks and Hybrids are horridly underrepresented right now). It would also allow players to familiarize themselves with a powerset and its nuances through the ATs before deciding whether or not it's worth it to subscribe for the freeforms to fully leverage that powerset.
Personally, I've never liked the hybrid-subscription model. I'd much rather have a game go full subscription, or full microtransactions. In a full subscription model, I don't have to worry about being nagged to purchase bonuses - everything in the game is there for the taking if I'm willing to earn it. With a fully microtransaction model, I don't have to worry about losing stuff I've paid for if I should let a subscription lapse. The hybrid model is the worst of both worlds, IMO.
But as the old saying goes, wish in one hand, shit in the other, see which gets fullest.
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Press O. Look below. Click Privacy Options. Tick Whitelist Duels.
When they cry to you, ignore them anyway.
Indeed. I sometimes forget to set duels to whitelist and then someone challenges me as a helpful reminder and I say "oh yeah, I forgot to block out the worthless annoyances" and rectify the problem.
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Under the current system, there are two 'big draws' for subscribers. The 500 zen/month subscription stipend, and the ability to make freeform characters without spending $50 worth of zen on each of them. On that scale, if you make six freeform characters on a lifetime subscription, then it's already paid for itself, and just subscribing ensures that you have eight slots at a minimum. Everything else is just fringe benefits - even the doubled questionite refinement veteran reward (as a subscriber, you already have more character slots, and more potential character slots, than any free player, so the questionite refinement limit is already a nonissue for you.)
Stuff that subscribers get that free players don't that I'm fine with:
- 6 more character slots, with the ability to earn more: I'm not as prone to altitis as some. Two characters is sufficient, if I can make characters I can be happy with
- Power Tinting: I can get by without this. Most powers in the game come in the color I'd want them anyway.
- Extra Costume Slots: One regular costume and one SG costume is enough for me - anything more would be gravy.
- Forum Access: I don't use Cryptic's forum anyway.
- Veteran Rewards: subscribers alone should get these, as they exist for supporting the game
- Unlimited use of the ingame mail system: the existing mail system is fine for what I use it for
- 500 Zen/mo. Stipend: I don't purchase from the zen store much anyway
- Expanded Market House Lots I rarely have more than 10 items to put on the market at once
- Expanded Resource Cap: What am I ever going to spend over 250G on, besides overpriced stuff in the player market?
- Ad-Free Voice Chat: If I want to voice chat with someone, there's teamspeak, Ventrilo, or plenty of other options
- Priority Login If CO's population ever becomes big enough that this is an issue, then the game's healthy enough that I could probably buy a lifetime subscription without worry.
- Inventory Bag Slots: I rarely have enough loot to fill my two bags unless I'm being lazy about selling it. CO is very convenient about putting Collections Officers where and when you need them. The only thing that bothers me is the grayed-out slots with zen-store icons on them - do you have to rub it in my face like that?
Stuff that subscribers get that free players don't that bothers me:
- Freeform Characters: I can understand locking these off, in a way, because they're one of the biggest draws to subscribing, but Champions was designed with Freeform characters in mind. Content was built around them. While Archetypes are capable (some more than others), you really feel it if you're an AT trying to be a credit to your team. Especially if you're doing anything other than DPS or support. AT tanks, in particular, get sneered at.
- Gold Archetypes: It's bad enough that they locked freeform characters off. But then they went ahead and locked half the damn archetypes, too. Gold archetypes really don't offer much advantage over silver ones, so I don't see why these archetypes are put behind the pay wall. It's particularly irksome that only 2 tank ATs and 1 hybrid AT are available to Silver players, when there's five tanks and six hybrids available in the game total. For silver players to learn they only have two options if they want to be a tank and one option if they want to be 'a little of everything,' that's offputting. It limits your potential playerbase - players that enjoy tanks and hybrid characters won't subscribe or spend money on the game because their preferred playstyle isn't fairly represented among the silver archetypes. This is kind of the boat I'm in - I enjoy tanking, but I only have two options if I want to be a so-called tank!
- Special Costumes: What bothers me about these is that they're for sale in the Zen store. More importantly, they're not obviously marked as such. So you, as a Silver player, could purchase Zen with real money, and then buy a costume pack that includes costumes you'd get anyway if you went Gold. I made this mistake, and while "buyer beware" is sort of a watchword these days, I still see it as underhanded. Further, these costume packs that you'd get for going Gold? They're not less expensive than any other costume pack for a silver player - there is literally no way to tell at a glance. Or at least there wasn't when I made the mistake. Either make them available through subscription only, make them free to both gold and silver players, or make both gold and silver players have to buy them.
- Special Travel Powers: This is the same problem as special costumes. Once again, they're purchaseable in the Zen store, but if you're a silver player, purchase one, and then later go Gold, and especially Lifetime, that's Zen wasted. I do not like it when games willingly set up a cash-shop system where you can waste previous purchases as a free player by subscribing later. It disincentivizes subscribing. Either make them subcription-only, free to both silver and gold, or make both silver and gold have to buy them. Any of those methods would eliminate the problem.
If I had my dearest wish with CO, it would be as simple as being able to convert an Archetype character to a Silver Freeform for free at level 40, even if it was at the cost of resetting him down to level 1 (albeit keeping his inventory, perks, and currencies earned). Y'know, give Silver players something to work for. Remove that pancakey deal on Silver Freeform Character Slots in the Zen Store ($50 worth of zen? Come on, that's ridiculous.) It'd give Silver players something to work for, just as Gold players earn more character slots and retcon tokens by reaching 40.
At a minimum? Unlock the gold archetypes. All of 'em, for everybody. With a couple of exceptions, ATs are gimpy enough as it stands that there's not a lot of advantage to them, gold or otherwise. It would allow a wider representation of playstyles and mechanics among the ATs, encouraging more types of player to stick with the game and potentially subscribe (as I've mentioned, Tanks and Hybrids are horridly underrepresented right now). It would also allow players to familiarize themselves with a powerset and its nuances through the ATs before deciding whether or not it's worth it to subscribe for the freeforms to fully leverage that powerset.
Personally, I've never liked the hybrid-subscription model. I'd much rather have a game go full subscription, or full microtransactions. In a full subscription model, I don't have to worry about being nagged to purchase bonuses - everything in the game is there for the taking if I'm willing to earn it. With a fully microtransaction model, I don't have to worry about losing stuff I've paid for if I should let a subscription lapse. The hybrid model is the worst of both worlds, IMO.
But as the old saying goes, wish in one hand, pancake in the other, see which gets fullest.
Good stuff.
I do think that they overall. the game makers are not sure what to do with ATs. One on hand you have a bunch of people saying the game is too easy as is that even the weakest ATS fly through content with not a single bit of issue. On the other, you have people that say what you way about ATs. They are a bit weak and leave a lot to be desired in many aspects. So if they buff ATs, then there will be an uproar about making the game even more cakewalk than it already is. If they leave it, then the others will view ATs as weak.
I too think the least they could do is get rid of locking some ATs behind the pay thing. Leave freeform sub based and unlock the rest of the ATs. I think they are in a serious damned if they do damned if they don't situation with ATs already. If they buff them, people will curse them for it. If they leave them, people will curse them for it. Thus the logical choice if ya going to get cursed either way is to do the least expensive less laborious action, leaving them as is.
I like your idea. And I think it could work. yeah they either should go sub based, or micro-transaction. Mixture of both is nothing but disaster on anything less than a game with less than a couple of million players if even that. And getting a clear precise measure from the players is like trying to roll perfect sequence 1-10 on a lottery ticket. It's not likely to happen especially when many of the player base say it's too easy even with ATs, and other part say it's ATs are a bit weak.
And never realized free to play people cant get on the forum. Seems to be many there that claim to be free players that just got there and never subbed before.
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I've let my sub lapse a few times and while a silver player I've never had a problem logging into the forums or posting. Either in Champions or in STO.
Now - it could be that the pay wall for that still exists for someone who is not and never has been subscribed before. If you start as a Silver Player and stay one - the main forums might be locked to you? Don't know for sure. Never been in that situation myself. I think regardless that you can still read the forums.
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While we are wishing I would like world peace or at least an end to world hunger.
And I wish all unhappy gamers find their joy, soon.
I've never had a problem posting as a perma-Silver on the official forums btw. Only did so when I went there to moan about the server probs they were having awhile back. I have bought Zen. Dunno if that counts.
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I do indeed have access to the forums on a free account, though it is chokered. I cannot start new threads until after a certain amount of time or posts.
I've made peace with Champions not being City of Heroes. I also know that once I finally find something I like better, I will probably never look back. but there are still ways it could be improved without trying to turn it into CoH. For instance the aformentioned changes to the AT layout. if I am looking at it from a business perspective, what would I rather do; give someone crippled content in the hopes that they will have enough good will for my product to be willing to try the full-price version after I have browbeat them for a month?, or offer them a balanced taste of the game with the promise of even better stuff if they pay. For instance, ALL of the melee ATS are bladed or hammer. and the two tanks ( who really are just trotted up melees)? And browbeating me about vehicles and vehicle mods, and then not being able to do jack with them unless I go buy one with cash or subs?
I also think allowing someone to have a free form slot after reaching max level is a lot better than charging 3 months subscription or making them grind for a month gaming the Q>Zen system.
by far my largest complaint with Champions (other than it not being City) is how damned linear it is. Particularly when limited to Archetype power sets. You can't choose your powers. you can't even choose the order in which your powers are triggered in the tray. After you've played four or five ATs, the game indeed becomes a cakewalk which you can play by memory. Granted most games have this, but not to the extent I experience in Millenium City where there is exactly one tutorial you cannot skip, and more or less one story path you can follow until level 15. For a game that's been out this long, to only have one story path to follow is just shameful.
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Granted most games have this, but not to the extent I experience in Millenium City where there is exactly one tutorial you cannot skip, and more or less one story path you can follow until level 15. For a game that's been out this long, to only have one story path to follow is just shameful.
Frees cant skip tutorial?
Ever since a long time ago after I did the tutorial once, it's always had option to skip it on every toon after the first. But i'm sub. Might be different for frees and it would suck to have to do tutorial over and over each time. Although I don't the tutorial more than once by choice (I actually like the tutorial missions).
YEah it's sad that in fact they used to have different leveling paths, three, desert, Canada and MC then they took that feature away. Interesting choice there. SO it's definitely not that they don't have the capability ot create more than one leveling path, it's seems that they just don't want to bother with it. Hell, barely can get some ticket support people to do their job that I assume that they are getting paid to do.
CO seem to be stuck in that circle. Not enough money to make improvements but wont be enough money because there is not improvements and thus leaving not enough money to make improvements. It's like everyone is sitting on the side of the room waiting for someone else to go first. They dont want to risk it, and players don't want to put more money into it only to still end up with no improvements. While the super hero mmo market is small and that tactic get them by as is right now, eventually they will have to swim or sink. It's only a matter of time before someone make a super hero mmo that does actually halfway well (meaning 350,000 plus players) and then all the big companies will jump on the wagon until there is no more room. Right now, they have first dibs and their time is now but seems like they are going to mess around waiting and miss out.
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Some of the restrictions silver players have are lifted if you have a zen balance on your account or a certain amount of aggregate play-time, or if you've ever had a gold subscription in the past.
I took all the categories mentioned in my post from the chart on this page (http://co.perfectworld.com/freetoplay). The restrictions on chat, Supergroup creation, Forum access and In-game Mail all go away under these circumstances.
As far as ATs and their strength goes...
ATs can, and do, usually sail through most content. On Normal difficulty, at least. But then again everyone does, so that's not surprising. Champions, on its base difficulty, is not a hard game so long as you don't go pushing your character. Considering that everyone who has an attack power besides their energy builder and starter can probably handle most content the game throws at you unless there's a Super Villain at the end of it, it's not fair to call ATs effective based on that. It's literally the lowest-common-denominator of what constitutes "playable," let alone "effective."
The problem comes when playing things like Adventure Packs, Comic Series, or trying to participate in team activities like Alerts or instances, lairs, or even in zone events at higher levels. ATs do not fare well in these, unless they're a support AT or a DPS AT. Unfortunately, that's where everything that's worth having in the game comes from. Costume unlocks, questionite, recognition, all of these rewards come from farming these team activities. While some of them you can do solo (I personally soloed Resistance and Whiteout before, but then again, they're the most solo-friendly out there), most require a well put-together team, or in the case of alerts like Gravitar rampages, several. Most ATs can't stand up to the scaled-up mobs and bosses in this content, and that's why they have such a bad rep as being gimpy, and it's why they're not wanted on teams.
This is a particular problem for AT tanks. A freeform tank can stack two or three really hard-hitting attacks to grab and hold aggro, and then fill the rest of their slots with things that either improve their damage (and aggro generation), or make them tankier, or provide self-healing ability. AT tanks have way, way too many attacks than they can reasonably expect to utilize, and often their attacks are not chosen to complement their defensive mechanics.
To give you an example, The Behemoth doesn't get a reliable way of proccing Enrage prior to level 35 unless you take Roomsweeper at 11, which has a nasty tendecy to swat enemies away from you, which in turn interferes with stacking Defiance. Taking Thunderclap instead forces you to always have at least three enemies on you, otherwise you can't generate Enrage with it. It's also significantly weaker, and can't be spammed as rapidly as Roomsweeper (Roomsweeper is a .83 second charge-up, Thunderclap is a click with a 6-second cooldown), interfering with your ability to hold aggro. It's the most-cited example of poor AT design.
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Some of the restrictions silver players have are lifted if you have a zen balance on your account or a certain amount of aggregate play-time, or if you've ever had a gold subscription in the past.
I took all the categories mentioned in my post from the chart on this page (http://co.perfectworld.com/freetoplay). The restrictions on chat, Supergroup creation, Forum access and In-game Mail all go away under these circumstances.
As far as ATs and their strength goes...
ATs can, and do, usually sail through most content. On Normal difficulty, at least. But then again everyone does, so that's not surprising. Champions, on its base difficulty, is not a hard game so long as you don't go pushing your character. Considering that everyone who has an attack power besides their energy builder and starter can probably handle most content the game throws at you unless there's a Super Villain at the end of it, it's not fair to call ATs effective based on that. It's literally the lowest-common-denominator of what constitutes "playable," let alone "effective."
The problem comes when playing things like Adventure Packs, Comic Series, or trying to participate in team activities like Alerts or instances, lairs, or even in zone events at higher levels. ATs do not fare well in these, unless they're a support AT or a DPS AT. Unfortunately, that's where everything that's worth having in the game comes from. Costume unlocks, questionite, recognition, all of these rewards come from farming these team activities. While some of them you can do solo (I personally soloed Resistance and Whiteout before, but then again, they're the most solo-friendly out there), most require a well put-together team, or in the case of alerts like Gravitar rampages, several. Most ATs can't stand up to the scaled-up mobs and bosses in this content, and that's why they have such a bad rep as being gimpy, and it's why they're not wanted on teams.
This is a particular problem for AT tanks. A freeform tank can stack two or three really hard-hitting attacks to grab and hold aggro, and then fill the rest of their slots with things that either improve their damage (and aggro generation), or make them tankier, or provide self-healing ability. AT tanks have way, way too many attacks than they can reasonably expect to utilize, and often their attacks are not chosen to complement their defensive mechanics.
To give you an example, The Behemoth doesn't get a reliable way of proccing Enrage prior to level 35 unless you take Roomsweeper at 11, which has a nasty tendecy to swat enemies away from you, which in turn interferes with stacking Defiance. Taking Thunderclap instead forces you to always have at least three enemies on you, otherwise you can't generate Enrage with it. It's also significantly weaker, and can't be spammed as rapidly as Roomsweeper (Roomsweeper is a .83 second charge-up, Thunderclap is a click with a 6-second cooldown), interfering with your ability to hold aggro. It's the most-cited example of poor AT design.
What you speak is true form what I seen.
Although I find great irony in that. Players say that the game is too solo friendly and not team friendly at all because there is no mechanism making or forcing them to need support toons, yet ATs have that mechanism where they need support to survive the tough stuff but now it's considered gimped and not wanted on teams, because they lack the mechanism that supposedly creating an air of anti-teaming of toons being too self sufficient. lol. Now I know why most game makers dont even bother with customizations. It's a lot of headache and there seem to be no clear way to please everyone or even mostly everyone. It's easier to stick with pre set builds where everyone is the same and up to them to find and fight for gear that distinguish between the player.
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What you speak is true form what I seen.
Although I find great irony in that. Players say that the game is too solo friendly and not team friendly at all because there is no mechanism making or forcing them to need support toons, yet ATs have that mechanism where they need support to survive the tough stuff but now it's considered gimped and not wanted on teams, because they lack the mechanism that supposedly creating an air of anti-teaming of toons being too self sufficient. lol. Now I know why most game makers dont even bother with customizations. It's a lot of headache and there seem to be no clear way to please everyone or even mostly everyone. It's easier to stick with pre set builds where everyone is the same and up to them to find and fight for gear that distinguish between the player.
The biggest problem is that freeforms get more powers than ATs. Coupled with the freedom to pick and choose as they please with those powers, it means that freeforms can, quite literally, do damn near anything, and sometimes they can do it all, and do it well, all on one character.
As a result, a freeform tank can essentially be his own Support. Further, healing oneself generates aggro, and a lot of it, and it's AoE aggro too - it's very hard to hold aggro on a healer without a self-heal of your own. So a tank that can handle his own healing can benefits the party three ways.
- It eliminates the need for a Support, since crowd control doesn't work on bosses anyway. You can bring an extra DPSer.
- It helps the tank hold aggro better.
- It helps the tank survive better and handle more mobs at once.
Champions only allows for 4-man teams. Every Support you can weed out of the ranks of your party in favor of a DPSer is a roughly 25% increase of overall DPS, allowing for faster runs and more loot in the same period of time. Really efficient teaming means weeding out every Support toon that isn't absolutely necessary.
On the other hand, supports are welcome in most groups because heals are rare and godly in Champions, and there are just some enemies that will eat your face without them. Even in parties with a self-sufficient tank will generally be okay with a support joining because it means everyone else gets healed. It's particularly gravy if the support has AoE heals, but even ST heals are welcomed. No amount of defenses will let you tank a serious fight without healing, and having heals for the DPSers means they can DPS without being interrupted or risking dying if the enemy has, say, a raidwide or roomwide AoE.
Of course, the way Champions' combat system is designed, an effective DPS doesn't need a ton of attacks either - just a narrow selection of really good ones. It's not impossible for a freeform DPSer to bring their own self-healing as well (and you won't find a freeform melee DPS toon without it - look how common Devour Essence (http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Devour_Essence), Conviction (http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Conviction) and Resurgence (http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Resurgence) are among melee freeforms).
Then there's pet builds. A pet build is basically an entire team (or two, or three) in your pocket. These tend to pretty much break the game over their knee. Ritual of Arcane Summoning (http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Ritual_of_Arcane_Summoning) (tank), Ritual of Radiant Summoning (http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Ritual_of_Radiant_Summoning) (support), Ritual of Ebon Summoning (http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Ritual_of_Ebon_Summoning) (ranged DPS), Ritual of Primal Summoning (http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Ritual_of_Primal_Summoning) (melee DPS), Tyrannon's Familiar (http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Tyrannon's_Familiar) (Offtank, energy support), Void Horror (http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Void_Horror) (debuffer), Command Animals (http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Command_Animals) (more melee DPS), Air Elemental (http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Air_Elemental) (more ranged DPS), Arctic Beast (http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Arctic_Beast) (controller), Munitions Bots (http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Munitions_Bots) (ranged DPS), Support Drones (http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Support_Drones) (healer), Attack Toys! (http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Attack_Toys!) (self-replicating cannon fodder). All of these are controllable pets. Only a few (the ritual pets) require an Advantage to be used alongside others. There's not a lot stopping you from using most of them at once. If you drop out the more redundant ones, like Muni Bots and Attack Toys, or Command Animals, you'd still have room for other powers (like say Illumination (http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Illumination) coupled with Celestial Conduit (http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Celestial_Conduit) to efficiently heal that mass of allies and deal damage at the same time. Heck, you could still field a hefty team and have room to carry Gatling Gun (http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Gatling_Gun) to apply Fear to enemies and Spirit Reverberation (http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Spirit_Reverberation) to take advantage of it when using Celestial Conduit offensively.) Many freeform builds carry Support Drones just for the free heals.
What's all this mean in the end?
Well, it means that people with freeforms (subscribers, generally) can literally do everything themselves, and more often than not, they get intensely butt-mad when their teammates can't do the same, or actually, y'know, have limitations. ATs aren't capable of the godly feats of tanking and DPS that are doable on freeform characters, and get sneered at as 'not carrying their weight.'
This is why Support ATs and melee DPS ATs are the only ones seen as viable by the Freeform Elite - anyone with a heal and a modicum of intelligence in targetting it is capable of support. If you got a rez too, even better. DPS is a dime-a-dozen, and DPS ATs tend to be the best-designed of the ATs anyway. It's alright if they're a bit subpar, there's 2-3 of them in each team anyway, so the better ones can pick up the slack of the worse ones. Even if you do have bad DPS, in anything that's not an Alert, it's not an issue because there's not a time limit. It just means killing the bosses is going to take a bit longer.
This kinda leaves AT tanks out in the cold. If you're an AT tank, or a tanky Hybrid AT (like The Impulse with Personal Forcefield or The Savage), your best bet in a party is to just resign you to being a drastically-subpar DPSer and hope your group doesn't kick you for having to carry you. On my Glacier AT, I tried to make myself useful by actually leveraging Chilled and Ice Cage to play a mini-Controller, since I basically told to stop trying to tank by most of the groups I was in.
As you can guess, as someone who adores tanking, (I played Brutes & Tankers in CoH when I wasn't on a Kheldian or Arachnos EAT) that hurts to hear.
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What's all this mean in the end?
If nothing else it means you're keen on analysis!
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Press O. Look below. Click Privacy Options. Tick Whitelist Duels.
When they cry to you, ignore them anyway.
Useful as always!
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It seems to me that the OP wants to like this game, but just can't. I can understand that. I sorta have a love/hate relationship with it myself,
I know the Game has issues, but it is certainly more fun than when it started. I like some of the changes they made, but some are very off putting (lockboxes). I don't feel that a gold player should have to spend so much real money to unlock the drops they get for doing missions. More regular drops, less lockboxes would be welcome. I feel that an average player should get just about the same number of lockbox drops as the stipend covers in terms of keys. No so many that you can use the entire stipend up in a few hours of play.
To me, the big rub is content. There really needs to be a lot more and different things to do.
I'm lifetime subber from Beta, Have I got my money's worth?
Mathwise? Sure.
Funwise? Maybe.
It's different from COH in many. many ways and players expecting a similar experience will be disappointed. But there is fun to be had there.
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It seems to me that the OP wants to like this game, but just can't. I can understand that. I sorta have a love/hate relationship with it myself,
I know the Game has issues, but it is certainly more fun than when it started. I like some of the changes they made, but some are very off putting (lockboxes). I don't feel that a gold player should have to spend so much real money to unlock the drops they get for doing missions. More regular drops, less lockboxes would be welcome. I feel that an average player should get just about the same number of lockbox drops as the stipend covers in terms of keys. No so many that you can use the entire stipend up in a few hours of play.
To me, the big rub is content. There really needs to be a lot more and different things to do.
I'm lifetime subber from Beta, Have I got my money's worth?
Mathwise? Sure.
Funwise? Maybe.
It's different from COH in many. many ways and players expecting a similar experience will be disappointed. But there is fun to be had there.
yeah the lockbox drop rate used to be much much much lower. I remember one had to spend a pretty penny to buy one off the market if thye wasnt fortunate enough to have one drop naturally. Now they drop so often that it's not even worth selling. And unless a person is into vehicle and feeling lucky or need the drifter salvage or feeling lucky that they may get some of the good gear, it dont seem to be worth spending much money on.
To me lockboxes are merely extra stuff that I treat like any other drop. Not useful it get deleted or sold. No pressure to buy to me.
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The biggest problem is that freeforms get more powers than ATs. Coupled with the freedom to pick and choose as they please with those powers, it means that freeforms can, quite literally, do damn near anything, and sometimes they can do it all, and do it well, all on one character.
As a result, a freeform tank can essentially be his own Support. Further, healing oneself generates aggro, and a lot of it, and it's AoE aggro too - it's very hard to hold aggro on a healer without a self-heal of your own. So a tank that can handle his own healing can benefits the party three ways.
- It eliminates the need for a Support, since crowd control doesn't work on bosses anyway. You can bring an extra DPSer.
- It helps the tank hold aggro better.
- It helps the tank survive better and handle more mobs at once.
Champions only allows for 4-man teams. Every Support you can weed out of the ranks of your party in favor of a DPSer is a roughly 25% increase of overall DPS, allowing for faster runs and more loot in the same period of time. Really efficient teaming means weeding out every Support toon that isn't absolutely necessary.
On the other hand, supports are welcome in most groups because heals are rare and godly in Champions, and there are just some enemies that will eat your face without them. Even in parties with a self-sufficient tank will generally be okay with a support joining because it means everyone else gets healed. It's particularly gravy if the support has AoE heals, but even ST heals are welcomed. No amount of defenses will let you tank a serious fight without healing, and having heals for the DPSers means they can DPS without being interrupted or risking dying if the enemy has, say, a raidwide or roomwide AoE.
Of course, the way Champions' combat system is designed, an effective DPS doesn't need a ton of attacks either - just a narrow selection of really good ones. It's not impossible for a freeform DPSer to bring their own self-healing as well (and you won't find a freeform melee DPS toon without it - look how common Devour Essence (http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Devour_Essence), Conviction (http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Conviction) and Resurgence (http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Resurgence) are among melee freeforms).
Then there's pet builds. A pet build is basically an entire team (or two, or three) in your pocket. These tend to pretty much break the game over their knee. Ritual of Arcane Summoning (http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Ritual_of_Arcane_Summoning) (tank), Ritual of Radiant Summoning (http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Ritual_of_Radiant_Summoning) (support), Ritual of Ebon Summoning (http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Ritual_of_Ebon_Summoning) (ranged DPS), Ritual of Primal Summoning (http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Ritual_of_Primal_Summoning) (melee DPS), Tyrannon's Familiar (http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Tyrannon's_Familiar) (Offtank, energy support), Void Horror (http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Void_Horror) (debuffer), Command Animals (http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Command_Animals) (more melee DPS), Air Elemental (http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Air_Elemental) (more ranged DPS), Arctic Beast (http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Arctic_Beast) (controller), Munitions Bots (http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Munitions_Bots) (ranged DPS), Support Drones (http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Support_Drones) (healer), Attack Toys! (http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Attack_Toys!) (self-replicating cannon fodder). All of these are controllable pets. Only a few (the ritual pets) require an Advantage to be used alongside others. There's not a lot stopping you from using most of them at once. If you drop out the more redundant ones, like Muni Bots and Attack Toys, or Command Animals, you'd still have room for other powers (like say Illumination (http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Illumination) coupled with Celestial Conduit (http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Celestial_Conduit) to efficiently heal that mass of allies and deal damage at the same time. Heck, you could still field a hefty team and have room to carry Gatling Gun (http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Gatling_Gun) to apply Fear to enemies and Spirit Reverberation (http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Spirit_Reverberation) to take advantage of it when using Celestial Conduit offensively.) Many freeform builds carry Support Drones just for the free heals.
What's all this mean in the end?
Well, it means that people with freeforms (subscribers, generally) can literally do everything themselves, and more often than not, they get intensely butt-mad when their teammates can't do the same, or actually, y'know, have limitations. ATs aren't capable of the godly feats of tanking and DPS that are doable on freeform characters, and get sneered at as 'not carrying their weight.'
This is why Support ATs and melee DPS ATs are the only ones seen as viable by the Freeform Elite - anyone with a heal and a modicum of intelligence in targetting it is capable of support. If you got a rez too, even better. DPS is a dime-a-dozen, and DPS ATs tend to be the best-designed of the ATs anyway. It's alright if they're a bit subpar, there's 2-3 of them in each team anyway, so the better ones can pick up the slack of the worse ones. Even if you do have bad DPS, in anything that's not an Alert, it's not an issue because there's not a time limit. It just means killing the bosses is going to take a bit longer.
This kinda leaves AT tanks out in the cold. If you're an AT tank, or a tanky Hybrid AT (like The Impulse with Personal Forcefield or The Savage), your best bet in a party is to just resign you to being a drastically-subpar DPSer and hope your group doesn't kick you for having to carry you. On my Glacier AT, I tried to make myself useful by actually leveraging Chilled and Ice Cage to play a mini-Controller, since I basically told to stop trying to tank by most of the groups I was in.
As you can guess, as someone who adores tanking, (I played Brutes & Tankers in CoH when I wasn't on a Kheldian or Arachnos EAT) that hurts to hear.
You're on point with this I think.
It's sad you came across groups like that. I came across similar if not worse in COX so I feel your pain for real. In COX, came across teams and leaders that would kick people for all types of things. A defender that is not empath, kicked. Stalker, good luck getting an invite at all. kinetic controller without speed boost, kicked. Tank no taunt or refuse to herd, kicked. Scrapper acting like a tank, kicked. Dom without perma dom, kicked. Not IOed out, kicked. Blaster not spamming AOE, kicked. Costume not in the taste of the leader, kicked. No bio, kicked. Bio not up to standard to the leader, kicked. Female character not "hot enough", kicked. Female tank, kicked as they believed that it's unrealistic to a female character to be a tank (go figure). MM with first tier pets out, kicked. Blaster that have or uses any sort of knockback, kicked first offense. Controller that is not using holds often enough ot leader standards, kicked. Storm powers, automatically kicked before mission even begins. Tank that try to do damge, kicked (As one put it. "Tanks are not supposed to attack. They suppose to taunt and let the team kill. If they want to be damage they should of made a brute." (in fact heard quite a few people say that). Brute that out tank the tank, kicked. Brute that is not maintaining fury bar to standard of team leader, kicked. And so on, but those are the most commons ones I came across in COX through out the years.
One friend said that he dont play MMO for the people and dont give "a rat's 'pancake" about other people. If it was possibel to not see them at all, it would make his gaming experience even more enjoyable. But since the game is not available as single player mode only, other players are side a side effect." To him MMO merely means multiple people that just so happen to be able to play that same instance in a particular game. As he also put it, "just because it's multiplayer, it doesnt mean I'm your buddy now."
Which is easy to take if the enjoyment factor is not determined by other player's actions when good actions add enjoyment and bad players lessen the enjoyment. In those cases, I guess the best thing to do is hope to find a better group or if no enjoyment is being found in the search then is it worth playing? That's a decision only each individual player can make and determine for themselves.
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It's sad you came across groups like that. I came across similar if not worse in COX so I feel your pain for real. In COX, came across teams and leaders that would kick people for all types of things. A defender that is not empath, kicked. Stalker, good luck getting an invite at all. kinetic controller without speed boost, kicked. Tank no taunt or refuse to herd, kicked. Scrapper acting like a tank, kicked. Dom without perma dom, kicked. Not IOed out, kicked. Blaster not spamming AOE, kicked. Costume not in the taste of the leader, kicked. No bio, kicked. Bio not up to standard to the leader, kicked. Female character not "hot enough", kicked. Female tank, kicked as they believed that it's unrealistic to a female character to be a tank (go figure). MM with first tier pets out, kicked. Blaster that have or uses any sort of knockback, kicked first offense. Controller that is not using holds often enough ot leader standards, kicked. Storm powers, automatically kicked before mission even begins. Tank that try to do damge, kicked (As one put it. "Tanks are not supposed to attack. They suppose to taunt and let the team kill. If they want to be damage they should of made a brute." (in fact heard quite a few people say that). Brute that out tank the tank, kicked. Brute that is not maintaining fury bar to standard of team leader, kicked. And so on, but those are the most commons ones I came across in COX through out the years.
I feel your pain. My experience with the CoH community was far more pleasant, but admittedly, I had a lot fewer issues playing on my own in that game, and I only felt the need to team when I was either helping out newbies, or working with people I had good working relationships with to start. In CO, I don't have that luxury.
Which is easy to take if the enjoyment factor is not determined by other player's actions when good actions add enjoyment and bad players lessen the enjoyment. In those cases, I guess the best thing to do is hope to find a better group or if no enjoyment is being found in the search then is it worth playing? That's a decision only each individual player can make and determine for themselves.
The problem is, like a lot of MMO communities, CO is old, top-heavy, and stratified. There's the freeforms on the top of the heap, with power layouts, specialization builds, and gear that make them like unto gods. Everything's boring to them, and the only reason why they're still playing is for the rewards. Their main interest is running everything as fast as possible and efficiently as possible, which means focusing their teams into narrower and narrower pigeonholes of super-effectiveness and kicking or abandoning anyone who doesn't fit their ideal team composition.
At the other end of the totem pole are newbie silver players, for whom everything is new and fresh and they want to experience as much as possible. They don't yet realize how gimpy their silver AT characters are, and don't realize the prejudice they're under for not being some godly freeform. They're new and unsteady and don't quite grasp the mechanics of the game or the strategies needed to play it, and invariably won't use what power they have to the fullest.
Then there's people like me, who are in the middle. Still stuck on a Silver account, but we know the game well enough to debate mechanics with seasoned veterans and hold our own. We've seen the content and played through it, probably numerous times, and started to develop that jaded "ugh, I just want this to be over with so I can play with the rewards" attitude that the veterans have, yet there's still enough unfamiliar ground left in the game that we can be surprised, pleasantly and otherwise, if only we can get a team together to run it effectively. This is hampered by the fact that the game's high-end content, by and large, was designed around freeforms, not around ATs.
You've also got to consider that the queued events throw players together with no regard for their skills, veterancy, AT/freeform status, or whatever. And given that level scaling in CO is terrible (if you're low-level being scaled to a higher level, you're gimpy from lack of powers; if you're high-level being scaled to a lower level you're gimpy because the system is overzealous and makes you weaker than a character of the actual level you're scaled to), this means that any team automatically arranged by the game has a very high chance of failure, unless one member is just so stinkin' uber that they could solo the event themselves. Then that person (more often than not), winds up pitching a fit at the rest of the team for having to 'carry' them, leading to more bad blood.
Since people who subscribe, and people who don't, are on such an uneven footing, it creates a stratified class system within the game's community, and with that comes resentment from the accompanying class-friction. CoH didn't suffer that because, until you reached incarnate-level activities, a subscriber and a non-subscriber were pretty much precisely the same - and when you did reach incarnate-level activities, the non-subscribers pretty much vanished altogether.
On a personal level, I want to tank. I can do a lot of other things, but tanking has always, always been my thing in superhero MMOs. My first character I took beyond 20 in CoH was a tanker. My first character beyond 20 in CoV? A Brute (and this was before archetypes could exist on both sides of the hero/villain fence). All of the characters I've ever remotely enjoyed in CO? Tank ATs, or very durable melee DPSers (Devastator, Unleashed). But I've come to realize that, in CO, I cannot tank without a freeform character. I can try to tank. I can play a character that's supposed to be a tank, but he cannot, in fact, tank. All of the tanks in CO that can tank, are either freeforms, or gold ATs I have no access to.
The fact that I cannot play what's supposedly a tank, and enjoy it, due to the game's shitty monetization scheme, is demotivating. While yeah, maybe it'd get better if I subscribed to unlock those features, it galls me to pay money into something that wasn't fun for me to begin with. I'm not a wealthy person - I'm taking care of two elderly parents by myself, as well as trying to gain and hold on to a regular job. What little free cash I spend has to be spent wisely, on something that will bring me lasting pleasure - I can't afford to fritter it away on a hunch. Further, subscribing to the game will not improve the community. At best, it would only elevate my status within it. I'd still have to deal with all the elitist, hyper-specialized demanding jackasses out there.
And I'm just not sure that's worth it.
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The problem is, like a lot of MMO communities, CO is old, top-heavy, and stratified. There's the freeforms on the top of the heap, with power layouts, specialization builds, and gear that make them like unto gods. Everything's boring to them, and the only reason why they're still playing is for the rewards. Their main interest is running everything as fast as possible and efficiently as possible, which means focusing their teams into narrower and narrower pigeonholes of super-effectiveness and kicking or abandoning anyone who doesn't fit their ideal team composition.
At the other end of the totem pole are newbie silver players, for whom everything is new and fresh and they want to experience as much as possible. They don't yet realize how gimpy their silver AT characters are, and don't realize the prejudice they're under for not being some godly freeform. They're new and unsteady and don't quite grasp the mechanics of the game or the strategies needed to play it, and invariably won't use what power they have to the fullest.
Then there's people like me, who are in the middle. Still stuck on a Silver account, but we know the game well enough to debate mechanics with seasoned veterans and hold our own. We've seen the content and played through it, probably numerous times, and started to develop that jaded "ugh, I just want this to be over with so I can play with the rewards" attitude that the veterans have, yet there's still enough unfamiliar ground left in the game that we can be surprised, pleasantly and otherwise, if only we can get a team together to run it effectively. This is hampered by the fact that the game's high-end content, by and large, was designed around freeforms, not around ATs.
You've also got to consider that the queued events throw players together with no regard for their skills, veterancy, AT/freeform status, or whatever. And given that level scaling in CO is terrible (if you're low-level being scaled to a higher level, you're gimpy from lack of powers; if you're high-level being scaled to a lower level you're gimpy because the system is overzealous and makes you weaker than a character of the actual level you're scaled to), this means that any team automatically arranged by the game has a very high chance of failure, unless one member is just so stinkin' uber that they could solo the event themselves. Then that person (more often than not), winds up pitching a fit at the rest of the team for having to 'carry' them, leading to more bad blood.
Since people who subscribe, and people who don't, are on such an uneven footing, it creates a stratified class system within the game's community, and with that comes resentment from the accompanying class-friction. CoH didn't suffer that because, until you reached incarnate-level activities, a subscriber and a non-subscriber were pretty much precisely the same - and when you did reach incarnate-level activities, the non-subscribers pretty much vanished altogether.
On a personal level, I want to tank. I can do a lot of other things, but tanking has always, always been my thing in superhero MMOs. My first character I took beyond 20 in CoH was a tanker. My first character beyond 20 in CoV? A Brute (and this was before archetypes could exist on both sides of the hero/villain fence). All of the characters I've ever remotely enjoyed in CO? Tank ATs, or very durable melee DPSers (Devastator, Unleashed). But I've come to realize that, in CO, I cannot tank without a freeform character. I can try to tank. I can play a character that's supposed to be a tank, but he cannot, in fact, tank. All of the tanks in CO that can tank, are either freeforms, or gold ATs I have no access to.
The fact that I cannot play what's supposedly a tank, and enjoy it, due to the game's pancakey monetization scheme, is demotivating. While yeah, maybe it'd get better if I subscribed to unlock those features, it galls me to pay money into something that wasn't fun for me to begin with. I'm not a wealthy person - I'm taking care of two elderly parents by myself, as well as trying to gain and hold on to a regular job. What little free cash I spend has to be spent wisely, on something that will bring me lasting pleasure - I can't afford to fritter it away on a hunch. Further, subscribing to the game will not improve the community. At best, it would only elevate my status within it. I'd still have to deal with all the elitist, hyper-specialized demanding jackasses out there.
And I'm just not sure that's worth it.
yup.
Well they tried an attempt to fix that level scaling thing and they said more it to come later but thus far, I dont see much difference, besides many level 40s upset thinking thye got nerfed and upset that the lower level got buffed (which ironically was the common complaint to begin with- Low levels not able to do enough damage in alerts. LOL. LMAO! now they are pissed that low levels got buffed up so they deal more damage.
I'm a tank/melee type of guy by nature myself so I definately get where you are coming from.
Although no game mechanic in the world is going to change player's attitude. It was even present between incarnates and non-incarnates (especially the ones that still ran TF/SF/Trials. And present between those that been blessed with purple drops and had oodles of cash to make their build uber and those that didnt. A lot of teams stopped taking Doms, for example, that didnt have perma dom ability from purple IOs or didnt show it during the missions.
From the looks of it, the risk isnt worth it for you yet although it seems if you had the spare means you would do it.
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I think truth be told, cryptic/pwe doesn't want champions to succeed. they largely ignored this game for 2 years. in that 2 years all we got were lock boxes false hope in believing this game would ever be getting the foundry. they are not even deving in California anymore they move the development to Seattle. the old city of devs which could have helped make champions so much better, were placed on sto and neverwinter. sorry if I sound bitter.
I have left playing this game 3 months ago, why you might ask because the only think champions is going to be getting are lame temp story arcs.
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I think truth be told, cryptic/pwe doesn't want champions to succeed.
This, often, is how I feel about CO. It's very clear that PWE acquired Cryptic for STO, and just got CO in the bargain. They don't know what the heck to do with it, and I'd almost think they'd pawn it off on the first rube to flash a sufficient amount of cash at them for it. Don't quote me on that last one though.
In the time it took them to release FATAL ERROR, Star Trek Online has gotten an entirely new faction, the KDF has been expanded to actually have something approaching a story progression, Duty Officers have been implemented and expanded upon, and they implemented fleet marks and fleet refit starships. It's very, very apparent where their development bias and interests lay.
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This, often, is how I feel about CO. It's very clear that PWE acquired Cryptic for STO, and just got CO in the bargain. They don't know what the heck to do with it, and I'd almost think they'd pawn it off on the first rube to flash a sufficient amount of cash at them for it. Don't quote me on that last one though.
In the time it took them to release FATAL ERROR, Star Trek Online has gotten an entirely new faction, the KDF has been expanded to actually have something approaching a story progression, Duty Officers have been implemented and expanded upon, and they implemented fleet marks and fleet refit starships. It's very, very apparent where their development bias and interests lay.
yeah.
Seems like the market as a whole have no idea what to d wit ha super hero mmo. They either get one as "Meh, lets put the new guys to the industry on it and see what happens for a bit. We'll give them $300 to work with. The $3 million is needed for the fantasy game." Or "Well, was aiming for that other game, but this hero game is tagged along. Put it out back and let people play it."
It seems the industry is ingrained to think an MMO must only be fantasy or if it's another genre it must be established brand. No game is to be made without an established crowd unless it's fantasy, then they like to make stuff up and put forward best effort. Hero game, forget about it. Shoestring, and then say it wasn't successful and wont put anymore resources into it.
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I know why I'm giving it another chance - it's the only game in town that even comes close to giving me the feel of CoH.
I don't know how long I'll stay this time (or even if I'll bother to subscribe), but the main reason it frustrates me is not because the game is bad, but because it could be so much better, but nobody cares.
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I know why I'm giving it another chance - it's the only game in town that even comes close to giving me the feel of CoH.
I don't know how long I'll stay this time (or even if I'll bother to subscribe), but the main reason it frustrates me is not because the game is bad, but because it could be so much better, but nobody cares.
Well WE care.
But yeah - Cryptic/PWE? Not so much.
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I know why I'm giving it another chance - it's the only game in town that even comes close to giving me the feel of CoH.
I don't know how long I'll stay this time (or even if I'll bother to subscribe), but the main reason it frustrates me is not because the game is bad, but because it could be so much better, but nobody cares.
This. Just... so much this.
There's the potential for a great game there, but it's stifled so much by shifty monetization schemes and an utter lack of development and support that it just chokes this shy of amazing. I often play the game and think, "Man, if I'd played this back when it was new, when it was subscription-only, archetypes didn't exist, and they didn't gut the crafting system, CoH might have had competition for my favorite game ever."
But then PWE took it, made the archetypes and locked away half of them, locked away the freeforms that the game was designed around, filled it with lockboxes, gutted the crafting system, moved crafted stuff into their lockbox scheme, and then... forgot about it.
I see what could have been and compare it to what is and just... sigh.
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I see what could have been and compare it to what is and just... sigh.
This right here is what keeps me from enjoying this game on more than a very at-ams-length level. I look at the existing mechanics, then I look at a few possible changes that could be made to infinitely improve the game's mechanics, and I shake my head and lose any investment in it.
The costume creator is far superior mechanically to most other MMO makers (including CoX)... but it's a chaotic mess which is unintuitive and overly-complicated in places. (I played for three weeks before I realized you could click the bar at the top to change the class of part for instance)
The bass ackwards currency system? You have resources points, then you have recognition points, then you have Questionite Ore, then you have Zen; and I'm sure there's at least one more form of commerce hidden inside the game somewhere.
and all the "gimmemoney" pandering between lock-boxes that fill up my inventory slots, and vehicles you are forced to learn about twice in game which are also pay exclusive (and their parts, which fill my inventory even faster)? There's a difference between profit seeking, and browbeating. You want people to play this game, to buy this game... but then you offer only the most linear and locked-down aspects of it for them to sample. an archetype can be capably maneuvered through most of the game, but it lacks any individuality beyond its costume.
And the writing? the cut scenes and snippets are there... the material is there to form a strong narrative that connects you to the story. and then they tell you the local witch is named "witchcraft" and send you to fight three different but mundane street gangs instead of saving the city from magical or monstrous threats like a superhero is supposed to and it's like....
I just look at this game and ask myself "look at what could be done with what is already here, and yet so much of it molders on the vine."
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This right here is what keeps me from enjoying this game on more than a very at-ams-length level. I look at the existing mechanics, then I look at a few possible changes that could be made to infinitely improve the game's mechanics, and I shake my head and lose any investment in it.
Not to defend CO as much, but, how easily people forget...
The costume creator is far superior mechanically to most other MMO makers (including CoX)... but it's a chaotic mess which is unintuitive and overly-complicated in places. (I played for three weeks before I realized you could click the bar at the top to change the class of part for instance)
It's a matter of getting used to it. COX's CC was not that intuitive, either. Using ICON reminds that I cannot still find things that easily, mostly because I rarely used some pieces. Take for instance the Head Options "Detail 1" and "Detail 2"... not exactly intuitive, are they?
The bass ackwards currency system? You have resources points, then you have recognition points, then you have Questionite Ore, then you have Zen; and I'm sure there's at least one more form of commerce hidden inside the game somewhere.
Like COX didn't have a lot of currencies at the end?
and all the "gimmemoney" pandering between lock-boxes that fill up my inventory slots, and vehicles you are forced to learn about twice in game which are also pay exclusive (and their parts, which fill my inventory even faster)?
You people make a bigger issue of this than it is. A slot can hold 999 lock boxes so they do not really fill up your inventory. You can also drag the entire slot to a space on the screen to discard the contents. Pretty easy to do.
Re: vehicles. You only have to view the videos once. I sell all the pieces to the vendor along with the other junk.
There's a difference between profit seeking, and browbeating. You want people to play this game, to buy this game... but then you offer only the most linear and locked-down aspects of it for them to sample. an archetype can be capably maneuvered through most of the game, but it lacks any individuality beyond its costume.
You are playing for free. Did you subscribe to CoX? Why not subscribe to CO to open up that "individuality" you seek? It costs the same, right? The same cost as 10 years ago so inflation has not hit the sub prices.
And the writing? the cut scenes and snippets are there... the material is there to form a strong narrative that connects you to the story. and then they tell you the local witch is named "witchcraft" and send you to fight three different but mundane street gangs instead of saving the city from magical or monstrous threats like a superhero is supposed to and it's like....
Again with the rose-colored memories: you fought regular street gangs in CoX as well. Remember the Skuls, the Hellions, the Warriors? One thing I dislike about the CO gangs, though, is that they are ALL comical in some way. It's hard to take them seriously as a threat.
Isn't one of the big threats in the Winter zone some magical monstrous entity?
BTW, Witchcraft is not some local hero.
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One thing I dislike about the CO gangs, though, is that they are ALL comical in some way. It's hard to take them seriously as a threat.
This is the number one reason I don't enjoy CO as much as I enjoyed CoH. It's the art style and the tone. They just don't work for me at all. (Well, that and the lack of content.)
I also just don't like the idea of gear in a superhero game. I vastly preferred enhancements to the helmets and bracers.
The lockboxes don't bug me as much as they used to. My issue wasn't so much the inventory space as the way they used to drop constantly. Adjusting the drop rate down has really helped.
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Well, CoH was heading towards its own ridiculous numbers of currency types, with Influence/Infamy/Information, Prestige, AE Tickets, Reward Merits, Vanguard Merits, Alignment Merits (split into Hero and Villain), Astral Merits, and Empyrean Merits. If you're counting Zen for CO, then Paragon Points should also be counted for CoH. You could probably also count Paragon Reward Tokens.
In fact, most MMOs seem to drift to that sort of system. As too many players get huge amounts of the game's basic currency, they start putting more and more of the things that are supposed to be rewards behind other forms of currency. And then as people amass that currency, they create yet another currency to gate rewards behind, and so on. For example:
Dofus has kamas (the basic currency), Ogrines (the equivalent of Paragon Points/Zen), Kolossokens, Doploons, Almokens, Ice Kamas, Krokens, and Chocolate Kamas (Bronze, Silver, and Gold), plus the deprecated currency Strokens, and the only-given-out-when-there's-a-problem Compensokens.
Kingdom of Loathing (a text-based "Massively Single-Player" game, as its dev team calls it) has Meat (the basic currency), Fat Loot Tokens, Filthy Lucre, Quarters, Dimes, Swagger, Credits, Game Grid Tickets, Lunar Isotopes, Hobo Nickels, and Freddy Kreugerands as permanent forms of currency, and short-duration events generally have their own currencies, including Bone Chips, Crimbux, CrimbCo Scrip, and FDKOL Commendations.
So, really, CO having many different kinds of currency is not a turn-off. It's expected.
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This is the number one reason I don't enjoy CO as much as I enjoyed CoH. It's the art style and the tone. They just don't work for me at all. (Well, that and the lack of content.)
I also just don't like the idea of gear in a superhero game. I vastly preferred enhancements to the helmets and bracers.
Same. I've always said that about CO; with CoX I felt like a superhero, with CO I feel like a parody of a hero (and just to be fair, in DC I feel like the practice squad). I could write a novel about the details, but I mentioned in another thread that when it comes to CO right now I "can't be arsed", this is why. I want to be a superhero not a superjoke. I want to care about MC and fighting the bad guys that threaten it, but I just haven't really been able to and I think a lot of that is cause I just can't take the environment seriously.
And I'd also agree that enhancements >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> gear (that goes for other MMOs as well).
Why do I keep giving Champions Online a chance? Cause it's all we've got right now, and if things continue the way they've been for the past couple years, I fear it won't be long before DCUO is "all we have left."
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besides the name difference (enhancement-gear) it was basically the same.
IIRC some of the "enhancements" had the names like necklace, bracers, and gloves.
It basically does the same thing-increase stats and in both cases, neither one affect the look of the character in COX or CO.
You know if they copied COX enhancement system verbatim or close and I doubt their arguement that they didnt know would work in their case, it probably would have been a violation of some sort since they sold the IP/artwork/trademark rights to NCSOFT when they left to make the CO game. So they probably purposely tried to make it different in name and use. But overall, it does the and serve the same function.
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Exactly, the 'gear' doesn't effect the way you look unless you get one of those cheesy set 'transform' powers from the Q gear. Outside of that, it effects your stats, that's about it.
And by Stats - just to clarify - I mean base stats and offense, defense, crit rating, ect. Essentially any 'number' on the Character sheet.
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Exactly, the 'gear' doesn't effect the way you look unless you get one of those cheesy set 'transform' powers from the Q gear. Outside of that, it effects your stats, that's about it.
And by Stats - just to clarify - I mean base stats and offense, defense, crit rating, ect. Essentially any 'number' on the Character sheet.
No, I understand all of this. I guess the reason I liked the enhancements better was because it was very clear exactly how they were going to affect my powers. Whereas that is not always clear to me with the Champions gear.
Now, why this bugs me in Champions and doesn't bother me in Neverwinter I cannot explain, except that Champions is a superhero game and that's not how I want my superhero games to work. It's entirely capricious, I suppose.
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the difference being that in COH, enhancements were generally specific to an individual power. therefore you could pick and choose what to buff and what not to. (with the exception of the intrinsic fitness pool) in CO it's specific to character, and the adjustments it provides scale across the toon. So there is a difference in the way it works.
but I wholeheartedly agree on failing to connect with the game. in City of Heroes your initial foes after the tut are a street gang that digs up graves as initiation, elementally empowered thugs who failed at being superheroes and so went bad (also they worship demons "GF from hell FTW"), and depending on where you went in atlas park, psychically controlled robots, reanimated corpses of socialites, or insane cultists. you feel like you're facing down supra-normal threats to the city. stuff you' find in the pages of a comic book about superheroes.
In CO... oh go fight the italian mob.... go fight the chinese mafia and do west side story (literally)... go fight those wierd clown-themed thugs we picked up from batman who are also some kind of mafia... go fight the biker gang... I didn't feel like anything more than a glorified cop until they sent me to canada to save plane crash victims from zombies. and as soon as I finished that, it's "fight the canadian arms smugglers" right back to cop stuff.
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besides the name difference (enhancement-gear) it was basically the same.
IIRC some of the "enhancements" had the names like necklace, bracers, and gloves.
It basically does the same thing-increase stats and in both cases, neither one affect the look of the character in COX or CO.
It's not really the same thing at all. Enhancements let you boost a specific power in exactly the way you wanted. You could make it hit more often, do more damage, hold longer, recharge faster, cost less Endurance, etc. With 91 Enhancement slots at level 50 (including the one default slot for each power), each individual power was customizable in a myriad of ways.
Gear is just a general-purpose boost to your stats, not something you apply to individual powers. With only six total gear slots, they don't have anywhere near the nuance or specificity of Enhancements. Plus, unlike Enhancements, the basic versions of which were sold at NPC vendors around the game world, gear is more or less acquired at random, so there's no guarantee you'll be able to boost the stats you want when you want it.
They're both similar in that they "make you more powerful", but that's where the similarity ends. I much prefer CoH's Enhancements over any sort of gear system.
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If it wasn't for the roleplayers in CO, i'd have left again already. But even then, I will say this; they are not much more loyal to CO then I am. If something better came along, they'd jump ship. Some of them never played CoX, so if it came back I bet you I'd have no trouble convincing them to try it out. One person even stated to me that the only die-hard CO fan is unfortunately a complete moron, and from conversations I'd had in CO about difficulty, for example, being to easy, they justify it, then they justify rediculously broken and overpowered devices that are still to powerful today, they then ask for nerfs for powers that are actually quite balanced, due to factors they utterly overlook. Roleplayers in CO are the only people keeping me playing CO anymore. And the new dev department isn't going to introduce the foundary untill next year IF THEY DECIDE TO DO SO AT ALL. And my roleplaying has suffered without a mission editor, and my general mood has also hurt my own roleplaying to. CO's just falling appart for me yet I still hope maybe it'll get better soon, but i'd really like CoX back soon.
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What you speak is true form what I seen.
Although I find great irony in that. Players say that the game is too solo friendly and not team friendly at all because there is no mechanism making or forcing them to need support toons, yet ATs have that mechanism where they need support to survive the tough stuff but now it's considered gimped and not wanted on teams, because they lack the mechanism that supposedly creating an air of anti-teaming of toons being too self sufficient. lol. Now I know why most game makers dont even bother with customizations. It's a lot of headache and there seem to be no clear way to please everyone or even mostly everyone. It's easier to stick with pre set builds where everyone is the same and up to them to find and fight for gear that distinguish between the player.
Your right in that case, but the team mechanics sucking isn't cause freeforms can be self sufficient, it's more that the game outright punishes you for teaming. If your teaming in many maps, unfortunately the mobs don't quite scale up in alot of them, so the game becomes even easier, yeah, but you also end up with LESS experience for it. In general, mobs in CO actually give very, very low amounts of experience and resources, compared to CoX, which gave tons of experience and influence if you cleared the map(more then the mission reward). In fact, i'd say mob kills account for only, even not doing alerts, about a tenth of the exp you get in total, even clearing everything in your path. So the problem is theres just a lack of incentive. The self-sufficient mechanics actually help teaming in CO in that you don't have to have a healer or a tank or damage dealer, if everyones a freeform, but archtypes are ultimately a step backwards in general, with the holy trinity forced down their throats. Heck, CoX's corruptors/defenders could all form teams without anything else, so could tankers and any archtype really and do well as long as they players had skill, Archtypes in CO just, sadly, suck.
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... I enjoy getting multiple duel invites as I am standing there talking to Kodiak at about level 9. I'm new, I have hardly a single clue what I am doing yet everyone wants to fight! I truly enjoy clicking "decline."
The costume creator is tricky until you get it figured out a bit. It has elements I really like, yet all members of each sex wearing the same face really irks me. Its a small thing..... yet I am irked.
Glowy parts for the win.
HOWEVER..... once bitten twice shy, I still don't trust PW to not close the game on me should I come to like it more later. This is very much keeping me from fully investing. This also strikes me as a single-player game that you just happen to see other people running around in. You wont be teaming with them. Ever.
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... I enjoy getting multiple duel invites as I am standing there talking to Kodiak at about level 9. I'm new, I have hardly a single clue what I am doing yet everyone wants to fight! I truly enjoy clicking "decline." A remedy has already been presented.
The costume creator is tricky until you get it figured out a bit. It has elements I really like, yet all members of each sex wearing the same face really irks me. Its a small thing..... yet I am irked.
Have you checked the details you can add, such as middle age and geometric? The faces are not alike if you manipulate sliders and use the detail textures.
Glowy parts for the win.
HOWEVER..... once bitten twice shy, I still don't trust PW to not close the game on me should I come to like it more later. This is very much keeping me from fully investing. This also strikes me as a single-player game that you just happen to see other people running around in. You wont be teaming with them. Ever.
If that's how you see the players, then you will get exactly what you put in. When I was in Peregrine Island in CoH, I did the Maria Jenkins arc solo. Never once did I conclude that everyone outside Portal Corp would never team with me. I knew that if I felt like teaming, I could reach out to someone or they could do the same to me. It is no different here.
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The problem is, given what I see in Zone chat I am not really sure how well "reaching out" would do over there. Thee seems to be heavy disdain for those who are not experienced players.
I am not worried about teaming at the moment so much, as I would be a liability to a team right now. But this environment over all IS NOT WELCOMING. It just isn't, especially when contrasted with that of CoX.
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It seems the industry is ingrained to think an MMO must only be fantasy or if it's another genre it must be established brand.
And what's bad is Champions IS an established brand. Not as big as Star Trek, sure, but the Champions tabletop game existed long before the MMO did. As I recall, Cryptic even outright bought the rights to it and all. Not just licensed them, bought them entirely. And then licensed them back to the company that makes the tabletop game. Don't quote me on that though, not entirely sure it's true. Something I remember hearing back around the time Champions was announced.
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Your right in that case, but the team mechanics sucking isn't cause freeforms can be self sufficient, it's more that the game outright punishes you for teaming. If your teaming in many maps, unfortunately the mobs don't quite scale up in alot of them, so the game becomes even easier, yeah, but you also end up with LESS experience for it. In general, mobs in CO actually give very, very low amounts of experience and resources, compared to CoX, which gave tons of experience and influence if you cleared the map(more then the mission reward). In fact, i'd say mob kills account for only, even not doing alerts, about a tenth of the exp you get in total, even clearing everything in your path. So the problem is theres just a lack of incentive. The self-sufficient mechanics actually help teaming in CO in that you don't have to have a healer or a tank or damage dealer, if everyones a freeform, but archtypes are ultimately a step backwards in general, with the holy trinity forced down their throats. Heck, CoX's corruptors/defenders could all form teams without anything else, so could tankers and any archtype really and do well as long as they players had skill, Archtypes in CO just, sadly, suck.
Yeah I do think exp for mobs in COX was in relative terms higher than what CO rewards. But in COX I found it increasingly rare as time went on that teams actually bothered to kill many mobs thinking that they wasnt worth the xp and thus mostly just speed run things by running to the last room and click glowy and maybe killing the mobs only in that room thus rendering the exp gained from killing mobs or clearing moot. live mobs do not reward xp nor do clicking the glowy in two minutes flat offer a time reward but alas, too many teams avoided killing things like the plague.
Incentive wise for teaming is next to nill in CO. Which sucks for people that only team for incentives. In COX I think teaming was too incentivlized. It like it frowned upon soloing as much as CO seem to forget about rewarding teaming. I think an incentive between the two levels of none (CO) to too much (COX) would have been great.
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If that's how you see the players, then you will get exactly what you put in. When I was in Peregrine Island in CoH, I did the Maria Jenkins arc solo. Never once did I conclude that everyone outside Portal Corp would never team with me. I knew that if I felt like teaming, I could reach out to someone or they could do the same to me. It is no different here.
yup.
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...Wait, The Thing is in CO?!! This is pretty cool, why wasn't it in CoX?!! *burns it with fire*