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

[THEDarkTyger]

It wasn't hype that convinced me.  It was proven track record of a company I had done business with for years.  Slight difference.

 

Day One was about two weeks after I made my purchase decision.  It was too late by then.

Yeah.

I I won't be buying any lifetimes before games release anymore.

 

I won't be buying any Lifetimes before games celebrate their 1st anniversary, anymore.

 

I REALLY feel sorry for the people who bought lifetime subs to Hellgate: London.

 

Sad thing is, that wasn't a bad game. It was just released too early and, when it finally started shaping up, the Korean bank that gave Flagship their loan to get it off the ground decided to collect their collateral: The game license. And they shut it down.

[Jaguaratron]

It wasn't hype that convinced me.  It was proven track record of a company I had done business with for years.  Slight difference.

 

Day One was about two weeks after I made my purchase decision.  It was too late by then.

Yeah.

I I won't be buying any lifetimes before games release anymore.

 

I won't be buying any Lifetimes before games celebrate their 1st anniversary, anymore.

 

I REALLY feel sorry for the people who bought lifetime subs to Hellgate: London.

 

Sad thing is, that wasn't a bad game. It was just released too early and, when it finally started shaping up, the Korean bank that gave Flagship their loan to get it off the ground decided to collect their collateral: The game license. And they shut it down.

 

Hellgate: London.... another Bill Roper affair.... the guy who was leading the day 1 patch of CO...

[Primantis]

I will never buy a lifetime sub for an MMO.

 

 

Because I know it could turn from something I love, into something I loathe literally overnight. All it takes is one really, really bad patch.

 

 

Plus you are paying forward for a game that might not even live long enough to make the sub worth it.

 

 

MMO's are too prone to change and too prone to take down for me to make ~$300 investment.

[PaxArcana]

My thinking at the time was this:

 

[*] same people who made City of Heroes/Villains;

[*] same genre as CoX;

[*] at the time, I had been a subscriber to City of Heroes for 40 months, for a total subscription cost of $600;

[*] a lifetime subscription, at that time, was priced at $200;

[*] even if I only enjoyed CO for half as long as I'd enjoyed CoX to that moment, I'd still be saving a hundred bucks - completely ignoring the extra freebies (esp. costume pieces) I'd be getting.

 

It was sound logic, at the time, IMO.

[jubakumbi]

It was sound logic, at the time, IMO.

 

I don't even want to talk about the thousands I no longer have, from this very thing...

;)

[biostem]

I played CoX from about 2004 to 2009.  I bought a CO lifetime subscription when that game launched.  Before I get into my opinions on both, I just want to thank the CoH:H devs so very much for bringing CoX back to us!  That being said, here are a few of my thoughts, (in no particular order):

 

1. I very much dislike the early levels in CoX, since you have so few attacks and waiting for a power to come off of cooldown can be quite frustrating.  The origin powers and the ones you can get from the P2W vendor can alleviate that somewhat.  CO' use of an "energy builder" as your basic attack, generally followed by a spammable/no-cooldown second power keeps downtime to a minimum.  The downside to that system, however, is that if you are freeform or otherwise get an even better power later on, (also often with no cooldown), then that earlier power basically ceases to have a purpose.  You can basically create a workable "attack chain" with just your energy builder and a solid no-cooldown attack in CO.  CoX basically pushes you to create an attack chain or to take powers like hasten to fill the gap.

 

2. I'm not sure when they implemented the change, but when I left CoX, you basically "had" to take the fitness pool, and you couldn't get your full-on travel power until level 14.  In CO, at launch, you basically got your travel power as soon as you completed the tutorial, (around level 4), and you could skip that once you've completed it at least once.  This, by itself, made CO's zones feel small.

 

3. I tend to gravitate toward "pet classes" in any game I play.  In CoX, the Mastermind had deep and highly customizable pet controls.  CO's are severely lacking, and pets there feel more like an afterthought.  I like some of the options they have, (like being able to summon a duo of wolves, and changing their appearance to dino, spirit wolves, bears, etc), but without the tools to properly control them, it's just not as fulfilling.

 

4. The ability to completely respec your powers in CO means that, other than concept/RP reasons, you can go from a super-strong tank to a fire-throwing glass cannon in only a matter of minutes, provided you have the in-game currency or saved up/store bought respec to do so.  In some respects, this is great, since you can realize nearly any build on a single character, (and there are items you can buy in the "questionite store" in-game that improve your "super stats", regardless of which ones you picked), but for the long-term longevity of the game, this can lead to people just sticking to that single character.  While the AT/class system in CoX can be restrictive at times, it can also force you to learn how to expand your boundaries and "learn your role" a bit better.

 

5. As others have mentioned, the enhancement system in CoX allows for greater flexibility than in CO.  Yes, you can rank-up powers in CO, and some even have 1 or more nifty other abilities you can purchase, but you could never explicitly affect just 1 aspect of said power, (like range, recharge, etc).

 

6. One thing which I think is a double-edged sword in regard to CO is the ability to target yourself with powers.  This basically means that there may only be 1 "bubble" power necessary in force field, since you can place it on yourself AND your allies.  The same goes for most heals - a heal-other becomes a heal-self if you just target yourself or include "targetself" in a keybind.  This, coupled with many such powers having no cooldown also means that you can just out-heal most incoming damage as long as you have energy to keep it up, (which isn't hard).

 

7. Touching on the "double-edged sword" nature of CO, it is really hard to keep an enemy permanently locked down, and this includes taunts.  It is quite difficult to keep an enemy's attention in CO, which means that it is difficult for a "tank" to adequately protect their more squishy teammates.  This isn't a big deal if you're all playing freeform characters, as you just make sure to take a shield or heal, (unless you;re playing as one of the F2P ATs, which are more restrictive).

 

8. CO implemented some pretty interesting gimmicks, but didn't seem to really develop or take advantage of them.  For instance, there are many destructible objects littered around the game world in CO, and you can lift and throw them depending upon your strength value, (or with a telekinesis power from the mental/psychic tree).  The problem is that it's rarely worth the effort, and it's usually more time consuming and does less damage if you try to do this.

 

9. I'll finish off by talking about "content".  I have never run out of content before hitting the level cap when I played CoX, and that's before several updates were released.  In CO, if I'm playing a freeform character and want the quests to remain challenging, I'll run out of content in the early to mid 30's, (max level is 40).  Sure, I can grind out those last few levels by doing alerts, (queueable instanced quests where you can be placed into a random team), or I can slog it out in Vibora Bay, (the last true expansion they added ages ago, which has many instances that look the same and are quite dull), or just artificially slow things down by doing lower level content. I like that I can choose to stick with or abandon a contact in CoX without worrying that I'll run out of content to run, and I can even change my reputation to make said missions harder or easier as I see fit.

 

Anyway, those are my thoughts...

[SwitchFade]

Why is it better?

 

Because...

 

Freem!

[Ripperjk]

I enjoyed CO before it was F2P. It scratched that CoH itch for a while. But it never felt as deep, or quite the same. Prettier, no doubt - but the stories and major npcs felt hollow and just kinda meh.

 

And of course, once it went F2P - it just turned into an advertisement nightmare - buy this, buy that, enhance this, get more space, give us MONEY MONEY MONEY. They pretty much lost me at that point.

 

The one thing I really wish CoH had that CO has - is a way to preview/test powers before locking them in - that was a great idea.

 

[biostem]

I enjoyed CO before it was F2P. It scratched that CoH itch for a while. But it never felt as deep, or quite the same. Prettier, no doubt - but the stories and major npcs felt hollow and just kinda meh.

 

And of course, once it went F2P - it just turned into an advertisement nightmare - buy this, buy that, enhance this, get more space, give us MONEY MONEY MONEY. They pretty much lost me at that point.

 

The one thing I really wish CoH had that CO has - is a way to preview/test powers before locking them in - that was a great idea.

 

Not that it's ideal or exhaustive, but you can kind of get a feel for powers in your primary and secondary sets by messing around with the power customization options, (you can at least see the animation and such).

[chigiabelo]

1. I very much dislike the early levels in CoX, since you have so few attacks and waiting for a power to come off of cooldown can be quite frustrating.  The origin powers and the ones you can get from the P2W vendor can alleviate that somewhat.

 

True this. It was harder when you didn't have Nemesis Staff, Blackwand, etc.

[Jeuraud]

I'M kind of with the OP on this. All the stuff he said is so true to me. I used to play both games at the same time and liked them a lot. COH combat is slow compared to CO too. The long cooldowns on some powers don't help. And you can move around while using your powers in CO too. And you are really weak in those early levels compared to CO.

 

This was all designed to pull in the WoW-kiddies and those disenfranchised with CoHV... it failed to do either.

 

As for action combat within a MMO, Wildstar had CO beat hands down, another niche MMO that would still be here if not for NCSoft.

 

As for CoHV combat being slow, this is true only if you do not group. You group up and combat gets real chaotic, real fast, and grouping was common and easy in CoHV... not so much in CO, and nothing has changed in CoHH in regards to grouping ease.

 

CoHV was fixing the lack of powers at start with Temp and Prestige powers, along with reducing the animation and recharge times of the powers when possible. I just tried a Water/Dark Miasma Corrupter, and it felt like Twilight Grasp was taking forever to finish, while Hydro Blast was fast and fluid.

With CoHH's P2W you can gain access to Prestige powers and higher level Es right from the start, giving you more powers to play with and more punch, at the start.

 

 

I think most of the rage came because COH got shut down and CO didn't.

 

 

I would like to say this is one of the silliest statements I have read in Forums, but it really isn't.

 

 

Not one person really came up with a good reason why COH was a better game. It was just a personal choice and that is not a real reason

 

In the long run Personal Choice is the only 'real' reason.

[Ripperjk]

 

 

Not one person really came up with a good reason why COH was a better game. It was just a personal choice and that is not a real reason

 

In the long run Personal Choice is the only 'real' reason.

 

 

This.

[EggKookoo]

As for CoHV combat being slow, this is true only if you do not group. You group up and combat gets real chaotic, real fast, and grouping was common and easy in CoHV... not so much in CO, and nothing has changed in CoHH in regards to grouping ease.

 

I'm still not quite on board with this "combat in CoH is slow" thing. I mean, I get that you're locked into your animations in a way that you might not be in other games. A Blaster is stuck with an attack once triggered, while a WoW Mage can move mid-casting and interrupt it. But at the same time, you can queue up an attack in CoH (either while another is happening or if your target is out of range). Then, while it's queued, you can move or even run past your target, and the attack will trigger. As soon as that animation starts, you can queue up another attack. You can't queue attacks in WoW. In fact, if you try, the new attack will interrupt any non-instant attack that's currently running. I suppose that could be considered a feature, but I always found it more of an annoyance. I feel like I have to watch my attack icons like a hawk to make sure I'm attacking quickly enough but not so quickly I get in my own way.

 

I realize this thread is about CO and not WoW, but I don't have CO installed so I can't go check to remind myself how the attacks work. I'm mainly just addressing the notion that CoH's combat is slow. I think the queuing mechanic allows for very fluid and smooth combat, which to me feels "faster" than it might technically seem based on the animation times.

[Abraxus]

I played CO, and I was back to CoH as soon as my 3 month subscription to CO ran out.  I didn't like the mechanics, I didn't like the combat, I didn't care for the art style, and I wasn't crazy about the lore, or story lines either.  It was prettier than CoH graphically, but that is not a deal-breaker for me.  CoH is plenty pretty with all the graphical settings turned up to 11!

 

Granted, all of these things are subjective, but personal choice/preference is always made of of a certain percentage of subjectivity.  The percentages vary from individual, to individual.  However, when it's all said, and done, whatever their reasons, they make their choice on things.  In the case of CoH, folks have found what they like in measures that suit them.  Why they choose them is fairly unimportant, unless one wishes to challenge them, which is ultimately futile, and typically presents as purely argumentative. 

 

People love this game for all of their own reasons, and those reasons aren't necessarily the same for any two people.  I say why question it?  It is, what it is, and dissecting why they feel the way they do won't bring any satisfaction to the OP.  At least, that's my take on it.

[Xeres]

I did like the picking up world items in CO - crates, cars, etc based on strength.  That was pretty cool.  I also liked that you made your own villain for your hero.  Also swinging - nice travel power.

[Zolgar]

Idle observation:

 

This game SHOULDN'T be better than CO.

 

CO has a more robust costume designer.

CO has more flexibility in character creation.

CO has features that could only have been wished for when CoH was in development.

CO has more action oriented game play with less downtime in combat.

CO is a "next generation" (compared to CoH) MMORPG.

 

CO should be better than CoH. CoH should have shrunk to a small group of die-hard players when CO came out.

 

But it didn't. For all it's mechanical superiority, CO lacked something that CoH has, something that outweighs all that mechanical superiority.

 

What does it lack? Everyone has their own answer to that question. Personally, I would say soul.

[EggKookoo]

What does it lack? Everyone has their own answer to that question. Personally, I would say soul.

 

I don't know if I'm repeating myself, but to me it feels like CoH was made by people who love comics and superheroes and made a game where they could express that. CO feels (felt) like a game made by people who realized they could cash in on peoples' love for comics and superheroes but didn't really love that stuff themselves.

 

Which is weird since by all accounts Emmert was a big superhero fan.

[jubakumbi]

I don't know if I'm repeating myself, but to me it feels like CoH was made by people who love comics and superheroes and made a game where they could express that. CO feels (felt) like a game made by people who realized they could cash in on peoples' love for comics and superheroes but didn't really love that stuff themselves.

 

IMO, the intangible here is what you have pointed out - CoH was made with passion for the end product, not the rewards for creating it.

When you have that great meal, play that great game, etc., the ones you remember are the ones 'made with love'.

Humans can make magic.

[retiarius]

CoH was an original idea.

 

CO was born out of the idea that a Superhero MMO was commercially viable (the success of CoH), and it was based on a pre-existing IP (PnP Champions had been around since the early 80s). 

 

Based on those factors, I guess they thought they couldn't lose -- unfortunately, CO was really nothing like CoH, and it was nothing at all like PnP Champions, so right off the bat, you alienated two different potential fanbases.

[ChairKicker]

Idle observation:

 

This game SHOULDN'T be better than CO.

 

CO has a more robust costume designer.

CO has more flexibility in character creation.

CO has features that could only have been wished for when CoH was in development.

CO has more action oriented game play with less downtime in combat.

CO is a "next generation" (compared to CoH) MMORPG.

 

CO should be better than CoH. CoH should have shrunk to a small group of die-hard players when CO came out.

 

But it didn't. For all it's mechanical superiority, CO lacked something that CoH has, something that outweighs all that mechanical superiority.

 

What does it lack? Everyone has their own answer to that question. Personally, I would say soul.

As somebody who tried out CO, I've come to the same conclusion. I've spent an awful long time in character creation for the costume there, much, much more than I've actually played it, but it was not due to the common curse of alt-itis. It's just that the game itself really lacks in something that I find hard to quantify objectively, best summed up as a "soul". A vague mix of gameplay, storyline, NPC characterization, etc, most likely.

The only NPC I can remember from CO is Fruitbat and his machines, and I played it recently enough (when it went F2P). I really, really have a hard time remembering even basic enemies besides that. I think there were generic undead at some point, somewhere, for all I care. Whereas, before playing CoH again, I could remember Hellions, and Ghost Widow, and Statesman, and Sister Psyche, and Nemesis, and the Freakshow, and Hamidon, and a bunch others. And I'd stopped playing well before live was shut down. I should remember CoH far less clearly. Isn't it weird? But that's a good illustration of the difference. It's hard to point down why, but many parts of CoH are much less forgettable than CO. Hell, I'd even forgotten about the latter's Nemesis system until it was mentioned here, even though I remember being kinda hyped up about it. It has good parts, or at least good ideas, unmistakably, but they weren't made into anything really worth remembering.

[Obitus]

What does it lack? Everyone has their own answer to that question. Personally, I would say soul.

 

Ditto.  On a related note, I'd also say that CO is shallow, or was when I played it at launch - shallow mechanically, shallow thematically, shallow narratively.

 

For all of its faults, CoH is actually a pretty deep game.  To a large extent you could argue that that was unintentional; for example, Cryptic flat out admitted on several occasions that they wouldn't have allowed CoH's obscene buff/debuff stacking if they had a chance to do it over again.  I'm not sure what Cryptic's official stance is on control powers, but based on their design of various subsequent games (CO, STO, Neverwinter), it seems a safe bet to argue that they regretted CoH's scheme there too.

 

CoH is, in short, a happy accident - a broken game that is greater than the sum of its flawed parts.  Among all of the many ATs and powersets available in CoH, you can find a near infinite variety of distinct and effective character concepts and play styles.  You can deal damage, or soak damage, or buff defenses, or buff offense, or debuff offensively/defensively, or toss around hard/soft controls, or more likely, some unique combination of several of those things, but I think the most important point is that all of those approaches are viable and interesting.

 

Though CO's freeform character creator offers more superficial freedom, it offers very little in the way of real variety.  You grab yourself some sort of armor, maybe a self-heal, and one or two big attacks.  The last time I played CO, there wasn't even any real trade off between AoE and single-target attacks, so most builds could make do with one big attack for both roles.  Nothing else really works, or in any event it doesn't work well enough to deviate from the one true approach.  The so-called "action combat," too, is puddle deep: depending on which mood the developers were in at any given moment, builders were either completely superfluous or too damn important.  Either is bad.  Cryptic demonstrably, and understandably, struggled to find the right balance.

 

And all of that's before we get to the overarching tone or atmosphere in the game.  CO, as Zolgar says, lacks soul.  It feels like the phoned-in sequel to a previously unknown author's unexpected mega-hit opus.  This makes CO's aggressively campy tone seem even worse, almost as if the devs were secretly embarrassed by their own lack of inspiration, so they turned to mocking themselves, and by extension the player, to compensate.  In CoH, you play a superhero.  In CO you're just part of a big joke.

 

If all of this sounds hyper-critical of CO, then I apologize.  I really didn't set out to bury the game, which was, after all, made by a studio to which I have a great deal of sentimental attachment.  I've played all of their games, to varying degrees, most recently and most extensively Star Trek Online, which has a bit of the same "happy accident" vibe that CoH had.  Part of the problem with CO can't be blamed on Cryptic; the whole industry shifted beneath their feet.

 

One of COH's great strengths is that you could leave it for a week, a month, or even a year, secure in the knowledge that when you came back, it'd be as if you'd never left (a couple of dramatic balance patches notwithstanding).  There was always a new character concept to try, too.  I stayed subscribed for the game's full live run, even though I took some lengthy breaks, because you never know when you might wanna log in for 20 minutes to beat up some bad guys.  And I wanted to support the game's developers for bringing me so much joy. 

 

By contrast, Cryptic's current games (presumably including CO, even though CO's been in maintenance mode for years AFAIK), all feature the new free-to-play, gotta-log-in-every-day, skinner-box-mentality design.  Everything's tinged with an almost frantic sense of feigned urgency, as if the developers know that the games themselves aren't compelling enough to keep a player who breaks the cycle of addiction/routine.

 

I know that COH probably would have fallen into the same hole eventually, or something like it, but I still can't help giving it credit for avoiding that fate.  In a sense, you could say that CoH speaks to and evokes a more innocent time, and that too is part of its appeal.

 

Finally, I think it's worth wondering whether COH didn't get the best of the Cryptic team when Jack sold the game.  It's easy to forget how long ago that was; Paragon Studios took over fairly early, and the game steadily improved thereafter, IMO.

[PaxArcana]

Finally, I think it's worth wondering whether COH didn't get the best of the Cryptic team when Jack sold the game.  It's easy to forget how long ago that was; Paragon Studios took over fairly early, and the game steadily improved thereafter, IMO.

 

At the end of the day, I think this is the key detail.

 

It explains why CO's design principles are so different from CoX; it explains why CO feels shallow and soulless, such that for many people (my own Lifetime Subscription owning/regretting self included) CO is a total failure and flop ... despite having a lot of points of technical superiority (more varied travel powers; better costume creator; power customization/coloring happened WAY sooner; etc).

[EggKookoo]

I know that COH probably would have fallen into the same hole eventually, or something like it, but I still can't help giving it credit for avoiding that fate.  In a sense, you could say that CoH speaks to and evokes a more innocent time, and that too is part of its appeal.

 

Funny. NCSoft killing CoH was the best thing to happen to it.

[Primantis]

Idle observation:

 

This game SHOULDN'T be better than CO.

 

CO has a more robust costume designer.

CO has more flexibility in character creation.

CO has features that could only have been wished for when CoH was in development.

CO has more action oriented game play with less downtime in combat.

CO is a "next generation" (compared to CoH) MMORPG.

 

 

I'm gonna make a few comments on this. While you are technically correct, the positives are not objective but subjective.

 

"CO has a more robust costume designer."

 

That is technically correct. However the game felt much more limited in costume parts and other ways I can't remember. It took 3 huge steps forward then 1 step back. I also personally thought CoH's costume pieces looked better from an aesthetics point of view. But yes, the costume creation was technically superior due to more attachment nodes and asymmetrical design. Better facial modifications too, even if (imo) all the faces looked rather unpleasant or cheesy. Although at the end of the day, I would give this one to CO, even if I prefer the look of CoH.

 

 

 

"CO has more flexibility in character creation."

 

Also true, but also not entirely good. This lead to several "One true builds" and massive, massive nerfs to everything because all people ever did was cherry pick. When I played, everyone just picked that Land Mine power and filled the empty powers out with buffs or something. It really wasn't as good as it sounded. But from a pure RP perspective this would be a golden goose, yes.

 

Also, some people (such as myself) like identity in our characters. I choose Defenders because I want to be "The Support Guy". When everyone is everything, that identity gets kind of diluted. But once again, that's down to personal preference.

 

 

 

"CO has features that could only have been wished for when CoH was in development."

 

Much of which (Power Customization etc) came later for CoH, and I felt CoH did a better job at it once it *was* implemented. being able to choose where projectiles originated from was pretty cool though, and that never made it into CoH. Outside of that you had Nemesis which was nice the first few times, but I *personally* found it annoying by the time I hit my 3rd alt. New shinies get dull if the base game isn't up to snuff.

 

It also took a step backwards in a few features. I don't recall SKing working nearly as well (if at all??). Teaming was a joke, indoor missions were a joke... I didn't mind the crafting but I know others disliked it. I felt there were too many costume drop/unlocks etc.

 

 

"CO has more action oriented game play with less downtime in combat."

 

Subjectively good or bad. I found the faster combat spazy and obnoxious. Maybe its just my old bones but I'll take CoH's combat over CO's any day. Also, Energy Builders seemed to be counter productive to the style they were going for.

 

 

"CO is a "next generation" (compared to CoH) MMORPG."

 

I cant really argue with this one. CO was a different MMO generation than CoH. But "Newer = Better" is a fallacy.

 

 

 

As an ending note. I pre-ordered CO and played it very early on. I wanted the game to succeed. I wanted it to be great. So I am not trying to dog on it out of spite or anything like that. It had huge potential, but I was ultimately let down by the product.

 

[Myrmidon]

Because it is.