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

[Sir Myshkin]

3 hours ago, Bentley Berkeley said:

Necro much?

Considering the fluidity of users coming and going from the forums, and that (to me at least) it seems we've had a good influx of new forum users, I'm happy to see several of them necroing old posts out of the ashes instead of rehashing topics a second or third or fifteenth time. This isn't the first post to get brought back into the light, and hopefully it won't be the last. It shows that new players are researching and exploring the knowledge base that's already been presented.

[Primantis]

5 hours ago, ClawsandEffect said:

I played CoH for 7 years before shutdown. I played CO for.....maybe a month tops. 

 

 

 

2) Writing. 

 

CO's writing is just bad. Full Stop. 

 

Don;t even try to defend it. It has racist stereotypes galore (which has been mentioned earlier in the thread), and you just can't take anything the characters say seriously. CoH's writing tried and (mostly) succeeded in capturing the Silver Age comics feel. It has stories that I remembered for YEARS after the game shut down. CO on the other hand....well my wife asked me what the mission I just did was about after I logged off....and I couldn't remember 5 minutes after I finished it. CoH's stories had gravity to them, and you felt like what your character was doing actually mattered.

 

 

 

 

Indeed

 

CoH's writing felt like a homage that took itself seriously and developed into its own thing

CO's writing came off as gimmicky and a parody. Which is fine for a silly mobile game or an Adult Swim skit, but hard to stretch for an entire MMO.

Edited June 19, 2020 by Primantis

[cranebump]

Because when I played CO extensively, it was a lonely experience. Hard to get teams. All in all, it just wasn’t very social. On CoH, even if I’m running solo, I can have the LFG and zone chat on to watch what others are up to. Teams tend to be friendly and casual and tolerant. I’ve made some hew friends thanks to CoH. My long stint on CO never got me any of that.

 

its never been about the nuts and bolts of the game. It’s the feel of it, and the people. 

 

 

 

 

 

[ShardWarrior]

Personally, I am amazed there are people still playing CO.

[Xeres]

Well, I played both a lot.  I think CO came out 5 years after COH did so the graphics thing - CO should be better.  But, for me there's three things that COH does much better that is the deciding factor. 

 

1.  Powersets.  Even though you could grab amost any power from any set in CO, I still like the powerset + power pool system here.  It just gives the characters a better theme to them.

2.  Villain groups.  None of the villain groups in CO are worth remembering.  I played that game for 4 years and the only villain group I remember were the robotic cowboys because the concept was just that stupid.  But even though I hadn't played COH since 2009 until Homecoming I remembered many many of those villain groups here.

3.  Other people touched on this, but the community here, even during live, was just much better.  In fact, toward the end of when I played CO, the community there was really bad.

[ZeeHero]

I raided with a woman in FFXIV old enough to be my mom, that makes her like 60. FFXIV raids are INTENSE and require several times better attention and reaction time than anything in COH. she could handle it just fine with a little practice.

 

It's no excuse to claim COH combat is ok becuase old people. severely disabled maybe but you cannot balance games around those people, only add features to make it a bit easier for them while balancing around the majority.

 

COH combat is literally nearly the worst in any game I have ever played. I think Maibongi was even worse, only example of worse than COH combat I can come up with.

 

now, COH powers are great, buffs are great, but none of those things are not possible to do with another combat system, nearly  anything would be superior to what COH uses.

 

I enjoy COH too, but obviously that isnt becuase combat itself is fun. no, what makes COH fun is the feeling of power, and fun with a group when you team. beating up bad guys as superheroes. punching nazis, in CAVES!

[Frostbiter]

I like the combat in CoH. It is a little slower, true, but I feel that allows for things to be more strategic and even allows buffs/debuffs and controls to actually have a place in this game. Something I feel that many other MMO's lack. Debuffs and controls in CO actually build stacks of resistance to those types of effects, especially on the boss mobs that require them as a strategy such a Kiga's dogs.

[Twisted Toon]

1 hour ago, ZeeHero said:

COH combat is literally nearly the worst in any game I have ever played. I think Maibongi was even worse, only example of worse than COH combat I can come up with.

In your opinion.

[Shred Monkey]

First of all the biggest thing to me is that CoH beats CO on min-max building.  Even with CO having freeform builds where you can pick any power from any set, CoH still wins.  The options CO has actually forces you to basically choose 1 of about 6 powers that you'll spam over and over for the duration of a fight and then fill in the rest of your powers with the optimal setup to optimize that one power.  But that's more of a personal play style.  I can play for hours in Mid's.  CO doesn't have that.

 

When it comes to game mechanics, personally, I prefer CO.  I like the block mechanic, I like the lunge mechanic.  I like the open world giant monster fights.   I like the one endgame dungeon crawl better then the CoH Task Forces.  The costume creator is better on CO, the travel powers are better on CO, the graphics are better on CO.  There's really some great gaming there to be had in CO. 

 

The problem is there's just not enough content.  You can finish everything you want to do for the evening in about an hour, maybe 2 hours if things go poorly.  Then you have to wait for 3 hours because the content is on a 4 hour real-world timer.  The next day, you do the exact same thing... and the next day... and the next.  Oh.. there's 5-6 seasonal events that help break up the monotony.  But they're just interesting for being novel, not for being good.

 

CoH I can log in and do something different every night of the week for a month without repeating if I choose to.  Plus, there's WAY more people playing, so it's much easier to get a team.  There were nights when I'd log into CO and start trying to form a TA run and I'd give up after 30 minutes because I couldn't fill a team of 5.  Furthermore, CO has 6-7 zones and about 20 contacts, half of which never get played, CoH has about 75 zones and hundreds of contacts, (3/4 of which never get played).   CoH is just a way BIGGER game.  More Content, More players, More fun.

 

 

 

[ZeeHero]

2 hours ago, Shred Monkey said:

First of all the biggest thing to me is that CoH beats CO on min-max building.  Even with CO having freeform builds where you can pick any power from any set, CoH still wins.  The options CO has actually forces you to basically choose 1 of about 6 powers that you'll spam over and over for the duration of a fight and then fill in the rest of your powers with the optimal setup to optimize that one power.  But that's more of a personal play style.  I can play for hours in Mid's.  CO doesn't have that.

 

When it comes to game mechanics, personally, I prefer CO.  I like the block mechanic, I like the lunge mechanic.  I like the open world giant monster fights.   I like the one endgame dungeon crawl better then the CoH Task Forces.  The costume creator is better on CO, the travel powers are better on CO, the graphics are better on CO.  There's really some great gaming there to be had in CO. 

 

The problem is there's just not enough content.  You can finish everything you want to do for the evening in about an hour, maybe 2 hours if things go poorly.  Then you have to wait for 3 hours because the content is on a 4 hour real-world timer.  The next day, you do the exact same thing... and the next day... and the next.  Oh.. there's 5-6 seasonal events that help break up the monotony.  But they're just interesting for being novel, not for being good.

 

CoH I can log in and do something different every night of the week for a month without repeating if I choose to.  Plus, there's WAY more people playing, so it's much easier to get a team.  There were nights when I'd log into CO and start trying to form a TA run and I'd give up after 30 minutes because I couldn't fill a team of 5.  Furthermore, CO has 6-7 zones and about 20 contacts, half of which never get played, CoH has about 75 zones and hundreds of contacts, (3/4 of which never get played).   CoH is just a way BIGGER game.  More Content, More players, More fun.

 

 

 

for mechanics, CO has combat mechanics which are superior to COH, like block and lunge, but block is implemented very poorly right now, and the "Cosmic monster fights" are lame sad excuses for content.

 

Have you ever been to Dino? its literally people standing around a dinosaur and her baby in set positions the whole time hitting it and sometimes blocking.

There is nothing at all interesting or superhero about how that fight works.

 

Superheroes have MOVEMENT, tons of it. these battles require almost none (With the exception of flaming king kong for the dps and heals, and the purple man who's been broken for years)

 

not to mention CO's versions of "raid mechanics" are ridiculously sad, limited, and badly made excuses.

as someone who has done actual raid endgame in FFXIV, I know what real team mechanics are like, and even at levels of difficulty beyond what CO players could imagine, they are more fun than in CO becuase you can predict and learn them to a science, as well as the fact only the most difficult of the difficult content will always instantly kill you for a small mistake, instead mistakes can cascade into a wipe, and its possible to recover with skill most of the time.

 

COH mechanics as far as powers and buffs go are far superior to in CO becuase in COH CC actually does something worth talking about, buffs make an even bigger difference than healing, and debuffs are huge as well.

 

COH lacks block, yes, that could have been great in CO if CO had anything approaching good design. sadly it never did (Jack Emmert) and never will (Kaiserin).

 

[Twisted Toon]

5 minutes ago, ZeeHero said:

COH lacks block, yes, that could have been great in CO if CO had anything approaching good design. sadly it never did (Jack Emmert) and never will (Kaiserin).

 

In the brief time that I played CO, I never ever used block.

 

Fortunately, CoH doesn't need a mechanic like that and should never have a mechanic like that. That is what Defense is for.

 

To be honest, I never used a shield to block attacks in Skyrim either. I just used a shield as an elemental resistance mule, if I had a shield at all.

[ZeeHero]

5 minutes ago, Twisted Toon said:

In the brief time that I played CO, I never ever used block.

 

Fortunately, CoH doesn't need a mechanic like that and should never have a mechanic like that. That is what Defense is for.

 

To be honest, I never used a shield to block attacks in Skyrim either. I just used a shield as an elemental resistance mule, if I had a shield at all.

See what I mean about block being poorly implemented? nothing makes you use it until endgame content at least! also being able to block forever and ever anytime? broken. if the game was designed decently enemies would have attack patterns capable of being learned and then you'd know when to time your limited block abilities.

 

Block should have a stamina that depletes the more you consecutively block, and break if you keep it up too long.

 

I played one game where block was way stronger than in CO but it was also limited. holding block in the midst of a huge pack of enemies was normally suicide, becuase it'd run out fast from all the quick hits.

 

the block mechanic is a good idea poorly implemented. superheroes in comics again and again are depicted as sometimes having force fields, shields to block attacks, deflect with a weapon or fist, you name it. why leave that to chance when you can make it more engaging? no, CO's issue is not that it had block, COH issue is it does NOT have block.

 

CO's issue is it did basically everything even GOOD it did VERY WRONG.

Edited June 19, 2020 by ZeeHero

[Twisted Toon]

8 minutes ago, ZeeHero said:

the block mechanic is a good idea poorly implemented. superheroes in comics again and again are depicted as sometimes having force fields, shields to block attacks, deflect with a weapon or fist, you name it. why leave that to chance when you can make it more engaging? no, CO's issue is not that it had block, COH issue is it does NOT have block.

 

In your opinion.

 

I have absolutely zero issues with CoH not having a blocking mechanic.

[Frostbiter]

If COH gets blocking as a mechanic, I vote for it to be a toggle power under Shield Defense that greys out all attack powers...

[SwitchFade]

CO combat mechanics are so.... BAD, that playing the game was akin to chewing on salty broken glass.

 

CoH is not just far superior, it's world's better.

[Rathulfr]

23 minutes ago, Twisted Toon said:

In your opinion.

 

I have absolutely zero issues with CoH not having a blocking mechanic.

Same here.  I *hate* the combat mechanics of CO, including the block.

[Parabola]

5 hours ago, ZeeHero said:

COH combat is literally nearly the worst in any game I have ever played.

This leads me to question why you are even here? The combat mechanics are the core of the game?

[Coyote]

CoH doesn't have a block action, but it does have something else that accomplishes a similar role in combat mechanics: guaranteed or high-% knockdowns/back.

The purpose of a block is to interrupt the effect of an attack.

The purpose of Air Superiority is to interrupt the launch of an attack.

Using either at the right time on the right foe IS a matter of skill... block is more "pure skill" since you can't fail to activate a block (though you may time it poorly), while you could activate AS at the right time and miss. But that doesn't mean that there is no skill in using interrupts in CoH. They're just called "mez" powers rather than "block" actions.

 

Replace AS with any short-term mez in your preferred powerset.

 

Look at Ki Push for a perfect example of it... if you time things right, you can fight a Warwulf or Totem and they only get to make one ranged attack at you. Push them when they are animation locked into their low-damage ranged attack, and from then on until they're defeated (unless you roll a miss), all they do is get up, get Held for 2 seconds to bypass the immunity to Knockback, then knocked back again when the Hold ends. Repeat until wiped. Granted, it's simplistic, but doing it at the right time is still a skill. That's just the most extreme example of using attack interrupts in CoH.

[Communistpenguin]

2 hours ago, Rathulfr said:

Same here.  I *hate* the combat mechanics of CO, including the block.

I find block mechanics to be tiresome and to add nothing of value to the games I find them in.

[Jaguaratron]

22 minutes ago, Communistpenguin said:

I find block mechanics to be tiresome and to add nothing of value to the games I find them in.

indeed, just garbage interface creep for no good reason

[Leogunner]

I haven't ever played CO but by the way its described, it has some fun mechanics to play around with.  I think that might be the fun factor with regards to making a game interesting: find an aspect to excel in and focus on specializing in that thing.

 

For CoX, while the mechanics may be limited and dated, I feel that is part of what can make a game fun.  I look back on all the old online games that I played in the past and the ones I remember the most are the ones that are limited and niche....funnily enough, most of them are still around too.

 

Wizard101 is a pretty unique game that I played for a long time and even got my mom to spend money on it for me.  It being a turn-based online card battle team v boss hybrid made it stand out a lot and the different schools of magic being distinct in both mechanics, flavor and specialties gave weight to your choices of schools and cards.  There was also a charm in its art style and attack animations that I still would go back and play.

 

Final Fantasy XI is also a kind of derivative kind of MMORPG in that it was one of those auto-attack old-style games...it also carries the punishing mechanics and team tactics that many early MMO players grew fond of over time.  It's combination of races, jobs, subjobs and weapons gave a bit of weight to your customization and style and allowed a bit of leeway in how you go about doing the content.  There are a lot of ways to do a lot of things and the world is so large and vast, there's no harm in just trying different things.  The feel of progress as you level jobs to use as subjobs, train skills, explore new places, get more and better gear, so on and so forth...oh and the story and characters are quite the wild ride.

 

Atlantica Online is probably the most niche and strange game I've ever played, being a quasi-tactical turn-based MMORPG where you gather and train groups of mercenaries to build up your team of 9 characters and dungeon crawl to boss fights that often spiral into hectic mass mobs vs players unless you've got a partner or two to help you through.  As you train your mercs, level them and change their jobs/weapons, equipping them all, discovering/hiring specialty mercs, it's just an intriguing system of combat, like playing an advanced version of classic Final Fantasy but possibly with other people...and enemies gang up on you hardcore and it's frikken hard/unfair...there's also mechanics to take/support towns with your guilds that I never got into but seemed cool getting to a city that was actually kept up with and had a good amount of facilities to use....oh and it's based on a bizarre fantasy version of our world that uses multiple time periods at once across multiple continents.... yeah, it's weird...but great.

 

There are some others but ultimately, having better of something doesn't make the game better or more memorable....that's all going to be subjective.  There are some players here that likely have tried Wizard101 and thought it garbage kiddy-game fodder, but that's beside the point when the appeal is the aesthetic and unique combat style.  I think the story wasn't that bad either but my memory of it is vague...

 

Anywho, OP, I bet there are aspects of CO that are just flat out better or just different from CoX.  I don't think there's anything wrong with that.  Adhering to brand loyalty, IMO, is wrong though.  You can now play both CO and CoX or just the one you like better.  I never understood the need to decide which is better and then playing that one only.  Rather than playing one ad nauseum until you're bored of it and then continuing to play despite that thus becoming a bitter angry player is just not smart.

[Hexquisite]

2 hours ago, Communistpenguin said:

I find block mechanics to be tiresome and to add nothing of value to the games I find them in.

Right? Why block when I can just absorb the hit? Presuming it even manages to hit?

Edited June 19, 2020 by Hexquisite

[Marshal_General]

There are fights in CO like the event bosses, where if you do not block, you die. Some where if you did not buy a block power and rank it up, you will die.

 

There are a lot of things I do like about CO like the power armor set, some of the travel powers like swinging and a lot of the character creation options like material for each costume bit (cloth, leather and metal), accessories for the upper arm and thigh. Auras that only cover your clothing.

 

Here is some examples.

[killigraphy]

Was there on beta...

 

Vanilla CoV was better than CoH, it was an expansion with more areas, flexible AT's, Masterminds,  fun missions, etc. I love both, but if you think CO is better than Homecoming, you're just trying to incite. Seeing as everything you do in this game is optional. Are classes OP? Yes, but so was the Ill/Rad and Rad/Rad powers. Fire/Kins was FOTY, and  Fire/Ice tanks could solo GM's. Let's not cherry pick, it had both of what it has now....except now we can get PL'ed more effectively, and still run old missions/arcs.

 

CO had the Beast class, which was running around soloing everything. Which is my point, every game has those few classes that are OP.

 

Dated graphics? Sure, but go ahead and try cel shaded mode, tweak that a bit.....because WoW didn't get much of a facelift, and people still play Ultima. The graphics debate, is a strawman at this point in gaming.

 

In the end; CoX is everything we wanted, more powers, more flexibility, great missions, user friendly, more QoL buffs, and even a cel shaded mode...all this for free; that alone makes it 10X better.

Edited June 20, 2020 by killigraphy

[Primantis]

9 hours ago, ZeeHero said:

 

I played one game where block was way stronger than in CO but it was also limited. holding block in the midst of a huge pack of enemies was normally suicide, becuase it'd run out fast from all the quick hits.

 

 

 

 

Might have been Tera

 

If you "turtled" for to long you'd run out of your block gauge. Which was called "Re" I think, for reasons I can't remember.

 

If you ran out of block and the big-bad-boss you were tanking decided to do a super powerful attack you could be in for a very bad time. So you wanted to block for the split second of each attack as to not run down the meter. Doing so also opened up several counter attack moves on your part which could recover some of the gauge and add additional threat. Some times you couldn't block specific attacks however and had to use your iframe! (Doooodge! as Piccolo from TFS would yell)

 

Tanking was fairly fun and dynamic in Tera! You wanted good ping though.

 

I have nothing against CoH's combat system, outside of the overall "HP sponges" that most AV's end up being. It's too bad the game came to a close just when the devs were experimenting in iTrials. As the combat mechanics there are much more interesting than anywhere else in the game. I believe the game can handle more dynamic combat encounters. It's just everything up to iTrials was programed to be "tank and spank".

 

Edited June 20, 2020 by Primantis