There are quite a few posts on here with players sharing their experiences with these two games, and I've really enjoyed reading the varied opinions. For what its worth, here's mine. There are a lot of aspects of CO that I haven't seen discussed here, so I'll try to mention some things that I haven't seen discussed here yet.
Before I say anything else, thank you to everyone in this community who has contributed to this miraculous revival of CoH! I seriously never thought I'd be able to try this game out and doing so has been a dream come true. You guys are doing God's work.
I was curious about CoH when it was new, the idea of playing a superhero in an interactive world really sparked my imagination. However, I ended up spending my time with other things and other games, and when I stumbled upon CO I was reminded of those feelings I had for CoH. Even though I never played it, even then I was looking at CO as a CoH replacement. This was late 2010 and CoH was still around, but it was CO's f2p model that won me over to their side. The freedom to just try it with no strings attached, ultimately got me engrossed in the game, and I ended up shelling out way more than if I just bought CoH. I have since grown to hate the F2P model btw.
So CO really was great to me in the beginning. The energy recharging system was engaging, giving combat a flow and sense of pace. The Champions IP storyline is really well written. It's cheezy and silver-agey on the outside, but I actually was surprised by the depth of some of these stories. The 'comic series' arcs are where this shines the most, with Whiteout and Demonflame being very well written.
Some of these worlds are just fascinating, like strolling through the desert and just stumbling upon the robotic-cowboy area 'Snake Gulch' or the ghost town of 'Burnside' was unforgettable to me. But almost all of that was experienced alone. Nobody seemed interested in the game world or the lore. Most players just played the daily rotating 'red alert' missions and never left the main hub world, as if grinding resources was the most fun thing to do. A small group of min-maxers would PVP. And the only other group was the periodic costume contests. I seriously would be alone 99% of the time in these adventure areas and other zones, I felt like I was a single player, and it wasn't for lack of trying. Like someone said in another post, teaming up sucks because one min-maxer will just clear everything in 5 seconds, and that's what happened the 2 times I actually found a team.
Like many of the people here who played both games, I found more fun in character creation and costume editing than the actual gameplay. I had so many slots it was ridiculous. The very most fun I ever had in CO was the costume contests. There were groups who would meet up on a schedule, seemed like there was one every day at least by some group. Usually there was a theme for these, like 'historical figures' or 'superhero wedding', and coming up with ideas for those was so much fun. There were some imaginative and skilled players who manipulated the costume system and came up with some things that didn't seem possible, I was always surprised at some of the entrants. These contests had 50+ people in them, and judging could take a little while. It was by far the most players I ever saw at one point, as usually CO seems kind of barren.
I actually reached the max level with one of my characters, and dabbled in PVP. Like many of you, the min-maxing and unbalanced nature of the freestyle skill tree means I got my ass kicked pretty bad. It was disheartening.
Although I had a fondness for CO, it frustrated me in many ways. The bugs was the #1 concern to me. The animations wouldn't cycle correctly, where a character holding a gun would just stand there instead of using the 'gun firing' pose, and the projectile would magically changing direction towards the target. Enemies would get stuck, spawn in objects, and their animations would not run properly. Unexplained things would happen sometimes. 'Hold-Down Charge' abilities (like Snipe) always did this annoying thing where when it was ready to fire, a second one would begin charging for a split second before canceling. It made it look so clunky and un-cool. For that reason I avoided those abilities, even if they were powerful. I'd take a cool-looking thematic character over a dorky min-maxed one any day. A minor annoyance was how stiff and fake a lot of the enemies feel. They just stand there and ignore you until you attack them. You could take out a group of 100 enemies, 2 or 3 at a time, and all of the rest will just stand there oblivious. In the overworld, they respawn very fast. So clearing out an area is like playing whack-a-mole, where most of them are just standing there waiting to die, while the ones you killed 30 seconds ago have already reappeared.
I took a break from CO for a year or two, then came back to it in 2013. Wow, a LOT changed. First of all, it seemed like the staff disappeared and meaningful development ceased. The monetary system changed, now everything was with these damn loot boxes, you'd pick up 100 of them from enemies and wouldn't be able to use any of them because keys cost real money, all just for random chance of cosmetics, where most of them are crappy recolors. It really bothered me. Long standing bugs from years ago persisted, not one of them was fixed. In fact, I noticed more bugs. The beloved Nemesis missions started to bug out on me, every time. During the cutscene of the first Nemesis mission, the villain that I created would come in his grand entrance and instead of walking would be using the 'typing' animation. So he's standing there pecking at invisible keys while he slides across the floor, saying "Muahaha I am the greatest villain..." To rub salt in the wounds, updates were FREQUENT. I'm talking every week a new update, all microtransactions. New limited edition costume pieces, superfluous vehicles that you had to buy, more loot boxes, etc.
It seemed like they gutted my beloved CO and made it a shadow of its former self. These lootboxes and microtransactions were like a plague that needed to be cured. So I haven't played CO since 2013, but I check the website on occasion and the Steam reviews to see what it's been up to, and it seems like nothing has changed, except even the microtransaction updates are becoming infrequent now. I'd bet anything that every one of those bugs from 10 years ago are still in the game.
So recently I gave CoH a try. This is an old game right, I mean last updated in 2012. I was shocked at how similar it was to the older version of CO. Bugs and all (the gun thing definitely happened the first time I tried CoH), although CO still is more buggy than CoH from what I can tell. The thing I described above with the enemies being oblivious to you until you attack them seems mostly true here, as well as the respawning thing. For as much talk about these two games being different, they really are a lot alike!
It's like two twin brothers who are constantly trying to prove how different they are from each other because they hate each other, but actually the main difference is just in the clothes they wear.
So what are the meaningful differences? Well, I said CoH is most similar to the old CO, that referring to the microtransactions. Thank God CoH isn't trying to nickle and dime us like every other game out there. For that reason if nothing else, CoH wins the competition hands-down. As far as the art style that people have such strong opinions about, I'm indifferent. Maybe I'm just unobservant but the differences seem relatively minor to me. I probably like the art direction of CoH a little more, but I can't deny CO is technically of superior quality. Combat flow, I have to give to CO. Man it just seems really slow, waiting for these cooldowns, at least in the beginning when you have like 3 powers, I'm standing there doing nothing 50% of the time. I'm more interested in a casual experience and I'm not big on high-mechanic/reflexes gaming, so this was somewhat welcome, but even for me it started to become a slog.
The 'on-rails' aspect of CO has come under much scrutiny here, with people not liking being told what to do. I understand where you're coming from, and I think you're right, but there's a downside. As someone who hasn't played CoH before and just jumped in recently, I was big time lost. I seriously had no idea what to do, I started to become frustrated wandering around. Admittedly this wasn't that long and maybe I just suck, but I was not having fun just roaming around, getting into these long slow battles with random enemies every 5 seconds. The thought of just quitting seriously crossed my mind. I eventually found the quest guy and started to make some progress, and things started to turn up a bit. The missions feel just as stilted as CoH though, enemies standing around waiting for you to attack them, respawning in 30 seconds.. I think both games are about tied here, just a matter of personal preference. I think CoH is better for veterans while CO is better for newbies.
Anyway, there's my opinion. I'm going to keep giving it a try and see if it grows on me, but I have to say I can't help but be a little disappointed. What you start with probably colors your opinion greatly. I started with CO so that feels right to me, while you guys started with CoH so CO feels wrong to you. But I can't get over the microtransaction problem CO has, so I'm trying to learn to like CoH.
Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear more of your opinions and insights on these two games.
