EggKookoo

Not sure what to say to this. The general consensus is that Fly is objectively easier to use than the other three, if for no other reason that you can get above danger and autopilot.

Heroes that fly at super high speeds have... Super Speed. They took both pools. I mean, if I can run at ~80mph, why do I need to take Super Jump to make really high jumps? The physics that allow running that fast could also allow me to launch myself way high into the air. The game divides up uses of what we might otherwise think of the "same" ability for balance and thematic reasons. Otherwise there would just be, say, one "fire" power.

Agreed. I don't think they could make Super Speed any faster. I wouldn't want them to. Really, they screwed up by adding Afterburner. If the solution for Super Speed getting over high obstacles is to take something from the Leaping pool, then the solution to getting Fly faster should have been to allow Super Speed to enhance Fly speed. My main complaint isn't about Afterburner, though (although I do argue Fly is fast enough now). It's that Burnout sucks.

Could be that AP1 still existed when AP3 was spawned, and then AP1 somehow emptied out.

You're still not getting it - very simple math here... 2 > 1. Of course I get it. I'm saying that's how it should be in this particular equation.

Slotted out, Super Speed is like, what, 5mph faster than Fly + Afterburner. In a flat drag race, the Superspeeder will beat the Afterburning Flyer by a few seconds over the length of something like SC. In reality, the travel path is almost never a straight line and certainly not without things the runner has to jump over. Here's how it happens. We get our mission location on our compass. The Fly player immediately takes off and kicks on Afterburner. Maybe about 2 seconds later, they orient themselves and head toward the destination at near-SS speeds. They're above any MOBs and most buildings, and perhaps have to slalom around some of the taller skyscrapers that are in the way. Meanwhile, the SS player has to first orient themselves before moving at SS, lest they run into some MOBs or into a wall or whatever. Then they can turn on SS but almost immediately will have to address the nearest vertical obstacle. They have to judge if they can jump it, and if they misjudge that, they have to turn off and find a way over it. If the best option (such as in SC) is one of those switchback staircase things, they have to actually shut off SS to go up it (try leaving it on, it's not fun). Then when they get past that obstacle, they have to repeat the process, making "jump or go around" decisions constantly, zig-zagging as needed. And SS is only a smidge faster in actual velocity than Afterburner, so they don't get that feeling they can afford that extra time. Super Jump helps a lot with this, mainly by simplifying the decision to jump or go around, but it doesn't add any extra speed. Sometimes it feels the opposite -- I'm not sure my SS velocity carries through when I'm Super Jumping, aside from some initial momentum. When I hit the ground, it definitely feels like I lurch forward, which implies I lost forward speed during some of that jump. Compare this to the pre-Afterburner days, when, yes, the Super Speed player often got to the destination first. But they felt they earned that by learning the map, and if they screwed up with too many misjudged walls, they know it was their own (lack of) knowledge of the map that held them back, not some magic "let's just make Fly as fast" dev decision. And it was nicely thematic -- the "Flash" gets to lounge and do the "hey, what kept ya?" stuff. It felt, well, Super Speedy. Not so much nowadays. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm happy the Flyers get a speed boost. And I'm not actually asking to make Super Speed any faster. I just don't think we need to make Fly even faster yet.

That's the point - one pool needs 2 power selections to bring it on par with 1 power from the other. It should take a second power to make a travel power go as fast as the "speed" travel power. And in practice, Flight + Afterburner is significantly faster than just Super Speed on its own. Like, my flying teammate gets to the mission door well ahead of me, with enough time to set up dancing emotes and whatnot. If I want to keep parity (not beat, but tie), I have to take something like Super Jump to deal with vertical obstacles. That's two powers from two different pools just to be functionally as fast as someone taking two powers from a single pool. Flight is fine. If anything, Super Speed needs a worthwhile capstone.

Flight + Afterburner is now effectively faster than Super Speed. You know, the travel power with "speed" in its name. Flight is fine.

I see two things happening with AP. One, I get a serious FPS drop whenever I go near Atlas Plaza. This is my client/computer reacting to the amount of graphical processing going on. I can live with this as the framerate rarely goes below 20, which is pretty chunky compared to the 100+ I get in other zones or in door missions, but it's not a show-stopper. However, this could be mitigated by encouraging people not to crowd around Ms. Liberty. Maybe limit her ability to train to the first few levels, after which players should seek out BAB. Or add a new trainer maybe inside City Hall? Two, I get rubberbanding pretty much anywhere in the zone. I don't have to be near the plaza. This is far more frustrating and distracting as I will often find myself "reset" quite a distance back, and it happens a lot. This will not be helped by encouraging people to spread out into the zone (as far as I understand it) because it's caused by the server dealing with so many people in the same instance.

Ok, first, I'm going to make an assumption here. If it's a bad one, well, ok. But I know I do this. Whenever a contact gives me a choice between a door mission and an open-world "hunt X" mission, I take the door mission. In fact, when a contact runs out of door missions and only has hunt missions left, it typically prompts me to go find a new contact. Basically, I skip hunt missions if at all possible. They're just not that interesting to me. Maybe I just want the goal-oriented structure of a door mish. I dunno. Some thoughts on making hunt missions more attractive. [*]Some of the newer low-level hunt missions actually drop an indicator on the map where those MOB types are likely to be found. I think these are part of those new starter Hellion missions in AP, but it's a nice feature. I imagine it might be a lot of work, but what's the possibility of doing the same thing for other hunt missions? It would give them more of a sense of focus, and less of a sense of busywork. [*]Decouple location from MOB type whenever possible. Instead of "defeat 10 Hellions in King's Row" just make it "defeat 10 Hellions" and let the player find them wherever. Sure, that might mean a level 8 player might get the mission in KR and run back to AP for some easy kills, but really, who cares? They're just cutting themselves out of that extra EXP. Also, it would mean Hellions we defeat during door missions would count toward the hunt total, which would be huge. [*]Increase the rewards for completing hunt missions. Not EXP but maybe increased chances of interesting salvage or enhancement drops. Or was more likely to drop Tips or something? [*]Reframe the missions more as collecting specific salvage drops that come from the target MOBs. This is more akin to how WoW typically does it -- you don't have a mission to kill boars, your job is to collect boar livers, which just happens to involve killing a lot of boars. So instead of going to kil Skulls, we're collecting a particular drop (which, of course, would have to be set to drop more often from those guys). Again, lots of dev work I'm guessing... [*]Revisit the concept entirely. This is probably too much work to pull off, but what if accepting a hunt mission caused special versions of that MOB type to spawn nearby? Or frequently triggered an ambush. Or perhaps in combination with #2, prompt some of that MOB type to spawn randomly during other door missions. This is pretty open-ended, I understand... In the interest of the biggest bang for developer buck, I feel like #2 would be the best approach. If we could hunt our targets anywhere, we could take those missions but "fill" them while doing other door missions, or just take out those targets where we encounter them instead of trying to always find them in specific places.

+1 I avoid AP like the plague.

But wait, there's more! Yes, I might have some altitis. Happening. Yes, his name is Happening. Thugs/Traps MM. He's a reluctant immortal time-traveler who jumps centuries or millennia (sometimes backwards) whenever he dies. Not "dies" in the sense of being defeated in-game, I mean a real death. He assumes even suicide, although he's yet to be driven to that. No matter what, he just keeps... happening. His most recent time jump was from the 1880s, hence the gunslinger look. Like Citrakya, he wears a Sewer Suit when needed. I made Alluvion really just to play with the water powerset. I don't have much of a story for him aside from maybe he comes from a "water/fluid dimension" where everything is basically some kind of liquid. I originally wanted a more down-to-earth name but I couldn't get anything I fell in love with. But now I like the unearthly, vaguely alien "Alluvion." Water Blast / Elec. Manipulation Blaster. He's hard to make out with all the vapor and whatnot. Here's a closeup. And finally, Night Vision, someone I thought up based solely on the name. He's very clearly a Batman expy. So I decided that the kid who's parents were killed in the alley was actually a latent mutant, and the murder threw him into a coma but also opened up his latent telepathic powers. He reflexively took control of his parents' killer's body, and is now living out a vigilante fantasy from his hospital bed. Street Justice / Ninjitsu Stalker.

Really they just need more travel pose emotes, like they have with flight. Some creative interpretations of Super Jump could get around a lot of these. Wouldn't mind some alternate Super Speed run poses, to be honest.

Ok, here we go. First up is Citrakya, my main from live (recreated, of course). MA/SR Scrapper. He has a very sensitive sense of smell. When he goes into the sewers, he wears his special Sewer Suit. It's hot and a little hard to hear things in it, but it keeps the smells at bay. He also likes to wear his Spelunking Suit when dealing with the caves. The night vision goggles help with the bluish purple walls. Next we have Konk, SS/Inv Brute. He's a Clockwork creation that ripped off his own head. That's okay, he has a backup brain in his chest. He's really big. The biggest I could make him in the game, and then I added the jetpack things to make him even bigger height-wise. It's cool having someone so big, but when I play tight maps like the caves, he's a little unwieldy. So I gave him the power to shrink when needed. I wish there was a mecha-transform CCE emote. Alas, this will have to do. Also. despite having no head, Konk can see well enough to get around, using various full-body proximity sensors. And he hears through numerous small mikes on his body. However, when he needs more accuracy (for instance, when getting into a fight), he pulls up his combat HUD. Of course, precision is relative. It's not like he needs all that much when smashing with his fists. "Don't make Konk use FACE!" Then there's Contained, who was raised from birth to be the host for a demon, only to turn the tables on the situation and take control. Kinetic Melee / DA Stalker. Cathode Ray was my CO character. His CO version was more retro, part steampunk and part 50s zeerust. This is a more modern take. Elec Blast / Kin Corruptor. And then there's Jab. He's short and to the point. Titan Weapon / Elec Armor Scrapper Say hello to his... surprisingly-large friend.

Some of us predicted that would happen the moment they raised the level cap a second time for Wrath. When they increased it to 60, it could have been a one-off. When the went to 70, it became a trend with the inevitable reset at the end.

I've stuggled with this myself. I finally decided that with enough eye-squinting and abstraction, Super Jump makes a good proxy for web-slinging or similar grapple-like travel. You get that same up-and-down swing feel, and you can get up to ledges and whatnot to look down on the streets like Batman. It's not perfect but it has a close enough feel (for me, anyway).

I don't, actually. I think there's a massive, massive audience out there that's not interested in the F2P format, that has considerable disposable income, and would be more than willing to part with it if a new, classic-approach AAA MMO appeared. I mean, I know I would be thrilled to pay easily twice what WoW charges for a state-of-the-art, content-rich MMO that doesn't try to constantly upsell me. I suspect game developers are waiting for WoW to die (whether that comes from Blizzard lowering the curtain on it or not). Granted, this awesome new MMO might also be another Blizz game, but whoever it is will clean up. WoW's eventual death will kick off a new feeding frenzy. Bold of you to assume that Blizzard won't be shut down entirely in the 2020s as all studios devoured by big faceless evil publishers eventually are. I really don't think I assumed anything of the kind.

I don't, actually. I think there's a massive, massive audience out there that's not interested in the F2P format, that has considerable disposable income, and would be more than willing to part with it if a new, classic-approach AAA MMO appeared. I mean, I know I would be thrilled to pay easily twice what WoW charges for a state-of-the-art, content-rich MMO that doesn't try to constantly upsell me. I suspect game developers are waiting for WoW to die (whether that comes from Blizzard lowering the curtain on it or not). Granted, this awesome new MMO might also be another Blizz game, but whoever it is will clean up. WoW's eventual death will kick off a new feeding frenzy.

... World of Warcraft had a whole series of TV spots with celebrity endorsements. Mister T, William Shatner, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Ozzy Osborne, CHUCK NORRIS ...! "There are ten million people in the world of warcraft, because Chuck Norris ... allows them to live! I mean, seriously. How were you never exposed to any of those commercials?!? Oh, right, the Mr. T one. In my defense, I completely forgot about it. :) I actually don't recall seeing or really even hearing about any of the others. Probably came out during the era I canceled ad-based TV and just went with pure streaming services. Also, 2011 (the air the Norris one aired?) was the year my first kid was born, so if I wasn't dealing with the baby I was probably sleeping.

Agreed. CoH's compartmentalized nature seemed unavoidable when it launched. Blizzard showed you didn't need to do that (granted, they may not have been the first). People like to say this but I don't recall much advertisement for WoW outside of Blizz talking about it on their own website. I mean, YouTube didn't even exist when WoW launched.

I find myself agreeing with Sunsette a lot on this thread, it seems. I don't think WoW does combat variety all that much better than CoH, at least if you exclude raid bosses. I don't recall having to watch out for the equivalent of snipers, or sappers, or dealing a lot with self-destructing enemies. Or enemies healing/rezzing themselves or each other mid-fight. I remember back in the early days MOBs in WoW would indeed break off to go find adds just like they tend to do in CoH, but (and I could just be imagining things) it feels like they downplayed that in recent patches. I'm not sure I remember the last time a WoW MOB went and found reinforcements. They typically stand in place and hack at you until they die. Maybe that's just perception, though. On the other hand, WoW still has obnoxious stuff like the dazed mechanic, which adds nothing of quality to interactions and is purely there to slow you down. Also, WoW MOBs have this annoying tendency to walk through you and then attack you from your own position/location, which they can somehow do, but you have to turn around and/or step back to avoid "out of range" or whatever the warning is. And with regard to boss fights in WoW, they're more complex than tank & spank, but really they just (typically) have these set patterns or rotations. It's very connect-the-dots. I mean at least it's something, but after you've done it a few times it becomes choreographed. Don't get me wrong -- I like WoW a lot, but mostly in the overall packaging and presentation.

*raises hand* WoW is not graphically superior to CoH. I mean, CoH has its graphical limits but when was the last time the game got a visual overhaul? Was Bush still president? When I made my free-to-lv20 WoW toon not too long ago, I was shocked at how bad Stormwind still looks. Blatant antialiasing on the bricks and cobblestones, and I had my texture rez set to max. Clipping galore. Sure, the new PC models and textures look cool, not that you see much under the mountains of gear. But my character still had a leather shirt with buckles that were very clearly (and poorly) painted on. I mean they'd stretch when he moved. When I got back into CoH and realized my modern computer can play it with all the settings cranked, I was blown away at how nice it looks. Yes, blue caves and such, but a lot of the game is just damn beautiful. And for me personally, switching on cel shading (but disabling ink lines) only makes it better. But again, not wanting to bash WoW. WoW definitely has a cohesive visual language and I really do like it. I love Blizzard's sense of art direction in general. I mean if you haven't seen it, check out Overwatch. That's a pretty game.

A lot of that came later, though. I mean in the details. The simple idea that orcs = green tusked monstrous humanoids is a pure Warhammer thing. Orcs in D&D aren't green and are more just like brutish neanderthal things (they were originally distinctly pig-like but that changed sometime around 3rd edition). Orcs in LotR are largely how they appeared in the movies -- distorted, aggressive elves. Warcraft's interpretation of dwarves is also closely lifted from Warhammer. D&D dwarves now share a lot of those same boisterous, biker-viking attributes but even that came over from Warhammer. It's certainly possible to be a fan of both games but also believe one game did something better than the other. Nothing wrong with comparing strengths.

I'll snip the rest for brevity. I don't disagree with any of this, and my experience with WoW jives. I jumped in not too long before HC went live to play a free 1-20 character, and I was surprised at how much it felt like they were just rushing me through the leveling process. My brother, who still plays WoW to this day, agrees that it's all about the endgame. Low level quests are buggy, and he's like "Yeah, been like that for years. Killing gnolls in Redridge isn't the 'real' game. Just wait until you get to max level. Oh, I can boost you, if you want..." Weirdly, for a game with so many levels to get through, 99% of them are just filler. But this thread isn't about bashing WoW. It's about what WoW does better. I'd say another thing it does, well, well, is that it emphasizes content that's in the shared player space. WoW has instances but they're the exception. Typically if you're doing quest X in area Y, you can see other people doing the same thing. It hurts verisimilitude -- I mean, why are these gnolls a threat to the town if every freakin' adventurer and their cousin are hunting them? They should have gone extinct, or at least packed up and moved on. WoW tries to manage this somewhat with phasing, but it's never really convincing. But this isn't a dig at WoW. Despite immersion issues, I think it creates a stronger sense of it being a group game. Aside from some low level stuff, you don't often see teams of players in CoH running around street-sweeping. Almost everyone you see is running to a contact or a door mission. Or hanging out by a vendor. The sheer fun of us all working together to fight evil (or do evil in the case of CoV) is missing. Yeah, I know we can team up pretty easily, and that's great, but sometimes it's too goal-oriented for my mood. I mean, one of the best things that I did in WoW was the WotLK zombie invasion, because it was something anyone could participate in without needing to form a team.

Also possibly WoW's lore is wonky as it started out as a Warhammer expy back in the RTS days. Supposedly Warcraft 1 was built around them having the Warhammer license, and they just filed off the serial numbers when the deal died or never actually materialized or whatever. Warcraft's lore in the years since was all generally a ripoff of any number of things, up until WoW came along. At that point they tried cleaning it up and making it something of their own, but it will always have a that mishmash feel. Having said that, yeah, people generally don't play these games because of the lore (at least I don't). The lore enhances the experience and gives players a foundation to appreciate the setting. But at least I know WoW's lore (to some degree and up until I stopped playing regularly about 7-8 years ago). CoH's lore may be fascinating but I have trouble absorbing it. Combat is an interesting one. I find CoH's combat way more fun on an individual level. And most WoW bosses ten years ago were tank & spank. I imagine if Paragon Studios had successfully bought the IP from NCSoft, CoH would have evolved just as much, and we'd be seeing complex tactical AV fights. What WoW really does better is make the game not feel like you're just cycling through the same content structure over and over as you level. CoH suffers from that -- we could use more missions that involve something other than "work your way through an instanced setting, taking out everyone you see." Like perhaps a mission where you're trying to collect salvage for someone. Or even just some surprises here and there, like if you're going through a 5th Col cave base, instead of the steady drip of minions and lieutenants, provide some contrast with a someone more powerful, or maybe even a mini-quest within the mission where you find a friendly NPC who needs your help to do something.