Champions Online

[Sanguinesun]

4 hours ago, Tiresias said:

Champions Online is a truly fantastic game that would benefit from a "Homecoming"-like server where a group of passionate people are running the game in a similar way. I remember how much I enjoyed playing until the pivot to free-to-play (it may have been one of the first, if not THE FIRST, buy+sub game to make a F2P conversion). For a long time you could pay a monthly sub to keep playing the game as originally intended, but that wasn't making enough money so the sub went away.

 

This resulted in my many, many freeform characters being stranded, unable to be played unless I paid $15 PER CHARACTER to continue to play them. That was utterly unacceptable to me, so I haven't played the game since.

 

While the storyline was pretty simple, the gameplay was spectacular. In many ways it played like City of Heroes but with the system updates you would expect from a game 5-ish years newer.

 

If you have never played the game it's like worth checking it out, but I wouldn't get too heavily invested in it. Frankly, CoH has a better endgame on the Homecoming servers.

 

I played champions for the first couple of months when it released, came back for a month when it went on steam and I never intend to return to it.

 

When you also know the full scope of what Champions originally was(supposed to be Marvel Universe online as part of the lawsuit settlement with Cryptic until it was canned due to the team doing almost nothing on the project of merit to that point), what it then was reskinned into as champions(with a pretty lackluster storyline, Jack Emmert's ego thrown in, and the utter buffoonery that was Bill Ropers involvement in the early days, it just never worked for me.  

 

And while it had some decent costume or power set things that were interesting, the animation/art style also didnt sit well with me either.  Dont mistake that for my view on CoH being with rose tinted glasses either back when it was live as it also had issues, and that includes after the NCSoft buyout as well.  

 

So while both have their flaws, CoH at least has retained me over the years for a much vaster number of hours played.

[Riggsiron]

I played Champions Online for a while, maybe a year? more? like 10 years ago.

I read some good breakdowns on a couple places, As some have said, it has been on maintenance mode for a very long time. Seems like there was issues with launch, then over a few years changes in direction a few times. It got new owners twice - and was bought by a chinese owned 'lets make this as microtransaction heavy as possible' kind of changes company. (Perfect World).  Development and writing and direction seemed to really suffer, and basically wasted a really good base of a game. Also instead of being able to pay 10 bucks a month (to get freeform instead of the mostly bad archetypes), they took that out at some point and you had to buy a lifetime subscription for almost 300 bucks which is insane for a game in maintenance mode for over 10 years.

 

I have only played City of heros for about 2 days now - got interested with the news about getting the license so checked it out. So take any comparisons with that grain of salt.

 

CO is very weak in grouping it seems. I played another game Dungeons and Dragons Online for like 9 years, that had a vastly more robust grouping system for example, CO was terrible by comparison. There is basically almost no endgame content. There is a raid-like set of fights that I only ever did like twice and hated it. (Gravitar, super annoying). The way to build a character for 99.99% of the game and the 'raids' was very different, and the rewards seemed minor to not bother with for what the game was otherwise. There was a much simpler set of equipment and enhancement slots you can grind for, but had diminishing returns so was only a factor for what seemed a small group of people. So once you cap a character it was kinda boring, most of the game was making new character concepts (and for many costumes).

 

That said - the main game was pretty great. The 4 color cartoon style was bright and distinct. The hammy writing fit in with being like a comic (there was a set of Big Trouble in Little China quests for example kinda funny) - tons of movie and pop references all over the place. There was a ton of character to many missions.

I played before the Alert system was added - so leveled 2-3 characters by grinding out every quest in the game pretty much - solo. There was almost no need to group as long as you had some kind of defense and a heal(since freeform you could add any power from any set and built however you wanted), then after alerts you could just sit in one spot and grind alerts and join from anywhere and get to level 40 without touching anything past low level missions. I think I left with 20+ level 40 characters after, some people had many dozens or even hundreds - there is a thread of 'post you alt total' - and there are a couple people with around 1000. (which is nuts)

 

City of Heros seems to have a more complicated enhancement system, but a wide variety of powers and options. And from what I have been reading is more geared towards grouping so hopefully that is fun. However the visuals are much more blurry and drab it seems in comparison (sounds like COH came out a few years before CO and CO was the second attempt by same studio or same people?) I have watched a bunch of videos of people doing runs, farming, or some group stuff and it can be hard to distinguish what is being used from the visuals alone. Same with enemies, much more drab and blob like than CO. Farming seems much more important to COH, which while maybe not very superheroic...obviously people need something to do that has an impact for endgame to keep playing, which CO really doesnt have.

 

It would be cool if the games combined the best of both but obviously its different studios, IP's etc so no one is going to invest in that kind of cost for 20 year old games.

 

Hopefully can enjoy some COH action however - my alt-o-holic nature is already got me 3 characters just out of the tutorial....sigh.

Edited March 14 by Riggsiron

[Riggsiron]

*edit for double post

Edited March 14 by Riggsiron

[biostem]

I foolishly bought a lifetime sub to CO back in like 2009.  I check in every now and again, but there just isn't enough there to hold my interest.  When you have access to the freeform system, 1 character can respec and take every power whenever they want.  Not only that, but you can test them in the Powerhouse and undo your power selections for free whilst there.  On paper, such a freeform system seems great, but in practice, it basically makes everyone a fully self sufficient tankmage.  Further, once you grasp the energy building/unlocking mechanic, you can basically just spam your hardest hitting powers forever, since most have no cooldowns.  Lastly, and quite possibly the greatest issue, (at least for me), is how the character models sit firmly in the uncanny valley;  It's hard to get a character that isn't fully armored to look good, (again, IMHO).

[Sanguinesun]

1 hour ago, biostem said:

I foolishly bought a lifetime sub to CO back in like 2009.  I check in every now and again, but there just isn't enough there to hold my interest.  When you have access to the freeform system, 1 character can respec and take every power whenever they want.  Not only that, but you can test them in the Powerhouse and undo your power selections for free whilst there.  On paper, such a freeform system seems great, but in practice, it basically makes everyone a fully self sufficient tankmage.  Further, once you grasp the energy building/unlocking mechanic, you can basically just spam your hardest hitting powers forever, since most have no cooldowns.  Lastly, and quite possibly the greatest issue, (at least for me), is how the character models sit firmly in the uncanny valley;  It's hard to get a character that isn't fully armored to look good, (again, IMHO).

 

Alot has to also do with how the implemented free forms. It could've been done differently to not make it op tank mage style but because that was a draw and incentive to monetize, that's why they stuck with it once they more heavily started monetizing of course.

 

Only game I've ever gotten a lifetime sub to was DC Online and I've regretted that.  2 play throughs for hero/villain side  in the first 6 months and I just wasnt interested in their progression or chasing monthly currency style per diem they did later after dropped from SOE just for some new look or other such.   

[biostem]

1 minute ago, Sanguinesun said:

DC Online

I dipped into that game for about a year or so - I loved the voice acting, but once I hit endgame, the grind for gear just killed any momentum I had going.

[Hardboiled Hero]

In my professional opinion, the biggest problem with Champions Online is that it never should have been made in the first place.  It was really just the result of corporate politics and companies deciding that consumers will just have to eat whatever trash they decide to feed us.

[drgantz]

I've read several MMO Popularity Rating websites.  According to several sites, WoW and SWTOR ranked near the top, CoH ranked around the middle and CO ranked near the bottom.

I like CO, but probably because I became a lifer at launch.  Of course, I prefer CoH.

[Lines]

I am also a CO lifetime subscriber, which came with a big dollop of egg on my face. I really do not like that game.

 

I don't think it was mentioned here, but the thing I really dislike is the world design. Part of that is art style, but mostly the existance of a very immersion-breaking hub area that I suppose is there for player convenience. It's an inescapable eyesore in the city world.

 

Aside from that, having about seven million different currencies with no idea which are important, and a very dull levelling experience, I don't see myself going back.

[Sunsette]

3 hours ago, Lines said:

Part of that is art style, but mostly the existance of a very immersion-breaking hub area that I suppose is there for player convenience.

 

As a semi-related tangent:

 

The first city in the United States that I ever lived in was Detroit. A part of me is still very fond of that city. I was quite eager to see a game set in Detroit!

 

...

 

I don't know how it could have been more obvious that they were making a (terrible) riff on NYC but damn. No landmarks, no geography, nothing feels like Detroit. Even the ethnic communities in "millennium city" have nothing to do with Detroit and everything to do with standard NYC Knock-Off. Although, random purple gang reference they don't do anything with. Yay, I guess.

 

But yeah that plaza bothers me. It is okay ish when you're inside of it, but outside of it, the artifice is too obvious. 

[lemming]

3 hours ago, Sunsette said:

 

As a semi-related tangent:

 

The first city in the United States that I ever lived in was Detroit. A part of me is still very fond of that city. I was quite eager to see a game set in Detroit!

 

...

 

I don't know how it could have been more obvious that they were making a (terrible) riff on NYC but damn. No landmarks, no geography, nothing feels like Detroit. Even the ethnic communities in "millennium city" have nothing to do with Detroit and everything to do with standard NYC Knock-Off. Although, random purple gang reference they don't do anything with. Yay, I guess.

 

But yeah that plaza bothers me. It is okay ish when you're inside of it, but outside of it, the artifice is too obvious. 

That's because it was New York before they lost the marvel license.

[Sunsette]

 

4 minutes ago, lemming said:

That's because it was New York before they lost the marvel license.

 

Yeah I surmised that later but damn that was disorienting for a minute.

[lemming]

3 minutes ago, Sunsette said:

Yeah I surmised that later but damn that was disorienting for a minute.

I got the reason Hero was fine with making a deal with the IP, but I was fairly disappointed.  I can't remember if I bothered with the lifetime sub or not.   I might have decided not after looking at it during the 2009 gencon.

[Vic Raiden]

Champions Online has only recently become a blip on my radar because of the character customization... but I never dove into it due to a friend warning me about the absurd monetization. I'm not hearing anything good about anything else, either.

 

The only non-CC part that looks even remotely interesting to me is the fact one can create their own arch-enemy to fight.

[Saiyajinzoningen]

On 3/12/2024 at 3:31 PM, RelativeQuanta said:

That's cool.  What are the restrictions?  I assume I wouldn't be allowed to make a Dominator with nothing but snipe assault powers.

iirc you can only take powers that are equivalent to the T level

so for your T6 power choice you can choose from among all T6 powers for that specific AT

but I haven't tried it for a few years. 

[biostem]

42 minutes ago, Saiyajinzoningen said:

iirc you can only take powers that are equivalent to the T level

so for your T6 power choice you can choose from among all T6 powers for that specific AT

but I haven't tried it for a few years. 

There's a slight difference on when you can take certain powers depending upon how many other powers you already have in a set/category, and since your "Tier 0" power, AKA your "energy builder" is like the 1st one you get, that impacts how quickly you can progress within that particular category.

[Marshal_General]

CO's character creator is very good except for the layout which can make things hard to find and the actual character model especially the faces. All my female characters had the same face as that one was the only one that looked decent to me.

[Bio-Link]

played CO on and off for years, a cool gimmicky thing was the throwing of objects like trucks if your str. was high enough

[Lunar Ronin]

15 minutes ago, Bio-Link said:

played CO on and off for years, a cool gimmicky thing was the throwing of objects like trucks if your str. was high enough

 

Yeah.  Interactivity with the environment is one of the few things that Champions Online and DC Universe Online both have over City of Heroes.  Travel powers being another, for both.

[Haijinx]

The thing always was ... in Coh a lot of people want to team and for extended periods. 

 

In Champions they team for like 10 min to kill a big boss.  

 

In DC I never even found a team all the way to max level.

[Latex]

The game was great for the first few months, bustling RP community, engaging gameplay, amazing CC I'd even say it's way better of a CC than COH, oh and nemesis system was awesome.

 

 

Than it just fell of a cliff.

Edited March 15 by Latex

[BurtHutt]

1 hour ago, Latex said:

The game was great for the first few months, bustling RP community, engaging gameplay, amazing CC I'd even say it's way better of a CC than COH, oh and nemesis system was awesome.

 

 

Than it just fell of a cliff.

I bought the box copy at the start and had a sub. I agree with a lot of your take. Then they made some changes and I lost access to some of the costume pieces I implemented in my toons and that was the start of the decline. It just became a hot mess after that and it didn't take long to leave that game.

 

I wish CoX would take the good stuff from there (Nemesis system) and apply it here. It would beat adding the same old, same old that we tend to get here these days. Again, I appreciate the HC Devs a ton but please...make some adjustments to the direction you're taking this game. 🙂 The missions have not been good and constantly changing small things is a waste of time for the Devs IMO (giving us these things at start like a Run and jet pack, the exploration badge collecting for a teleporter etc - I'd rather they focus on a Nemesis system or other innovative changes).

[Shred Monkey]

I would log in CO looking to do team content and just flat out not find a team far too often.   Whereas, here, the challenge is to send a tell before the teams fill up.  In fact, I think Homecoming is more team friendly than Live was.

[Jeneki]

I still have Champions installed.  For the most part I just goof around in the character designer.  Might fly around a bit and enjoy the scenery, monster island and the underwater zone are neat.

[Enchantica]

When champions online first opened I bought the game paid the subscription. Played 6 hours , then canceled the subscription erased the game and never regretted it!