I don't get why this is so much better than CO

[PaxArcana]

Please tell me if you disagree with my opinion and why, [...]

 

I played CoX for years (and stopped mainly because of serious issues with the parent company, NCSoft).

 

When CO came out, I was super-excited.  Giddy, even.  I pre-orderedit, bought a brand-new PC _just_ to be able to play it, and ....... I bought a Lifetime Membership.  Before the game even launched.

 

...

 

Then the Day One patch happened.  I don't know if you were able to play during the Headstart, but believe me when I say the game was different.  Night-and-day different.  That Day One patch cut player power by about 30%, while increasing NPC power by at least 50%.  I went from being able to solo spawns of 1-2 LTs and 3-4 mooks .... to faceplanting if there were more than 3 enemies of ANY power level.

 

Same character.  Same enemy faction/group.  Same bloody block in the city, even.

 

...

 

But I did my best, and stuck with it for as long as I could stomach it.  Even when, disaster of disasters, CO went "free to play".  Hell, I was the guy who first championed the idea of giving the "set in stone" Archetypes one or two "pick from this short list" power options, in order to give free players a taste of Freeform's possibilities.

 

I haven't played the game in seven or eight years.  It's just soulless, to me.  And that Day One thing, really ruined the pure video-game enjoyment of it, too.

 

Finally, with almost every mission being done "in the world" rather than on instanced maps, there was just too much competition for spawns, and too huge a visible population of heroes.  Early on, before the population tanked and F2P happened, there were times when player heroes within view outnumbered NPC mobs to fight.  In CoX, away from Atlas Park (and maybe other Trainer locations), that really never happens.

 

:shrug:

[TfStormcry]

For me, why CoX is better than Champions Online - Teamwork. In Champions Online, you could team up, but it was honestly a shadow of what teaming in CoX was. Everyone in Champions was built to solo content, and there wasn't many team support powers (certain auras in the magic set were it really). Players just didn't synergize with each other. In CoX, the Archtype system tells you exactly what to expect from your team mates. Need a healer? Grab and emp or kin defender. Need a tank? Find a tanker or a brute. Need DPS? Crowd Control? You know who to look for. You just didn't get that in Champions Online.

 

I will say though that the Champions costume creator was superior, and I would love it if that level of customization were eventually brought to CoX.

[RogDodge]

I played both since Beta (in my younger days, when I had a lot of free time).  I remember buying the Lifetime CO membership and thinking it was awesome, but then was worried about the issues and balance they had at launch.

 

CoX was always my favorite, due to how everything seems to align.  It's weird, but I just liked CoX way more.  I didn't know either of the backstories too much when starting them, but CoX seemed to be easier to catch on to a seems a lot more "mature" than CO.

[PaxArcana]

For me, why CoX is better than Champions Online - Teamwork. In Champions Online, you could team up, but it was honestly a shadow of what teaming in CoX was. Everyone in Champions was built to solo content, and there wasn't many team support powers (certain auras in the magic set were it really).

I think there were a few other powers.  My gunslinger had a pair of Healing Drones he could put out, which would heal team-mates as well as myself.

 

But yes, there's no real provision in CO for "my character's reason to exist, is to make YOUR character even more awesome".

 

Whereas, CoX has Defenders, Corruptors, Masterminds, and Controllers that really focus on "buff other people / debuff the enemy".  Several other ATs have similar effects, albeit to a lesser degree IMO.

 

 

Need a healer? Grab and emp or kin defender.

Doesn't even have to be a Defender.  Yes, all the healing Primaries belong to Defenders, but plenty of others have strong-enough healing from their secondaries.

 

/Empathy, /Thermal, /Kinetic, and /Nature Controllers ... /Thermal, /Time Masterminds (and very minor healing in several other secondaries) ... /Pain, /Thermal, and /Time Corruptors ... :)

[hastened]

I had significant issues with the writing and graphical style in Champions.  It just could not take itself seriously, so I couldn't either.

 

I did buy a lifetime sub, which was a good deal for them since I played about 4 months total, 3 around launch and 1 in 2013 to see if it had improved.  I thought the combat gameplay was fine, probably on par or slightly better than CoH in a number of ways, but there were a lot of issues surrounding the rest of the game.

 

I do remember teaming up with a friend I played city of heroes with who also got Champions around launch, and discovering that we weren't auto level adjusted to each other and had issues sharing our missions.  That was a hugely negative impressions, I don't know how you screw that up.  Same friend is back for CoH here though, its been great running stuff together (and sharing our missions)!

[hastened]

Wrong eq had quite a few solo classes and you can solo about the same pace with unsolo friendly classes, but it was better to team just like cox, you prove to me you can solo better then eq1 with a force field/radiation defender with a video if you believe this so much.

 

I think EQ was made more friendly to solo as it "modernized", but this is incredibly far from the truth from the base game.  I say this as someone whose last live City of Heroes character was a Forcefield/Fire defender who hit 50 in the Permadeath Iron Eagles supergroup while running normal missions and task forces, and as someone whose main on project 1999 is currently a level 59 rogue, there is no comparison at all between the soloing abilities of these two characters.

 

/Rad is going to be very slightly worse than /Fire for soloing, but not really that bad.  Forcefield is actually super strong and safe because it is relatively easy to softcap ranged and AOE defense between the big bubble and inventions, and hover+Force Bubble gives you the tools to prevent almost anything from closing to melee, with very few exceptions (and the exceptions make it interesting!).  Additionally, you have mez protection against everything really bad except sleep, and your defenses are not active which means you can get ambushed or miss enemies without catastrophic failure.  Ward of Justice wasn't a solo powerhouse, but he did solo at 0x4 when he hit SOs, and +1x6 by the time he fully fleshed out in his late 40's, both of which were challenging in a good way.

 

By contrast, my level 59 rogue has low tier raid gear, so is actually technically able to solo for XP, barely.  She can kill a level 40 caster easily due to having good resists.  It will take about 2 minutes, she'll drop to half life (or about 20% if starting from the 70% bind wounds HP cap), then needs another 2 minutes of binding wounds to recover from there.  You can't just find unlimited amounts of solo candidate NPCs though, so soloing like this would probably involve camping a 6:40 minute spawn.  Due to the green half xp mod, she would "only" need to do this 1200 times or so to get through level 59...I'm not really interested in holding down a camp for 130 hours for this.

 

Recently, I found a quest killing the shardwing courier in western wastes, where the turnin reward is about 1.5% of level 59, or like 3 hours of killing aforementioned green caster.  Its a level 50 warrior though, so I can solo it with great care and preparation via a combination of root/slow poison, root net consumables and bandages for mid-fight recovery.  It takes 5 minutes for the fight, and ~40 minutes of running for the turnin, but it is at least more interesting and still like 3 times faster than grinding a single green spawn point.  The courier itself is only up a few times a week though, I don't really know what the spawn time on it is but it looks to be a few days at least.

 

EQ is....different than CoH.  Like, a lot.  I love them both for very different reasons, but the assertion that its hard to solo things in CoH by comparison to EQ is crazy.  I could solo a FF/Rad defender to 50 twice faster than I could solo from 59 to 60 on a Rogue.

[Ion_Burst]

So here's the deal, you're asking on a CoX message board why CoX is better than CO, so of course you're going to get a lot of biased feedback about certain features CoX fans prefer over CO's implementation. I'll freely admit I'm biased too, after having had extensive experience with both games. However, there's a simple, unbiased fact that I think gets to much of the heart of the issue.

 

During CoX's "live" period, the game developers (Cryptic, then Paragon) *never* stopped adding to the game. They were constantly adding new power sets, zones, story arcs, features, costume parts... Even right up until NCSoft pulled the plug, Paragon still had huge new content in development (some of which the SCORE/Homecoming team has been able to implement into the current issue of the game). Heck, CoX had TWO full expansions released during its run, which dramatically increased the size of the game and amount of content it offered.

 

Contrast that with Champions Online. Over its entire lifetime, very little new content was added. Almost all of the development in that game was focused on the cash shop and the loot boxes. I don't know if it was a matter of financial constraints or simply biting off more than they could chew, but Cryptic added very little real content to the game for players to enjoy, and what WAS added was primarily microtransaction-based. Champions Online had a lot of wasted potential, and part of the issue was that Star Trek Online stole much of its thunder (and developer attention).

 

Which game had better writing is a matter of opinion. Which graphical style looks better is a matter of opinion. Which game's "tone" is better or more engaging is a matter of opinion. Which game had more content is a case of fact, not opinion. The dearth of new content for Champions Online had a demoralizing effect on its early community. Promises made were slow to deliver, and many were never delivered upon at all. People lost interest in the game as they completed most of the content on repeated characters, and little was done to stem the tide of players leaving the game. The free-to-play button was pressed to try to bring in new blood, but that brought other deep problems to the game as much of it was locked behind paywalls. Champions Online has been on life support ever since.

 

It's really a shame. Cryptic was unable to capture lightning in a bottle twice, and once the game began spiraling down there was little that could be done to save it, especially with their main resources dedicated to Star Trek Online. It's literally A Tale of Two Superhero Games; City of Heroes/Villains was beloved by players and by its studio, but the publisher pulled the plug unnecessarily and killed it before its time. Champions Online was neglected by its developer and abandoned by the larger MMO community, but its corpse is still shuffling around waiting for its mercy killing.

[BelleSorciere]

Please tell me if you disagree with my opinion and why, [...]

 

I played CoX for years (and stopped mainly because of serious issues with the parent company, NCSoft).

 

When CO came out, I was super-excited.  Giddy, even.  I pre-orderedit, bought a brand-new PC _just_ to be able to play it, and ....... I bought a Lifetime Membership.  Before the game even launched.

 

...

 

Then the Day One patch happened.  I don't know if you were able to play during the Headstart, but believe me when I say the game was different.  Night-and-day different.  That Day One patch cut player power by about 30%, while increasing NPC power by at least 50%.  I went from being able to solo spawns of 1-2 LTs and 3-4 mooks .... to faceplanting if there were more than 3 enemies of ANY power level.

 

Same character.  Same enemy faction/group.  Same bloody block in the city, even.

 

...

 

But I did my best, and stuck with it for as long as I could stomach it.  Even when, disaster of disasters, CO went "free to play".  Hell, I was the guy who first championed the idea of giving the "set in stone" Archetypes one or two "pick from this short list" power options, in order to give free players a taste of Freeform's possibilities.

 

 

Yeah, I went through a similar experience, except no lifetime subscription. I still was pretty angry that we got Emmerted on day one.

 

Also, a specific detail about the day one nerfs was that the defensive passives were nerfed harder than everything else. I remember ultimately playing a powered armor/munitions character and killing everything with proximity mines just to hit 40 before they nerfed that too.

 

[srmalloy]

Then the Day One patch happened.  I don't know if you were able to play during the Headstart, but believe me when I say the game was different.  Night-and-day different.  That Day One patch cut player power by about 30%, while increasing NPC power by at least 50%.  I went from being able to solo spawns of 1-2 LTs and 3-4 mooks .... to faceplanting if there were more than 3 enemies of ANY power level.

 

It sounds a bit like Jack Emmert's mantra from the early days of CoH that "three minions = one hero" -- his vision that three bottom-tier enemies would be a significant challenge to a solo hero, the last vestige of which can be seen in the fact that the default minion spawn in solo missions at x1 is three minions. He also had the fixation on 'fun' being throwing yourself at the end boss again and again and again, being defeated over and over, until you figured out what the obscure specific actions you had to do to defeat it (as if the correct tactics wouldn't get splashed across the net within hours of that boss being beaten for the first time). Both of these aspects that made CoH more tedious to play got phased out as he was pushed upstairs, then the buyout by NCsoft freed the rest of the devs to make play feel more 'heroic'.

[BelleSorciere]

Then the Day One patch happened.  I don't know if you were able to play during the Headstart, but believe me when I say the game was different.  Night-and-day different.  That Day One patch cut player power by about 30%, while increasing NPC power by at least 50%.  I went from being able to solo spawns of 1-2 LTs and 3-4 mooks .... to faceplanting if there were more than 3 enemies of ANY power level.

 

It sounds a bit like Jack Emmert's mantra from the early days of CoH that "three minions = one hero" -- his vision that three bottom-tier enemies would be a significant challenge to a solo hero, the last vestige of which can be seen in the fact that the default minion spawn in solo missions at x1 is three minions. He also had the fixation on 'fun' being throwing yourself at the end boss again and again and again, being defeated over and over, until you figured out what the obscure specific actions you had to do to defeat it (as if the correct tactics wouldn't get splashed across the net within hours of that boss being beaten for the first time). Both of these aspects that made CoH more tedious to play got phased out as he was pushed upstairs, then the buyout by NCsoft freed the rest of the devs to make play feel more 'heroic'.

 

Jack learned everything he knew about MMO design from one of the Garriotts, who basically told him how to make a fantasy MMO that feels like heroic fantasy. Garriott has so much to answer for.

[PaxArcana]

Then the Day One patch happened.  I don't know if you were able to play during the Headstart, but believe me when I say the game was different.  Night-and-day different.  That Day One patch cut player power by about 30%, while increasing NPC power by at least 50%.  I went from being able to solo spawns of 1-2 LTs and 3-4 mooks .... to faceplanting if there were more than 3 enemies of ANY power level.

 

It sounds a bit like Jack Emmert's mantra from the early days of CoH that "three minions = one hero" -- his vision that three bottom-tier enemies would be a significant challenge to a solo hero, the last vestige of which can be seen in the fact that the default minion spawn in solo missions at x1 is three minions. He also had the fixation on 'fun' being throwing yourself at the end boss again and again and again, being defeated over and over, until you figured out what the obscure specific actions you had to do to defeat it (as if the correct tactics wouldn't get splashed across the net within hours of that boss being beaten for the first time). Both of these aspects that made CoH more tedious to play got phased out as he was pushed upstairs, then the buyout by NCsoft freed the rest of the devs to make play feel more 'heroic'.

Except it wound up being "1.5 minions = 1 hero".

 

See, what triggered the whole thing is this: a small cadre of over-achievers who had a lot of experience in the Beta managed to hit the level cap within the 3-day Head Start.

 

So they panicked, and grossly over-corrected.  They nerfed everything playerside - especially player defenses - and buffed everything NPC-side - especially NPC defenses.

 

I used to be able, on my Munitions/Devices character "Arsenal of Justice" during that headstart, to bounce from 3-5 spawn to 3-5 spawn, pretty much nonstop.  It truly felt SUPERHEROIC; I still had to not be asleep at the keyboard for Lieutenants, and actually pay attention for Bosses.  But the generic mooks?  Bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, all day long.  Like I was the friggin' Batman, but with guns and a hoverdisk.

 

Then, on Day One?  Suddenly, I couldn't take more than two of those mooks, or one single Lieutenant, without having to find a safe spot to "take a knee" for a few moments to heal back up.  And that's WITH Healing Drones following me around 24/7.  My speed of play absolutely crashed, to less than 1/20 what it used to be.

 

When your DPS goes down by 1/3, your defenses go down by half or two-thirds while simultaneously the enemy's DPS goes up by a 1/3, and their defenses go up by half or two-thirds ...

 

... it's no longer the same game.

 

I was one of those who wanted a refund for my Lifetime subscription.

 

I was not one of those who was given that refund.  >_<

[Jaguaratron]

So here's the deal, you're asking on a CoX message board why CoX is better than CO, so of course you're going to get a lot of biased feedback about certain features CoX fans prefer over CO's implementation. I'll freely admit I'm biased too, after having had extensive experience with both games. However, there's a simple, unbiased fact that I think gets to much of the heart of the issue.

 

During CoX's "live" period, the game developers (Cryptic, then Paragon) *never* stopped adding to the game. They were constantly adding new power sets, zones, story arcs, features, costume parts... Even right up until NCSoft pulled the plug, Paragon still had huge new content in development (some of which the SCORE/Homecoming team has been able to implement into the current issue of the game). Heck, CoX had TWO full expansions released during its run, which dramatically increased the size of the game and amount of content it offered.

 

Contrast that with Champions Online. Over its entire lifetime, very little new content was added. Almost all of the development in that game was focused on the cash shop and the loot boxes. I don't know if it was a matter of financial constraints or simply biting off more than they could chew, but Cryptic added very little real content to the game for players to enjoy, and what WAS added was primarily microtransaction-based. Champions Online had a lot of wasted potential, and part of the issue was that Star Trek Online stole much of its thunder (and developer attention).

 

Which game had better writing is a matter of opinion. Which graphical style looks better is a matter of opinion. Which game's "tone" is better or more engaging is a matter of opinion. Which game had more content is a case of fact, not opinion. The dearth of new content for Champions Online had a demoralizing effect on its early community. Promises made were slow to deliver, and many were never delivered upon at all. People lost interest in the game as they completed most of the content on repeated characters, and little was done to stem the tide of players leaving the game. The free-to-play button was pressed to try to bring in new blood, but that brought other deep problems to the game as much of it was locked behind paywalls. Champions Online has been on life support ever since.

 

It's really a shame. Cryptic was unable to capture lightning in a bottle twice, and once the game began spiraling down there was little that could be done to save it, especially with their main resources dedicated to Star Trek Online. It's literally A Tale of Two Superhero Games; City of Heroes/Villains was beloved by players and by its studio, but the publisher pulled the plug unnecessarily and killed it before its time. Champions Online was neglected by its developer and abandoned by the larger MMO community, but its corpse is still shuffling around waiting for its mercy killing.

 

The Bias isnt really there, most people who tried CO wanted it to be better than COH, it just wasnt which is why there are 144 people playing right now and 5363 on Homecoming servers.

 

Cryptic didnt want to capture what they had with COH, Jack hated it because it wasnt his vision, he didnt care that people loved it, he wanted his game and thats what Champions was, a cartoony mess of a parody with is multi roles in every character and whats funny is he was only able to force that through because of the success of COH in spite of him, because he was attached to a popular superhero game he could utilize that "badge" to make Champions.

 

Note I still have a lifetime sub, I havent logged into it in years and years with the exception of installing it a couple of time and seeing the animation for firing dual pistols was STILL breaking most of the time.

[Roughtrade]

A couple of people have posted similar reasons to mine but since this silly thread won’t die, I guess it bears repeating.  And let us preface with saying I believe City of Heroes is better than EVERY OTHER MMO for these reasons.

 

Primary reason, number one, on the top of the list. Level 50 cap.  That’s it.  No more leveling.  This allowed the Developers to make content that was something other than just chasing ten more levels of the same thing.

 

I know at some level all MMOs become repetitious, it’s the nature of the beast.  But CoH ending the level chase was one of the best things I have seen in games and I wish more of them took the lesson to heart.  This allowed them to do things like my second point....

 

Expansions were not ONLY about end game content.  We got Croatia, new Archtypes, The Hollows, Striga, power proliferation, Cimmeria, and an entire new game when Pratoria became playable.  What other game out there does that?  Yes, we got Incarnates too, along with time travel and a way to go back and collect missed badges.

 

City of Heroes never devolved into a game that only gets played at the Endgame.  In fact, unless you want to turn off XP or use the time travel option, it is nigh impossible to see all content for your “alignment” without using multiple characters.

 

Sidekicking/Exemplaring  If a friend of mine joined the game today, I could take my level 50 from the close of Live and play along side her.  She could do my missions, I could do hers, or we could both wait for the next Rikti Invasion and go bananas.

 

We are not limited to any particular zone, or stuck only doing the starter content.  Other games may have a head fake at this, but No One has done it better, or even the same to my knowledge.

 

Character Creation!  I am sorry but I have to disagree with the people who feel that CO had a “better” costume creator.  DCs was worse, with costume tied to gear until later expansions.  But even if you liked their artwork better, the power design was just ...  meh.  Not even bad, just meh.

 

Every powerset felt the same.  A “pew pew” build up power followed by a strike followed by a heavy hitter.  There never was any real individuality.  Again, DCs was much worse, but that doesn’t really say much.

 

No Gear Drops  Your character power didn’t depend upon gear drops.  You didn’t need Hammi-Os and if you wanted them you didn’t have to fight over drops with five other people who only got one chance a week to try to get it.  Your character’s look didn’t depend upon what dungeons they had been in, or what gear they carried.  The salvage and invention stuff is a nice mini-game that you can completely ignore if you wanted.

 

There’s much more really; I haven’t touched the ability to create your own content in the mission architect or the badge collections that made more than just titles for your character or that I got a comic book which published two stories I wrote.

 

City of Heroes is infinitely better than Champions Online.

[BelleSorciere]

Then the Day One patch happened.  I don't know if you were able to play during the Headstart, but believe me when I say the game was different.  Night-and-day different.  That Day One patch cut player power by about 30%, while increasing NPC power by at least 50%.  I went from being able to solo spawns of 1-2 LTs and 3-4 mooks .... to faceplanting if there were more than 3 enemies of ANY power level.

 

It sounds a bit like Jack Emmert's mantra from the early days of CoH that "three minions = one hero" -- his vision that three bottom-tier enemies would be a significant challenge to a solo hero, the last vestige of which can be seen in the fact that the default minion spawn in solo missions at x1 is three minions. He also had the fixation on 'fun' being throwing yourself at the end boss again and again and again, being defeated over and over, until you figured out what the obscure specific actions you had to do to defeat it (as if the correct tactics wouldn't get splashed across the net within hours of that boss being beaten for the first time). Both of these aspects that made CoH more tedious to play got phased out as he was pushed upstairs, then the buyout by NCsoft freed the rest of the devs to make play feel more 'heroic'.

Except it wound up being "1.5 minions = 1 hero".

 

See, what triggered the whole thing is this: a small cadre of over-achievers who had a lot of experience in the Beta managed to hit the level cap within the 3-day Head Start.

 

So they panicked, and grossly over-corrected.  They nerfed everything playerside - especially player defenses - and buffed everything NPC-side - especially NPC defenses.

 

I used to be able, on my Munitions/Devices character "Arsenal of Justice" during that headstart, to bounce from 3-5 spawn to 3-5 spawn, pretty much nonstop.  It truly felt SUPERHEROIC; I still had to not be asleep at the keyboard for Lieutenants, and actually pay attention for Bosses.  But the generic mooks?  Bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, all day long.  Like I was the friggin' Batman, but with guns and a hoverdisk.

 

Then, on Day One?  Suddenly, I couldn't take more than two of those mooks, or one single Lieutenant, without having to find a safe spot to "take a knee" for a few moments to heal back up.  And that's WITH Healing Drones following me around 24/7.  My speed of play absolutely crashed, to less than 1/20 what it used to be.

 

When your DPS goes down by 1/3, your defenses go down by half or two-thirds while simultaneously the enemy's DPS goes up by a 1/3, and their defenses go up by half or two-thirds ...

 

... it's no longer the same game.

 

I was one of those who wanted a refund for my Lifetime subscription.

 

I was not one of those who was given that refund.  >_<

 

With Emmert-led Cryptic, if something was overpowered and any one of three or more solutions would correct the issue, Cryptic would implement all three. Also, getting Cryptic to revisit old nerfs before changes in management or the team was extremely difficult.

 

 

[Primantis]

Please tell me if you disagree with my opinion and why, [...]

 

I played CoX for years (and stopped mainly because of serious issues with the parent company, NCSoft).

 

When CO came out, I was super-excited.  Giddy, even.  I pre-orderedit, bought a brand-new PC _just_ to be able to play it, and ....... I bought a Lifetime Membership.  Before the game even launched.

 

...

 

Then the Day One patch happened.  I don't know if you were able to play during the Headstart, but believe me when I say the game was different.  Night-and-day different.  That Day One patch cut player power by about 30%, while increasing NPC power by at least 50%.  I went from being able to solo spawns of 1-2 LTs and 3-4 mooks .... to faceplanting if there were more than 3 enemies of ANY power level.

 

Same character.  Same enemy faction/group.  Same bloody block in the city, even.

 

...

 

But I did my best, and stuck with it for as long as I could stomach it.  Even when, disaster of disasters, CO went "free to play".  Hell, I was the guy who first championed the idea of giving the "set in stone" Archetypes one or two "pick from this short list" power options, in order to give free players a taste of Freeform's possibilities.

 

 

Yeah, I went through a similar experience, except no lifetime subscription. I still was pretty angry that we got Emmerted on day one.

 

Also, a specific detail about the day one nerfs was that the defensive passives were nerfed harder than everything else. I remember ultimately playing a powered armor/munitions character and killing everything with proximity mines just to hit 40 before they nerfed that too.

 

 

 

Yup, I was there as well and went thru similar things. Hell I even abused Proximity Mines to get to 40 as well! I knew they were going to be nerfed because they were just too damned good. Sure enough they were (and it was probably a good call, there was little reason to use any other attack ). Although I don't remember if they were nerfed just enough or if they over did it.. I am assuming they sledge hammered them harder than they should have.

 

Also to be fair to the day-one patch. Defensive passives were over performing. There was very little reason to take an offensive passive at all. One made you nearly unkillable, the other made you do 10% more damage.

 

Now they did not go about doing it in the correct fashion, but some balance in the passives was sorely needed iirc. And as mentioned, juicing up all the mobs just added insult to injury.

 

 

 

Which leads me to another problem I had with the game's design. Attacks, or lack of recharge on most attacks. It seemed to me that having more than 2-3 attacks was a waste. Most of them had no CD so unless they had some extra effect you were better off choosing a heavy hitter or two then just swamping the rest of your power choices with buffs and stuff.

 

It'd be like if Ice Blast had no recharge on any of its powers. What would you do? Probably level high enough to grab BiB, then respec out all the other single target attack powers because why would you do anything other than spam BiB? Might keep Freeze Ray around though cuz its pretty boss too.  (Exemping not-inclusive, as there was no exemping in CO XD)

 

I remember watching heroes spam that game's version of KO:Blow, and it was the goofiest looking shit I've ever seen in my life.

[BelleSorciere]

I totally agree the defensive passives were too powerful, especially force field and regeneration. The problem was just that they overcorrected so hard there was no reason to take them without the buff that came later.

 

Also, offensive passives sorely needed buffs to compete.

[WumpusRat]

Yup, I was there as well and went thru similar things. Hell I even abused Proximity Mines to get to 40 as well! I knew they were going to be nerfed because they were just too damned good. Sure enough they were (and it was probably a good call, there was little reason to use any other attack ). Although I don't remember if they were nerfed just enough or if they over did it.. I am assuming they sledge hammered them harder than they should have.

 

Also to be fair to the day-one patch. Defensive passives were over performing. There was very little reason to take an offensive passive at all. One made you nearly unkillable, the other made you do 10% more damage.

 

Now they did not go about doing it in the correct fashion, but some balance in the passives was sorely needed iirc. And as mentioned, juicing up all the mobs just added insult to injury.

 

Which leads me to another problem I had with the game's design. Attacks, or lack of recharge on most attacks. It seemed to me that having more than 2-3 attacks was a waste. Most of them had no CD so unless they had some extra effect you were better off choosing a heavy hitter or two then just swamping the rest of your power choices with buffs and stuff.

 

It'd be like if Ice Blast had no recharge on any of its powers. What would you do? Probably level high enough to grab BiB, then respec out all the other single target attack powers because why would you do anything other than spam BiB? Might keep Freeze Ray around though cuz its pretty boss too.  (Exemping not-inclusive, as there was no exemping in CO XD)

 

I remember watching heroes spam that game's version of KO:Blow, and it was the goofiest looking shit I've ever seen in my life.

 

*raises hand* I was there for day-1 as well, and remember the massive cut in power (and exp!) that everyone got. It definitely made the game feel a lot more sluggish and annoying, rather than superheroic. Even in the teens you'd be fighting random street thugs, and 3-4 minions could make you have to struggle to take them all down. Imagine a fairly experienced superhero struggling to take down a couple of muggers. It'd be embarrassing!

 

The villain groups were far too jokey and full of puns, and the game clearly didn't take itself very seriously. Which means players didn't either.

 

The way they did powers was interesting, but it tended to promote a very "best at level" mindset, where you'd take the single best power for that level, or level up a bit more then completely rebuild your character to take the newest, best power, dumping the old one in the process. Too many powers were overly-weak and not worth taking at all (the pet powers were all notoriously bad), and other powers (such as super strength's "uppercut") were far too powerful compared to anything else you could take. For a game with tons of power options, you saw a lot of very similar builds running around.

 

I gave it a few months at launch, then got bored and went back to CoH. I really wanted CO to be a good game. I really did. I played the tabletop Champions game for years and years, and when CO first announced I was giddy with the idea that, since they had bought the actual Champions IP, that it would be somewhat similar. That you could build a character concept and run with it. Instead, we got a watered-down, powerset-limited mishmash of a game that had no real heart.

 

I've popped back in from time to time to see how it's doing, but man is it lifeless. And there's not really that much more content than was there when it went live. The fact that it's still around when CoH got shut down by NCSoft still angers me. To this day I refuse to buy any product that NCSoft puts out.

[BelleSorciere]

I've popped back in from time to time to see how it's doing, but man is it lifeless. And there's not really that much more content than was there when it went live. The fact that it's still around when CoH got shut down by NCSoft still angers me. To this day I refuse to buy any product that NCSoft puts out.

 

To be fair, they do (last time I looked) actually have enough content to reach 40 without having to farm.

[eiynp]

for me the main thing was lack of team play; CO seemed a lot more solo-oriented that city of heroes and while that's not exactly uncommon in MMOs it wasn't what I wanted at all. I also thought the writing leaned too far into humor/camp territory

 

I actually liked the art style and character creation, so it was too bad the rest of the game wasn't better

[THEDarkTyger]

for me the main thing was lack of team play; CO seemed a lot more solo-oriented that city of heroes

 

That's actually saying a lot, given how solo friendly CoH is....

[eiynp]

for me the main thing was lack of team play; CO seemed a lot more solo-oriented that city of heroes

 

That's actually saying a lot, given how solo friendly CoH is....

 

coh is solo 'friendly' in the sense that everything can solo, but you're heavily incentivized to team even at low level. In CO it seemed like basically everyone just soloed all the time, aside from in a few group instances. But I didn't play that long so maybe it's different at higher level

[TfStormcry]

No, it was still pretty solo oriented except for some certain big bosses/raids. There was also very little incentive to team up. A good chunk of missions were in the open world and didn't scale with team size, and the instances that did scale with team size did so poorly.

[PaxArcana]

for me the main thing was lack of team play; CO seemed a lot more solo-oriented that city of heroes

 

That's actually saying a lot, given how solo friendly CoH is....

 

The thing is, a lot of MMOs start from the assumption that everyone will be in teams/groups/parties, and then work from there.  The game never really adapts (or does so poorly) to larger or smaller numbers of players performing a particular quest.

 

CoX did not make that assumption.  Instead, it started from the assumption that you'd have one or maybe two heroes in a mission, and scaled everything up as group size increased from 1.  Thus, there were great incentives to team up (more XP and INF, faster, plus all the socializing part of it).  But at it's basic, default level, 99% of the game is completely doable all by yourself.

 

...

 

To put it another way:

 

Other MMOs assume you're on a team, then (maybe) try to figure out how to make it more able to be played solo too.

 

CoX assumed you're alone, then figured out how to make teaming up fun and workable too.

 

CO assumes you're solo, and said "eh, fuck it" when it comes to teaming up.

[TfStormcry]

CO assumes you're solo, and said "eh, fuck it" when it comes to teaming up.

 

That seems to have been the general philosophy for most of CO design, except maybe the costume editor.

[DR_Mechano]

One of the things that REALLY peeved me off in CO was that certain looks were tied to VERY low drop rate items. There were entire outfits where pieces had a >1% drop chance from very specific arch-villains and multiple pieces in that set (I'm looking at your Valerian Scarlet!) or were time exclusive rewards (basically had to be a subscriber for THAT specific month or you didn't get it at all unless you became a lifetime subscriber) OR were locked in lootboxes (full sets got increasingly more and more rare in the cash shop as they bought in lootboxes).

 

Meanwhile in CoH, sure you had the veterans rewards but it wasn't that you could NEVER get them if you missed out on them, you just had to wait until you got them and with the later changes to the Veteran rewards you could speed your way to a specific costume piece if you wanted to or they sold the full set and you bought it and that was it.