Why is this game so good?

[arcanaville]

I'm going to be burned at the stake for this, but I believe City of Heroes is not a well made game.

 

 

Near sunset someone (I believe it was Arcanaville?) made an extensive and well-thought out post supporting just that.

 

CoH is a case of terrible game design and failed decisions, that somehow magically "worked great" in the end. Resulting a game that defies expectations, sets new precedent and will never be replicated again due to this.

 

 

A good example off the top of my head to support this thesis;

 

People praise this game for the lack of the "holy trifecta". When in fact, the devs originally intended for there to be such a thing. They just messed up balancing so badly that the holy trio was not needed for the bulk of content. Scrappers could do well enough on their own that they didn't need a tank. Tanks could do enough damage that they didn't need a Scrapper. Lengthy, binary holds are a nightmarish idea balance wise, same with overwhelming and stack-able buffs/debuffs. But somehow it all just "works"

 

The single most important event in the history of the game was an event no player saw.  The original design of the game included the notion of the holy trinity, which at its heart is the fundamental principle of MMO teaming: make every archetype "necessary."  At some point, and even I don't know when it happened exactly, and maybe it happened unconsciously at first, the fundamental design principle of CoH became "everyone should be able to solo."

 

The idea that everyone should be able to solo in an MMO was not just novel, it was downright heretical at the time, and is still a wild idea for most MMOs that aren't shooter-looter type games.  But in City of Heroes it opened the door to everyone being "overpowered" in an MMO sense, which just happened to match the concept of the game being about superheroes.

 

City of Heroes is a broken, twisted, cobbled together thing in which half the stuff doesn't really work and half of that can never really work.  But what's left targets a very specific gameplay style no other MMO serves, and no other MMO can serve.  Being super-powerful in a world of super-powerful things.

[Judasace]

City of Heroes is great in spite of the original designers, not because of them.

 

Funny thing, this is also true of the MMO that I came to CoH from, Asheron's Call, which was another game where at some point the Dev's, who had been trying to emulate Everquest, just said "fuck it. let everyone solo". Some things both games had in common:

 

- A massive variety of skills and build options, leading to chronic Alt-itis on the part of the player base

- A solo, but group friendly, mentality

- One against many - in both games it's not unusual for one character to be able to take on tons of mobs.

 

When I played my first "real" MMO, DAOC I think it was, I was pretty shocked at how different it was...the idea that my healer took about 10 minutes to solo a single -1 con Mob was nuts to me. I immediately ran away and never looked back.

 

 

[arcanaville]

City of Heroes is great in spite of the original designers, not because of them.

 

Funny thing, this is also true of the MMO that I came to CoH from, Asheron's Call, which was another game where at some point the Dev's, who had been trying to emulate Everquest, just said "fuck it. let everyone solo". Some things both games had in common:

 

- A massive variety of skills and build options, leading to chronic Alt-itis on the part of the player base

- A solo, but group friendly, mentality

- One against many - in both games it's not unusual for one character to be able to take on tons of mobs.

 

When I played my first "real" MMO, DAOC I think it was, I was pretty shocked at how different it was...the idea that my healer took about 10 minutes to solo a single -1 con Mob was nuts to me. I immediately ran away and never looked back.

 

I did not play Asheron's Call, but from what I've been told Asheron didn't design for players to solo, it relaxed the rule on limiting what players could solo.  Without this design imperative a lot of the game became soloable over time.  But in CoH, the devs eventually made the conscious decision to *balance* around soloing at least in part.  Meaning: if a particular archetype or even a particular powerset combination within an archetype could be demonstrated to be unable to solo the main story content of the game within a certain margin around the average player's performance, that combination would be considered "broken" and in need of rebalancing.

 

We had hundreds of different powerset combinations in CoH.  The idea that you could put together any two at random within the limits of an archetype, even what seemed to be "bad" combinations, and the devs official statement was "that should be able to solo all the main story content in the game at a reasonable pace" is to the best of my knowledge something novel at the time, and something hard to find now.

 

True story.  I spent literally years trying to get the devs to make adjustments to Martial Arts.  However, prompted by a comment made by another player one day I made a TA/A defender and demonstrated that this combination could not reasonably solo many of the missions in the 20s, particularly ones dominated by lethal-resistant villains.  The devs immediately told me they would look to make adjustments to address that as time permitted (they were balancing a lot of things at that time).  That's literally all it took. 

[Mantidae]

Arcanaville?!

 

::we're not worthy::

 

 

 

 

So, how bout that Dark Armor?

[PaxArcana]

[...]

 

HOLY CARP, I REMEMBER YOU!  :D :D

 

Long time no see, man!

[arcanaville]

[...]

 

HOLY CARP, I REMEMBER YOU!  :D :D

 

Long time no see, man!

 

I remember you as well.  Dual Archery/Boomerang Fish on Freedom, right?

[PaxArcana]

I remember you as well.  Dual Archery/Boomerang Fish on Freedom, right?

uuuuh, no?  :D

 

Mostly you'd've known me from the forums.  I was a cranky, cantankerous git back then.

[BelleSorciere]

I remember Arcanaville well. She was the only person to believe me when I said I didn't think purples worked as advertised. Or at least checked it out to see if there was anything to that.

[beloved]

So after returning, it has the tab-target lock on system that's prevalent in other MMOs like WoW and FFXIV, but for some reason it doesn't FEEL like it, right? I get that I'm targeting, but I'm bouncing/hovering all over the place. Running past an enemy and letting a melee attack go is pretty fun, too. The combat + your rotation just ends up feeling very active and fun and actiony.

 

Also the AI pathing in this game is surprisingly good. Was street sweeping in Perez Park with my girl, and a Hellion was trying to run. This dude JUMPED into a TREE. Then he jumped from the TREE onto the TOP OF THE PARK'S WALL and jumped over! I can't remember the last time I saw anything like that in any MMO. This dude was really trying to escape.

[TfStormcry]

Also the AI pathing in this game is surprisingly good. Was street sweeping in Perez Park with my girl, and a Hellion was trying to run. This dude JUMPED into a TREE. Then he jumped from the TREE onto the TOP OF THE PARK'S WALL and jumped over! I can't remember the last time I saw anything like that in any MMO. This dude was really trying to escape.

 

Who showed the Hellions Parkour videos on youtube? But yeah, the AI pathing is surprisingly good for a game as old as it is... Until you're doing an escort mission.

 

As for me, this game has a metric ton of stuff no other game has. Hugely variable class list with multiple power sets available to each archtype. You're not spending your first levels beating rats with a stick. Though it is entirely possible that you can spend your entire career as a hero/villain beating people with a stick! And hey, you need to go clear out that building of bad guys. And you don't have to wait for them to respawn cause it's your own private instance! Also, your friend is online, but they're X levels lower/higher than you? Sidekick/Exemplar time! Oh hey, I wonder what the view would look like from the top of that building... Guess I'll never know... Wait, I can fly up there! CoX gave you the freedom to just play without a lot of gatekeeping.

[Tony Amore]

Due to my work schedule, I used to have a really tough time staying awake after 8pm on Sunday nights. Then my doctor recommended City Of Heroes. Now I'm lucky if I even go to bed at all!

 

Ask your doctor if City Of Heroes is right for you.

[justicebeliever]

Due to my work schedule, I used to have a really tough time staying awake after 8pm on Sunday nights. Then my doctor recommended City Of Heroes. Now I'm lucky if I even go to bed at all!

 

Ask your doctor if City Of Heroes is right for you.

 

Funny +1 Inf

[Schwartz]

I believe gamer's in general are tired of theme park design. WoW, GW, etc. make these theme park for the user to constantly chase a carrot to continue to play. My favorite games have always been sandbox design of some sort. Games such as EQ, SWG, CoH, and Shadowbane have always been my favorite. Your gear, skills, etc. last longer then a content patch or expansion. CoH actual feels like a virtual world and not a MOBA.

 

I personally enjoy the ability to create a new character and not feel rushed to catch up to play with friends. CoH is very alt friendly and I like that as well. Nothing is more then a bummer when you find out you do not like the class or character you are playing at end game.

 

My only concern with CoH is the content needs updated. Give us a few new missions to perform. I know there was hiring of individuals to possibly update this precious world, please add more character customization. I also love the fact of killing off the holy trinity. Yet, new players are bound and determine to put a Tanker or Brute as a tank. I would also like to point out there does seem to be a need for a Kin at end game.

 

Anywho, I hope at some point the weekly, IO sets,  powers, and classes get a once over. Thanks again for bringing CoH back into my life.

[Sicken]

For me, one of the greatest benefits of COH was that it let me play any way I wanted.  I came to the game with virtually no MMO experience.  I'd played Starcraft, Quake, stuff like that.  I even got into AvP and enjoyed that some, but the multiplayer modes in that game left you pretty much a stain on the ground the moment you spawned.

 

Then I saw this new game coming out and you got to be a 'Hero'?  Being kind of a cheap guy, it wasn't easy for me to drop the $40 or whatever bucks it was for the game and then another chunk for what?  A 'Game pack"?  But then... I was in, making my trashy looking super heroine.  (Indeed, she was SO trashy, I found myself embarrassed and had to make another slightly less trashy hero.) 

 

But I'm not an MMO guy, so what do I do?  I was immediately drawn to the Scrapper out of the box.  I liked the idea of somebody who was balanced toward defense AND offense and could hold their own if necessary.  That was PRECISELY what I needed.  So, dual blades scrapper with regen secondary and I was off to the races.

 

Glorious!  Glorious gaming!  I was able to wander around, hack up bad guys and level without grinding for days and days...  Remember when the big deal was to get your cape?  That's a bit of the 'way back' machine there...  But then something happened...  I got into the infamous FrostFire mission and it was just a bit hard to run solo.  So, I ended up on a TEAM! 

 

Glorious Glorious gaming!  Here I was with a TEAM!  Everyone adding their unique abilities to the fray.  I had always played such that I could wade in to a mass of baddies and start hacking, but here I had somebody HEALING me while I was whacking away, and to my left somebody was blasting some kind of energy ray at the fellow who was beating on me from my blind-side.

 

From those experiences, my true hero-love was born.  Sicken was/is a Dark/Dark scrapper who can ultimately do some minor tanking for you if you like by "death-shrouding" the mobs and happily accruing aggro while a healer or blaster just goes to town.  As Sicken grew and I recognized both my solo and team-up strengths, I was encouraged to try OTHER archetypes.  I did the Rad/Rad defender, (My need for a 'logical and realistic' origin story force me to tend to be a bit linear in my power sets...  A weakness for some game styles, but hey, it's MY hero!)  I built and played an energy blaster...  I was never much of a tank or controller.  They weren't really my cup of tea.

 

The ease of the combat system - you didn't have to be a math major to jump in and start pummeling bad guys, was and is a HUGE factor in the game's success.  It takes literally 15 minutes to come up with an attack chain that works for you and you get to evolve it organically as you get more powers and earn new ways to enhance your existing powers.

 

And then, just when you though the game couldn't get ANY better... Travel Powers!  Glorious Glorious Travel!

 

Personally, I'm a jumper.  Love the idea of 'hulk-jumping' all over the place.  Flight is fine too and ultimately a nice easy, 'hands off' form of travel.  I even did teleport for my defender.  Lot's of fun, but soo much work.  Still - how cool is it to teleport all over the place.  And about 8 minutes after you figure out teleportation you realize you have 'poor man's flight'. 

 

The game design was built to let you do whatever you wanted to, or needed to given the situation.  Lots of people online?  Jump on a team and spend the whole day doing everyone's FrostFire mission.  Bit Slow out there?  Run some solo missions, grab some badges, farm some influence to buy an enhancement or two...  You could/can do whatever you want.

 

Such a great game.  I wish they'd never given up the subscription model.  NCSoft, admittedly began considering shutting down the game for a number of reasons, but one of the biggest was that they weren't gathering more players.  (Ya, they had THOUSANDS, but they weren't getting more...)  If they'd been charging all those thousands of folks 9.99 a month to play however, I suspect they may have kept the lights on.

 

Anyway, I am a fan.  Have always been a fan, will continue to be a fan.

[srmalloy]

Who showed the Hellions Parkour videos on youtube? But yeah, the AI pathing is surprisingly good for a game as old as it is... Until you're doing an escort mission.

 

Both "Meet the Gang" and "Help defend the Shining Star's Base" missions from Twinshot have execrable pathing. In the former, after you talk to Dillo and head back to the entrance to help with the intruders, Flambeaux goes into spaz mode each time you go down an elevator, exiting one, then running back in, sometimes several times. In the latter after you deal with the intruders on the second floor and go into the room that leads to the elevators, Grim runs back and forth pressed up against the railing of the raised section apparently unable to figure out how to reach you, until he finally realizes that he can jump and jumps onto the railing, then down to you.

[Saikochoro]

I don't have to worry about my build and plug hours into working on it

Yet this very same game appeals to someone like me who enjoys spending hours and hours in Mid's/Pine's planning and tweaking almost as much as he does playing the game.

 

This game is a rare breed.  It has something for nearly everybody.  Spreadsheet gamers AND sane people alike.

 

Totally this. I am by and large a very casual gamer.  Especially now that I have a kid. I could very well see myself just having basic IOs and never really moving on from that. Just enjoy making tons of alts and testing out power combos.

 

Then again, if I have a feee weekend or some PTO, and my family is otherwise busy I could see myself diving into set builds.

 

Either way the game can cater to that. I love it.

[Tanzier]

It just has some unique combination that draws me to it:

 

1) It's simple enough that you can easily play without theorycrafting anything. 

2) It's complex enough that if you want to theorycraft you can.. but since everything is obscured pretty much the only one that's going to notice is you.

3) The variety of power combinations is vast.  Even before they started expanding them passed the 'vanilla' archtypes and powersets I would never have been able to have every combo I wanted.  Now I definitely can't.

4) The game is primarily about having fun.  Sure there are raid-type things to do but even that stuff is nowhere near as serious as most endgame-based MMOs.

5) You can play solo, or with a group just the same (some ATs better than others obviously). 

6) Special bonus, when you team with people they actually talk to each other (I'm looking at you Blizzard).

7) Also, the amount of things to do in the game is pretty vast so there's enough for everyone to find something they like.  Some like bases, some like crafting, missions .. TFs .. Trials .. raids .. AE..  And some like mindlessly melting the faces of hordes of enemies in hazard zones with Burn or fulcrum shifted fire imps (guess which one I am).

 

Overall I think the game just doesn't take itself too seriously - it's just meant to be fun, and it succeeds.  Still my fav MMO ever.  About the only thing I didn't like back when I played was the grind from 1-22 (esp. to 14 for travel) on alts, and DfB/DiB kind of take care of that problem.

 

 

[chigiabelo]

And lastly it's simple.  The game isn't overly complicated in what it is and what it does and how you do it.

 

This. Even if you're lazy like me and don't read half the stuff on the screen, you can figure out your missions and learn how to build a serviceable character. Hey, I can even craft a little bit! DCUO and CO? Never figured out their system despite playing for years and finally giving up on them.

[TfStormcry]

And lastly it's simple.  The game isn't overly complicated in what it is and what it does and how you do it.

 

This. Even if you're lazy like me and don't read half the stuff on the screen, you can figure out your missions and learn how to build a serviceable character. Hey, I can even craft a little bit! DCUO and CO? Never figured out their system despite playing for years and finally giving up on them.

 

I know CO had a crafting system, but did anyone actually use it? It was like it was added on as an after-thought, and you got nothing special from it.

[PaxArcana]

I know CO had a crafting system, but did anyone actually use it? It was like it was added on as an after-thought, and you got nothing special from it.

... it was added on as an afterthought.

 

Or rather, they changed it so bloody often, and so very thoroughly, that what is there now bears zero resemblance to the original, much simpler system that was in place at Launch.

 

CO has gone down the path of "complex, for complexity's sake".  :'(

[ILIWAPCT]

You tell the story.

 

You begin with creating your costume (hours)

Breakout (COV) starts you off nice and slow. You're able to get the hang of it.

After running around for a few missions, getting your first travel power changes EVERYTHING.