I'm a little disappointed.

Let me say beforehand that this is not a whine, rant, complaint or demand. I don't mean to start an argument or even to vent. This is just something I feel I need to say, because it's been bothering me for a while.

You know, it's funny. I've been with CoH since a month after release, and with CoV since Beta. I've gone through changes by the dozen. I could have complained and ranted about so many supposed "nerfs" and ballances, but I never did. I suppose I didn't really care. No, after coming on two years, I have to be stuck up on cosmetics.

I'm really beginning to be disappointed about where CoV is going. When I got the game, and when I played it to some level in Beta, I was convinced I would have the same artistic freedom in crating and shaping characters as I did in CoH. That has turned out to not be the case, and the freedom that initially sold the game to me is disappearing before my eyes.

Once upon a time, City of Heroes allowed me to create a character - any character I like - and outfit them with generic powers that fitted a broad range of concepts. Somehow, no-one ever fealt the need to make the powers feel "good" or "heroic." We weren't made to shoot stars and stripes, and were weren't expected to throw rainbows and unicorns at our enemies. On the contrary, we had fire and brimstone, evil dark energies from the neatherworld, leather weapons, sharp pointy sticks. Sure, out costume selection was kind of sparse and pretty generic, but it made for good superheroes.

And yet CoV has not gone down the same path. With the very launch of the game, we got a wide assortment of "evil demon from the deepest depths of deep hell here to krush kill and destroy" costume options. Ah, well, it takes all kinds, right? Can't argue with a few more specific and menacing costume options, and in all honesty villains needed those costumes, because a lot of the concepts required them.

Then I am told we will be getting something called Patron Powerpools, instead of the Epics I was looking forward to. Unlike the generic and easily applicable Epics, Patron Powerpools turned out to be highly-specific, hard-coded into the storyline, and based on our service of a patron. That took a axe and applied it to just about any artistic freedom I had planned, while at the same time removing what I expected would make a no-brainer transition. That was disappointing.

And just yesterday I realised that the new electric brute powers I had been looking forward to will be red. Red is evil, I am told. Yes, the "I R Evil!" sort of evil, I will agree. Certainly more evil and less refined than I had in mind, and a lot less applicable to my plans. Can I make it work? Sure! That's the easy bit. But it just won't be as cool. Not even half as cool as I had hoped. That was disappointing.

And those have just been the most major moves that have disappointed me. There are little bits and pieces that add to the matter. In the end, I still like CoV. It's a great game and I will go on playing it. But my enthusiasm for it is now gone. Not one thing that expected or hoped for came through. Instead, a lot of what came through was almost exactly the opposite of what I wanted and expected. In a sense, now I'm being drawn back to CoH, where I could build my characters just the way I wanted them, without having them coralled into the theme of the game. Even though CoH's systems are now old, and it hasn't been significantly updated, it still has that which made me buy the game in the first place, and it has that which the developrs saw fit to not carry over to CoV. The two games are becomming far too different for my tastes, and all these differences are countering points that sold the game to me.

In the end, I'm just disappointed. I no longer have any hope for the future, nor for any future updates. Nothing I have hoped for has materialised in the last year. I'll keep playing and having just as much fun as I had before, but I no longer expect that fun to be extended or expanded by any Issue I'm likely to see. And I didn't use to feel that way.

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Well maybe after I7 they can start working on being able to make the powers custom. Like being able to choice what color lighting you fire or what not. That is what I hope at least of course as you know this has been said to be working on and back burned several times.

I agree. The devs have tied the high end of City of Villains too strongly in with the overall story. Which is curious since up until the 40s, you've been able to avoid stories that don't fit your fancy without too many drawbacks.

The story of MMORPGs should be background. A canvas in which to tell your own stories. In some ways City of Villains is very good at that. The contacts for the most part have discreet adventures that are specific to their locality.

The Patron Pool system needs to coexist with generic Ancillary pools. For both games. A Ms. Liberty pool might be very cool.

As for ole Electric Melee/Armor, what can you do? The developers like red. I'm still trying to figure out why Energy Melee is red in both games.

You've said what I've been saying for weeks now: you've just done it with more class, less rancor and an abiding enthusiasm for CoH which I am slowly losing.

I'm losing it because the promised features---promised since mid-beta CoH, mind you, have either been axed outright or displaced so far in the future that they have become moot.


The direction of CoV is baffling to me on a certain level. I tend to over-analyze, of course, but to me, it seems Cryptic has decided to revert to arcade-stype, FPS gameplay in order to appeal to a younger audience. I dare not use the 'adolescent' word for fear of unwanted consequences.

So, FWIW, I agree with you completely and hope you recover your enthusiasm in CoH.

Cal2

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I'm losing it because the promised features---promised since mid-beta CoH, mind you, have either been axed outright or displaced so far in the future that they have become moot.

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God forbid they take their time or have priorities. You want Skills? They want Skills to be fun.

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The direction of CoV is baffling to me on a certain level. I tend to over-analyze, of course, but to me, it seems Cryptic has decided to revert to arcade-stype, FPS gameplay in order to appeal to a younger audience. I dare not use the 'adolescent' word for fear of unwanted consequences.

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...buh? Are you complaining about Mayhem Missions?

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Sure, our costume selection was kind of sparse and pretty generic, but it made for good superheroes.



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I'd have to call you on this point. Of course, its a pretty objective decision, but you'd have to be a very, very harsh judge to have called the CoH costume creator 'sparse and generic' before CoV came out.

To be honest, this point was really driven home yesterday. A friend of mine came over to visit, and so I played an old character he made. An old Ar/Dev blaster that I stopped playing at the eve of Issue 2. Just planning what I was going to do with that blaster had me salivating. I have all the AR attacks, everything from Devices up to except Time Bomb and Auto Turret. I was just thinking ahead, planning what else I was going to take. Body Armour - great, he wears power armour. Freeze Ray and Whatever Gas, even better, he uses the same assault rifle. LRM - the cherry on top. A tech-looking powerful attack to add to Flamethrower and Full Auto.

And then I came back to CoV and started playing. I was trying not to think ahead, because I knew what the 40s would bring me - nothing. I'd have all my powerset powers by 38, so what else would I take? Kick, Tough, Weive, something else I haven't decided on. Extremely underwhelming. So much so, that I really don't want to think about it, because it's depressing.

Building characters and playing them was my draw to this game. Playing them can always be adjusted, but building them just makes me compromise more and more until I just give up.

I don't know what they were trying to acheive with CoV. In all honesty, I don't know what is so different about it. But what I do know is that everything in CoV is several orders of magnitude more specific than it is in CoH. I just don't want to be turned off a good game for a reason as stupid as red electricity or something like that. Because there is no reason for it to BE red other than to make it look like evilnessnessness. And that is disheartening.

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

So what your complaining about is the Permanent aspect of Patron Pools? Thats what I see from your second paragraph what most of this complaint revolves around.

that and he doesn't like red lightning.

/violin

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I'm losing it because the promised features---promised since mid-beta CoH, mind you, have either been axed outright or displaced so far in the future that they have become moot.

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God forbid they take their time or have priorities. You want Skills? They want Skills to be fun.

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The direction of CoV is baffling to me on a certain level. I tend to over-analyze, of course, but to me, it seems Cryptic has decided to revert to arcade-stype, FPS gameplay in order to appeal to a younger audience. I dare not use the 'adolescent' word for fear of unwanted consequences.

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...buh? Are you complaining about Mayhem Missions?

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*hides behind Lord Recluse, quivering with dread*

No! never! Me? I'm not guilty of such heinous outrage!



Cal2

I think I won't level up my 40s, save for Sixteen of Clubs. I hate the Patron Pools, so I will simply avoid playing the characters that I don't want to be tied down with. I sincerely hope that, I believe it was Castle that said this, they are rethinking the Patron Pools.

If not, meh, I'll play my one Brute, and then play my Electric Brute. Then, I'll probably meander back to CoH.

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I think I won't level up my 40s, save for Sixteen of Clubs. I hate the Patron Pools, so I will simply avoid playing the characters that I don't want to be tied down with. I sincerely hope that, I believe it was Castle that said this, they are rethinking the Patron Pools.

If not, meh, I'll play my one Brute, and then play my Electric Brute. Then, I'll probably meander back to CoH.

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Now, with this, I can /agree..with just a few alterations in AT choices.

Cal2

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So what your complaining about is the Permanent aspect of Patron Pools?

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Close, but you're way off. It's the specific nature of the power pools, not the permanence of the patron decision. In CoH, you can make your own concept and then tailor your power sets to it. Electric Fire Guy, who has electric and fire sets for his primary and secondary or vice versa, and can get some cool supreme fire or electric powers with the epic pools at level 41. In CoV, you can do the same thing with your primary/secondary ... and at level 41 you get to choose between having a giant techno-mace and shooting sharks from your hands. Or just not taking the 'ultimate' powers at all. It's a rip. I agree with him wholeheartedly. When powers get that specific, it is no longer really your character. We all have to be little Mako Jrs or Ghost Widow Jrs if we want to do the high end content.

No it appears that he is complaining that he doesn't want to play to the world background. I can understand that, and COH has more freedom to ignore the world story in that regard.

I'm not certain I agree though. I've seen people in the pen and paper games I play who try to play something out of sync to the campaign and its just odd too experience. That is what this kind of complaint always strikes me as. That and looking at it objectively there will be a way around it down the road. We will be able to switch sides at some point, so what you do then is switch to hero and select one of the power pools available, then switch back. You have just avoided taking a patron power pool.

I actually like that the COV campaign is a bit more structured, I know that this is a sore point with some. But we are not playing any old villain in COV, which seems to be what some are asking for, we are instead playing villains in a specific setting.

I have one toon that taking a patron power won't affect my concept all that much. That is one where the set will fit in with a little crafty wrangling of my mind. That would be the Mu set on my MM. bot/bubbles. So that is one.

But I can't see my NB/Nin Stalker taking any of them due to story or my brute for that matter. I mean a Soveit created Ninja via a little radiation exposer firing Chum Spray and Sharks from his finger tips just does not mesh. Neither does calling the dead souls of fallen defeated and so on and so fourth.

Its kind of like other games, Where you go out for the best weapon all happy when you pulled it off. Walk into town ready to show it off and what do you see? Everyone has the nice shiny club you got that does the same damn thing.

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I actually like that the COV campaign is a bit more structured, I know that this is a sore point with some. But we are not playing any old villain in COV, which seems to be what some are asking for, we are instead playing villains in a specific setting.

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I agree with everything he said. I honestly don't see what's so limiting about making characters in a shared setting. I must have made twenty-five villains so far all with very different backgrounds and yet I have had zero problem making their backgrounds unique while still making them Arachnos-friendly.

Maybe it does come down to whether or not you were ever a pen & paper role-player. I expect to have my characters have to fit into someone else's world, and I expect the challenge to be making a creative and unique character while preserving the elements that have been set in common. For me, that's part of the fun - how do I integrate this into that?

I also think the red lightning looks cool. Part of being a long-term comics nerd, though, is expecting the same energies to be different colors. I even expect energies to have colors that don't make any sense at all. I can think of two related characters off the top of my head for whom sound is pink. Does that make any sense? No, of course not. Why the hell would sound have a color? 'Cause it's a comic book, that's why. Bad guys with red lightning doesn't faze me at all.

Be nice once you can customize power coloration, though. That would be even closer to the source material.

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And then I came back to CoV and started playing. I was trying not to think ahead, because I knew what the 40s would bring me - nothing. I'd have all my powerset powers by 38, so what else would I take? Kick, Tough, Weive, something else I haven't decided on. Extremely underwhelming. So much so, that I really don't want to think about it, because it's depressing.

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This sounds about right. I opened up my hero planner the other day to figure out what I was going to do with my brute in the 40s, since all the patron pools left me with a feeling of "bleh". I stared at it for about 10 minutes, and closed it. I feel like I'm more interested in taking my brute to 50 just so I have a level 50 villain, than I am in playing him through the content, and that bothers me.

I think what amazes me the most is that even after all the great QoL improvements that drew me to CoV in the first place, I apparently seem to prefer the poorer QoL in CoH to CoV, cause it's just a more fun game to play. My SG has moved back almost completely to the hero side, and the only time I spend in the rogue isles lately is to painfully try to level my dominator to 40 using PUGs and warburg missions since there isn't nearly enough 35+ content.

Oh geez, Posi and them already said they will look into it. The reason they couldnt do it differently right away was because of the fact they never put tech into CoH/CoV that allows you to completely breakoff a contact and lose any souviners/story arc progress.

My guess is that it isnt a quick week job to do something like this hence why they had to go with this now and then take the time to work on the tech that allows you to break contacts completely and have no recollection of ever being with that contact or something similar.

Do as you want. Its your $14.99 a month. But don't complain about there not being any content to use on your villains

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The two games are becomming far too different for my tastes, and all these differences are countering points that sold the game to me.

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Wow. Normally you get people complaining that the two games are too similier. This is a first for me hearing that their too differant.

It's one thing to have a well realized world that requires some concept adaptation to make your character fit (my usual experience with pen-and-paper). It's another thing to start a campaign from the get-go with well defined character limitations (OK guys, I have a great campaign idea for a party of all paladins). It's another thing altogether to create a game with the illusion and expectation of incredible character freedom. There is nothing in CoV's character generator to imply that we should make our characters a certain way, or design them with certain motivations in mind. And remember, many of us are CoH vets, so it is natural to look forward to the same level of character freedom. Yes, Kalinda's briefings do a fine job at introducing us to a more focused setting, and I bought into all that no problem at release. So far, so good - but telling me that, in an upcoming patch, my character, who I've already established and fleshed out the concept for over the past 6 months, is now going to pretty much have to choose between having fish powers or ghost powers ... it's a little insulting. And the "If you don't like it, just don't play the endgame!" rationalization is plain feeble.

I'm not saying omg cyrptic i quit. I'm just disappointed, like Sam is.

[Edited for duhhhh English usage.]

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Do as you want. Its your $14.99 a month. But don't complain about there not being any content to use on your villains

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Why not? If the content isn't compelling then you have every right to complain. For instance the newspapers are technically content, but in practice it's little more than street sweeping in a mission.

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No it appears that he is complaining that he doesn't want to play to the world background. I can understand that, and COH has more freedom to ignore the world story in that regard.

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When CoV started you had exactly one starting contact, and that was to follow Recluse.

Now there's two Recluse's Kalinda and the more mercenary path.

It's possible, and this is what I'd be begging, hollering and yelling for, an extension of what they already started which would be an alternate, non-Arachnos aligned means of getting 40+ powers (hopefully the Epic sets).

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Do as you want. Its your $14.99 a month. But don't complain about there not being any content to use on your villains

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Why not? If the content isn't compelling then you have every right to complain. For instance the newspapers are technically content, but in practice it's little more than street sweeping in a mission.

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I'm just gonna stop replying in this thread. I dont even know what im saying right now, just way too much stress over me at the moment...

I agree with the OP's sentiments. No matter how much I enjoy the game, the way that CoV
handles the storyline has always left me feeling a little patronized.