Charnell

Er me?

Technically yes both games are fundamentally different.
But license wise I found it superb. The backstory is coherent and well written and those comic sequences are superb. And there is an almost inexhaustible amount of possible future content.

For me it lies somewhere between arkham asylum and WoW. Plus it actually has some endgame content out of the gates. Not everyones cup of tea but i am very excited about it.

And rather than silly digs such as the tiresome char creator disparaging, realistically it could quite easily bump the whole superhero gaming genre. Comics fans but newbie mmo players could rip through it and then find out about CoH's rich and deep gameplay and decide to give that a try too.

This is a GREAT time for superhero comic book fans. In the cinema superhero films are starting to be a respected genre with actual name actors and directors eager to get involved.

And finally we are starting to get decent superhero games. I see CoH and Freedom Force as the games that set the standard. And now we have Ultimate Alliance, the unmissable Arkham Asylum and the very shiny DC game.

And lets face it, CoH is just a juggernaut. Games come and games go. CoH just keeps on rolling :P

Ok I apologize! Sorry.

Moving on :P
Well I dont want to turn this thread into a DC thread but it is a fact that there will shortly be only two superhero MMOs worth talking about. One has very little and low quality pvp content and the other has imo decent quality and a large amount of pvp content.

But just for reference to the other superhero game and its pvp content-
There has been 2 servers I could play on, pve and pvp.
The only difference i have seen is the pvp server has open world pvp. There are two very large persistant cities and you are free to go wherever you please within them. And as you said this does leave the door wide open for griefing of lowbies by higher characters. You can level quite quickly though in fairness. And I will be interested to see how it all works out in a live situation. But as I said its only a minor annoyance atm. And it is quite fun to be in a quest area and bump into a villain of similar level and have a scrap.

Both servers have instanced pvp you queue for. One set of instances is all pre-made signature heroes and villains you can unlock to use through gameplay.
And there are arenas you use your own toon with. Both have different maps that have control points and objectives. I dont know if there are straight deathmatch type instances but I havent seen any.

The actual combat mechanics are heavily action based. You have powers and a weapon. Combat is usually a mix of firing powers and attacking with your weapon. There is only two attack buttons, melee and ranged attack. And you open up combos that you chain up for different types of effects, stuns, kb, etc.
You dont just lock on a target and button mash and movement while fighting is actively encouraged by the system.

Skill and reflexes do serve you well and it is not that uncommon to see lowbies beating higher levels. I personally took down griefers +5 to my level quite a few times.

I am not listing this info to disparage CoH. Both games are actually quite different and I dont see why both cant live happily side by side as the two main superhero games. Some people will prefer CoH for that classic mmo mechanic and dislike the other for its heavy action based mechanic. And vice versa obviously.

I would love for CoH to have even just a little of that pvp content though. AE options would be nice. Even a queue system for some sort of objective based content. Even just something like safeguard/mayhems expanded into a pvp instance.

And I know that this takes up development time but realistically it is all far from impossible. And really a lot of the content is already out there or easily possible. I know for a fact that AE missions could be pvp enabled. I remember a few times in Prae being on a mixed team and going into a mission only for some of us to get flagged as enemies.

Totally. It was said repeatedly at the time. And there was promises of more to come but with the changes being deeply unpopular and causing so much acrimony obviously the devs just decided to never touch pvp again.

The changes were short sighted and stupid. All we needed were a few tweaks, say the mez change and the defence thing. And some pvp content would have gone a really long way.

But no, hurpy durpy castle had a crazy brainwave of just suppressing everything. To "even" the playing field. And look at how effective it was. We now have the most unblanced and unfair pvp in the history of the game.

The fact that sharks have never been balanced since the revamp shows the devs will never touch pvp again.

And maybe it isnt everyones cup of tea but healthy pvp can serve as end game content for a lot of people.

Ok fair enough but I did post originally in response to Claws making claims about the game> So yeah I expected him to have at least a rough idea about the game. Travel suppression is quite an esoteric point to be familiar with compared to big issues such as open pvp. And seriously how many major MMOs have open pvp across the board? I know there are some but they are either ancient or niche.

And I can empathize with every single point about open PvP but it hasnt been that bad in beta and I know there is always the option of the pve servers.

And as far as I am concerned any superhero based game with heros and villains without a healthy pvp element is always going to fall short of what I personally expect from a superhero based game.

And playing in 4v4 matches as batman fighting harley quinn, bane, etc in arkham asylum is pretty damn SUPERHERO! :P

Amen to what? An ill informed and half *** rant against open world pvp? Why even bother? Just dont play on a pvp server. Problem solved?

Oh is this the point the pvp haters start their usual barrage against anyone who even expresses the slightest appreciation of pvp?

Yeh nice try. If you could have contained your bile for one second and actually thought about it they obviously are going to have the majority pve servers with no open world pvp.

Sounds like the PvE servers would be absolutely perfect for you. No griefing and as much pvp content as you like on your own terms.

For example the signature character pvp is perfect for people who just want to have a fairly balanced pvp blast without spending ages grinding out all the best pvp gear as it uses all pre-made characters.

Sorry that is nonsense. Anecdotal rubbish.

Was only playing it like an hour ago and while there is some travel suppression the pvp is.. Oh jeez i am lost for words here. I cant think of a superlative that can do justice to just how much better the pvp is in that game compared to CoH.

Castle and Posi ruined pvp. Thats it.

And while CoH has come on in leaps and bounds in pve for me that new game is looking a lot more attractive just because they have put a lot of work into the pvp. Powers and mechanics on the whole are the same as PvE. And the open world pvp adds a lot of excitement to lvling and quests. In fact pvp is a huge part of the game. I know that is a crazy concept for a game that is based on comic based superhero's and supervillains. I mean its not like they ever really fight in the comics is it?

Dont get me wrong I have a huge amount of love for CoH and all the hours and hours of fun it has given me. But that other game has got a lot of the Superhero side of things really nailed. The combat is exciting and fluid. No punching thin air half the time. And for me the real clincher is that there is viable and fun pvp. Less costume options I can happily live with.

Well the devs just took an extremely negative and blinkered view of the revamp from the start. They seemed to just outright decide that pvp 1.0 was completely broken across the board. They ignored the experienced players.

PvP 1.0 was far from perfect but it did have some elements that were very strong. The pace was quite unique for example. And although the rock/paper/scissors AT balance could be frustrating there was nothing more satisfying than playing in a solid team taking on huge odds and being victorious through teamwork.
Yet seemingly the devs thought those elements were broken and didnt just nerf them they literally removed them in horrifying ways. In fact the lengths they went to nerf those elements almost felt mean spirited and spiteful in the degree they were destroyed. Lightning fast pace to the bizarre and frustrating suppression system we now have. Where did they get these outlandish ideas? When has suppression EVER been popular?

It is such a shame they made such an utter mess out of pvp as every other aspect of the game is so strong right now.

Yeh i have done similar on some characters with a working build. So in those cases I am happy to have a known good build improved on even more.
On some others like my archery/devices blaster I did some intense shuffling of slots and managed to finally squeeze trip mines/time bomb and smoke grenade in. Only managed to 3 slot trip mines but i put that 3 part KB set in witch also gives a nice little ranged defence boost.

Loving inherent fitness+incarnate slot. In fact the only thing I am wanting is for mids to update with the incarnate slots :P

Have you actually done any respecs? All my i19 respecs have been great personally. I can finally pick some of those powers that tend to get missed out of builds.
I would like more slots but I dont get that feeling any more than pre i19.
And really more slots would just start to make builds pretty dumb. Where would be the fun of squeezing that extra bit of power from a build if i could just slot every power to max?

Worst case scenario is picking a couple of lotg mules. And from my perspective that is a big bonus over pre i19.

Get to 50 asap. There is tons of TF teaming going on. You will be welcome on any TF being a buffer. Save for 50 merits and 20m to convert to a hero merit. Roll random recipes. Sell recipes, I generally get a decent recipe, sometimes 2 every roll. Repeat.

Once you get the merit rolling going you should be able to get a fair amount of influence quite quickly.

I have made a billion in a day just doing random hero merit rolls and TF's.

And if you want a super build with zero end problems etc you will realistically be looking at spending 800m or more. Dont get disheartened tho. 800m is really not that hard to make nowadays in CoH.

I respect your opinion but cant help but find the sound of these TFs attractive. Most TFs I do these days tend to be +0 or +1. Most ppl want their merits/xp and dont want to take longer fighting through tougher mobs to hit a brick wall with an AV.

I remember a while back it wasnt that uncommon to get a PuG and end up on +3 or +4 fighting purples for the juicy xp. Each fight could be tough and would take a little longer to wear them down. AVs could be tough and dangerous.

Now I dont mind playing everything pretty much at even con nowadays but recently I have really missed the challenge of fighting all purples. Enemies just seem to get cut down like grass. Tanking is like herding sheep with very little danger. I even get frustrated as I hardly get to fire off all my powers from my build I spent loadsa time tweaking to perfection.

I can see that for these TFs the old problem of people wanting specific team make ups maybe a problem again, but I can live with that.

I mean are these TFs that point where those people who steadfastly refuse to use IOs and stick with SOs just cant keep up with the builds packed with sets?

Or are they just frustratingly difficult?

Yeh looking forward to some challenges. I like the LGTF for the hami fight. Tough but do-able with teamwork. Last stage of STF I suppose but I dont like how that TF basically forces you to have a granite tanker.

Johnny Alpha. Now that was schocking. I almost cancelled 2000ad for that.

As far as I am concerned they might as well make hasten inherent too. I am happy for you that you dont find it essential for practically all builds. But it is a rare character that I dont take hasten on.

And yes I hate the fire glow. It looks horrible and doesnt really make any sense. I mean the flash doesnt set on fire every time he uses his powers does he?

Ah ok. Still at least we got some i19 movement

Cool. Save me the trouble of installing test stuff :P

Is that US test? Wouldnt mind a look at incarnate system.