I didn't appreciate CoX's innovations until ...
By
AlexEss,
Posted on: 2007-12-26 09:19 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
You wear it marvelously. 
<QR>
As a final point - that list is great, but for every positive, I'm sure I could find a season MMO player who saw it as a negative.
Custom outfits? But how will I know what that character can do?
Instanced content? But that breaks immersion!
No loot? Why would I play?
And so on. It's an interesting thing in MMOs that a number of players out there do actually want every design cliche that the MMO genre throws at them.
[ QUOTE ]
It's an interesting thing in MMOs that a number of players out there do actually want every design cliche that the MMO genre throws at them.
[/ QUOTE ]
And then half of the players complain that "this game is boring, it's just like WoW" and the other half get cranky whenever new players use WoW jargon to describe things. But yeah, the argument for not innovating, even if there is a better way to do things, is that people don't have to learn anything, and are therefore instantly comfortable. So goes the theory, anyway.
I could argue that at this point, anybody who wants a game that's just like EQ/WoW is playing WoW, because that's where all their friends are. If they want to pick up players, new games need to show at least some innovation, offer something that people can't find in EQ/WoW. CoH/CoV does that in spades.
I agree with you OP there Brad .... but I'd like to point out something I'm surprised none of the "old timers" have.
The original version of CoH had Stats, Loot-based increases to the characters abilities [I even think it effected looks], Mission Terminals like in AO, and probably a host of other unmentioned MMO conventions.
I believe it was Jack that changed that version of CoH into the one we have now.
NCIS: Best gorram show in the 'verse.
-------------------------
[ QUOTE ]
Custom outfits? But how will I know what that character can do?
[/ QUOTE ]
Interestingly enough, Everquest 2 is breaking from the mold in that respect with "Apperance Slots". At level 20, you gain these slots which allow you to put anything you can wear in them (Without gaining any benefits from them), and will override the appearance of whatever you have equipped normally. This way you can look cool AND make use of the latest gear.
In retrospect, SWG was doomed from the start. If there is one underlying fact which drives the atmosphere within the classical trilogy era that the game was set within it was that you were living in an oppressive, corrupt, uncivilized, militant dictatorship. That's what the Sith Empire was supposed to be, 'order' through terror and violence. It's why the universe was thrilling to live within, it's why the rebels existed, it's why people want to blast stromtroopers, it's why the Emperor and Vader were such good villains.
The thing is though, if you create an MMO where the players feel that they are being persecuted by the NPCs and 'the system' then they become unhappy usually. However Starwars fans WANTED to immerse themselves in a universe where things were unfair because it was authentic and justified the core aspects of the storyline. But it would have scared off casual gamers and such because if you were finding your business being harrassed by the Empire, find yourself being stopped into the streets and thrown in prison or fined for the smallest crime. Or being hunted down like a dog for even being suspected of any involvement with the rebels then you'd get sick of it all in the end.
The classic era SW was all wrong for an MMO and the devs ended up creating a fluffy-bunny version of Starwars where you could go to the Imperial palace on Naboo and see ALL of the major charcters within a few missions. Fictionally, it was all wrong and I feel the same way with having the main leaders of Arachnos all together in an office in Grandville where your average player can wander in and see them all at once. Frankly it would have been far more convincing to have Mako in a fortress on Sharkhead surrounded by guards, Black Scorpion in a facility in Primeva which is also a major robotics research facility, Ghost Widow deep within Fort Cerberus and Scirocco holed up somewhere in St. Martial. Lord Recluse should be the only person in the tower at Spidercity and he should be behind tons of security and never deal directly with villains unless they have proven themselves. Infact all of the signiture characters should have their sidekicks initially deal with new villains who have been newly sent to them.
But anyway, I detract. What I was going to say is that I'm looking forwards to the new Old Republic Starwars MMO because the setting of the Republic vs Sith Empire conflict is perfect for an MMO and can be authentic to the full without creating an unpleasent MMO environment.
[ QUOTE ]
Just wanted to add one thing that often seems unappreciated: ease of targeting.
[/ QUOTE ]
Ye gads, of course! Targeting in this game has me so spoiled it's not even funny. In my brief try of Lineage 2, by far the MOST annoying part of my game was targeting the enemies. There, you target with the same mouse button you move your character, and if you miss the enemy character's (surprisingly small) click box, you end up running towards them without having them targeted. I've had enemies beating on me for upwards of 15 seconds without me being able to respond because I'm clicking around the enemy like a man possessed, trying to get a lucky shot and target the gosh-dang thing! Or if, in a melee, I accidentally click on something else, like a team-mate or another enemy, I can just forget about re-targeting what I was originally attacking.
Add to that the fact that activating your auto-attack didn't always cause your character to approach (seemed to be somewhat inconsistent), meaning not only did I have to HIT the enemy with my mouse to select, but I also had to hit again to cause my character to approach.
Here, we have a gazillion methods of targeting, the simplest of which (and one often overlooked) is just activating a power that needs a target. The game ships with the single best targeting system of not just any MMO, but any RPG I've ever seen. You have Tab to serve as selection method to tab through all enemies in view, and you have your target-based powers to select the nearest target. We all take this for granted, but it is a REAL pain when you end up in a game that doesn't have that.
Quote:
|
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.
|
<qr>
Reading about all the differences between MMOs like WoW and EQ to CoH made the most hilarious image pop into my head. A lot of people have mentioned that CoX should advertise more. Well, here's an idea for NCSoft, and they can have it free and clear.
Remember the old Warner Brothers cartoons with Sam the sheepdog and Ralph the wolf? They would clock in every morning before starting their jobs as predator and guardian. ("Morning, Ralph." "Morning, Sam.")
Imagine a "nonspecific but obviously representing other game" character and a CoX character both clocking in before going off to do their 'jobs' and the conversations they could have.
"Morning, Captain Extraordinary."
"Morning, Gruntblarg."
"I'm off to cut my way through hordes of <insert critter here> to reach my goal, then I have to stand around and wait for the Killer Rabbit to appear, then fight my way back to the wizard to give him its ears. It's gonna be a long day."
"Gee, that's too bad. I'm going to fly over the valley full of trolls and go into a cave where I know I'll find the Bad Guy. Then I'll call my contact on my cell before hitting a party at the dance club. But have fun with the, er, waiting around."
"Home is where, when you have to go there, they have to let you in."
Speaking of Flight and other travel powers, how many other of the older single-planet-based games allow 100% access to all areas of the board? One thing that annoyed me about Guild Wars and some other MMOs is that you have to stay on invisible paths even though you can see scenery in the distance and no obvious barrier to block your path! Heck, being able to jump an obstacle and keep moving is pretty awesome 
DestineeFable's Guide to an MSTF run (fixed!)
My latest AE madness
I couldnt have said it better myself
I came from WOW and before that I played Dragonrealms, AO and UO.
The cell phones, leveled instanced missions and 3-d travel all blew me away.
And don't forget:
FREE EXPANSIONS
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Sidekicking and Exemplaring: A friend just pointed me to a blog in which a bunch of current and former MMO programmers are arguing about MMO design theory. And one of their most prominent articles, one they put a permanent sidebar link to, refers to the insoluble problem in all MMOs of what to do if you and a friend want to play together, but your friend has more time per week to play than you do? Pretty soon he's higher level than you; you can't survive his missions, and if he joins you for your missions, neither of you gets any XP. And I read that article, literally just the other day, with a kind of sick fascination. How could all these veterans of the industry not know that this problem got solved three and a half years ago?
And the funny thing is, an exemplar/sidekick system like yours is something that would be even easier to implement in every other MMO in the market. In every other game on the market, most of your combat stats are derived from character attributes that go up more or less linearly per level, and from the stats on equipment of whatever level you're using, which also increase more or less linearly per level. This means that for them, adding the ability to sidekick up to a friend's level, or exemplar down, could be added with not much more than one line of code, not counting the code to track distance between the mentor and sidekick. Because of the freeform power selection, City of Heroes has to memorize what order you picked your powers in, store that information as part of the character data, and adjust your power list on the fly as your level jumps up and down. (I do go back just barely far enough to remember when this didn't happen.) You went to the trouble of doing it, though. That's nothing less than amazing, now that I realize it.
[/ QUOTE ]
To be fair, Everquest II does have Exemplaring. Multiple higher level players can exemplar down to one low character's level and the low level character will earn bonus experience for each mentor. The mentors also earn experience, but at a reduced rate.
[/ QUOTE ]
Didn't EQ2's exemplar come after the game came out? It is nice that other MMO's are copying some stuff from CoH finally 
(meant that in a nice way)
But as for the OP's post, I agree on all parts. I've yet to find an MMO that satisfies me like CoH/CoV has. They all copy every bad thing about an MMO too much and hate it.
This space is intentionally left blank.
The only thing the poster left out about CoH/CoV is that the powers you get as you level are game changing as opposed to other games where the skills/attributes you get a enhancements.
This applies to both MMOs and solitare type games. Getting a bonus to damage to your sword or spell is nice but since mobs just get more HPs after 10 levels of that is isn't as exciting as all that. Same goes for more armor, etc.
In CoH when you get a new power you usually get some crazy new animation and the power usually has multiple effects you can often use in different ways. So you not only have more power but you LOOK different using it and may start playing the entire game slightly differently.
Powers like Ice Slick or Tier 9 powers can change the game a LOT. Example Dom/Controllers: 32 levels into the game and suddenly you have a powerful pet(s) and can play very differently. Yeah I'll take that over 5 more pts damage to all attacks any day. 
----------------------------
You can't please everyone, so lets concentrate on me.
(quick reply to the thread in general)
Great posts here. What I would like to point a bit more is the instancing. It not only gives you your own personal instance (which is as mentioned a great thing, I never wan't to enter a zone again and do an "/ooc Camp check"), but the scaling content:
You feel like soloing, no problem, mobs spawned in nice small sizes. You feel like grouping with your friends, hey no problem at all, the instance scales accodingly. That is amazing to me. Throw in the difficulty slider, the Lt/Boss/EB/AV scaling... and it's just perfect
@Generic Post: Yes EQ2 added the 'mentoring' equivalent after CoH had it.
[ QUOTE ]
Didn't EQ2's exemplar come after the game came out? It is nice that other MMO's are copying some stuff from CoH finally (meant that in a nice way)
[/ QUOTE ]
True, true. However, I do find I prefer EQ2's variant. You have access to all your abilities (albeit scaled down) and you still gain exp (albeit at a much reduced rate). You are scaled down to a character more powerful than the "average", but with the much reduced exp gain, that's not a big problem. And the person you're mentoring gets extra exp. I think exp debt is handled the same, though given that you gain less exp while mentoring, it's potentially more painful.
I've spent days mentoring friends in EQ2, even though I wasn't earning near as much exp as I would be if I weren't mentoring. I don't particularly like mentoring in Co* because I lose access to abilities and I don't believe I gain any exp. I don't mind doing it for a specific mission or something, but certainly not the days-on-end fun that I've had mentoring guildmates in EQ2.
Losing access to my powers is the prime reason why I don't like exemplaring in this game. I can handle getting no experience, I can handle being weak. But each character I have, I build with a particular playstyle I evolve, and that playstyle changes as new powers become available, often making it inapplicable when these powers are taken away. It's an unpleasant experience.
Quote:
|
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.
|
[ QUOTE ]
Losing access to my powers is the prime reason why I don't like exemplaring in this game. I can handle getting no experience, I can handle being weak. But each character I have, I build with a particular playstyle I evolve, and that playstyle changes as new powers become available, often making it inapplicable when these powers are taken away. It's an unpleasant experience.
[/ QUOTE ]
Same here (though I wouldn't spend days and days mentoring someone with no exp). I build my characters to get the boring "stuff" out of the way first (things like auto-powers and defensive powers) since those levels go by the fastest and put off getting the "fun" stuff till later on when levels drag more.
That means when I'm exemplared down, I'm stuck with boring powers and no exp gain.
I agree with Sam and Leatherneck. The exemplar system is nice but too restrictive. I can deal without gaining XP, I can deal with losing some powers but both...eh, I'd rather play content at my character's actual level, frankly.
My limited experience with other MMOs has remained limited for all of the reasons you listed. It will remain so until someone makes an MMO that learns from the lessons CoH taught us 3 years ago. And that isn't set in yet another Tolkien rip-off world. I like swords-and-sorcery, but I'm getting tired of the same old thing.
Not only did I find myself agreeing with everything you wrote, but when I was done reading it I thought; "Man. I wish I'd said that." Excellent work sir.
I hope the devs read your post. After free beer and hookers I can't imagine a better Christmas gift for them than your post.
Edit: Typos
Quit complaining about post length. Your ADHD is showing
There is no such thing as an "innocent bystander"
[ QUOTE ]
No Attribute Points: In hindsight, I don't know how I failed to notice they were missing. But I never felt they added anything to the other games; they were one more way to accidentally gimp your character by not making the right choices. Attribute points are a hold-over from the earliest primitive editions of D&D, where every character had more or less the same armor and weapons and where your attribute points were the only customization there were. Where you got the guts to drop them completely from this design, and how you stuck to your guns when NCsoft management almost has to have leaned on you to put them in? I have no idea. But thank you for the courage. You removed some highly unnecessary complexity.
[/ QUOTE ]
I just wanted to say: As a DIE-HARD CHAMPIONS gamer, I loved my stats and wish this game had them.
But overall agree with your sentiments on the whole, it has made the game easier ..... checks typed resistances and positional defenses and accuracy and recharge .... oh wait, regeneration and recovery and runs off to read Arcanaville's defense post for the umpteenth time.
No inventory (really, it's not inventory - it's specialized slots. You can't, for example, store an inspiration in an enhancement slot), no equip slots (like head armor, primary hand slot, etc) and no attribute stats (strength, intelligence, etc) was a big change when I started CoH way back when. I'd come from EQ, DAoC, AO, etc.
[ QUOTE ]
The only thing the poster left out about CoH/CoV is that the powers you get as you level are game changing as opposed to other games where the skills/attributes you get a enhancements.
This applies to both MMOs and solitare type games. Getting a bonus to damage to your sword or spell is nice but since mobs just get more HPs after 10 levels of that is isn't as exciting as all that. Same goes for more armor, etc.
In CoH when you get a new power you usually get some crazy new animation and the power usually has multiple effects you can often use in different ways. So you not only have more power but you LOOK different using it and may start playing the entire game slightly differently.
Powers like Ice Slick or Tier 9 powers can change the game a LOT. Example Dom/Controllers: 32 levels into the game and suddenly you have a powerful pet(s) and can play very differently. Yeah I'll take that over 5 more pts damage to all attacks any day.
[/ QUOTE ]
Good point. In WoW, for example, you do get some new abilities as you level up, but most of them are just improved versions of older ones. It's certainly not comparable to getting an entirely new ability almost every other level.
"I'm sorry. That data is SuPer-Admin Restricted Desktop Access password-protected."
"What!? This is madness!"
"No, this is SPARDA."
I think this thread should be required reading for all MMO developers.
--NT
They all laughed at me when I said I wanted to be a comedian.
But I showed them, and nobody's laughing at me now!
If I became a red name, I would be all "and what would you mere mortals like to entertain me with today, mu hu ha ha ha!" ~Arcanaville
[ QUOTE ]
No Attribute Points: In hindsight, I don't know how I failed to notice they were missing. But I never felt they added anything to the other games; they were one more way to accidentally gimp your character by not making the right choices. Attribute points are a hold-over from the earliest primitive editions of D&D, where every character had more or less the same armor and weapons and where your attribute points were the only customization there were. Where you got the guts to drop them completely from this design, and how you stuck to your guns when NCsoft management almost has to have leaned on you to put them in? I have no idea. But thank you for the courage. You removed some highly unnecessary complexity.
[/ QUOTE ]
In a sense, they didn't so much remove them, as hid them away. "Attributes" exist in two forms in the game. First, there are the generic archetype modifiers, which play a role similar to general attributes in other game designs, but the players don't have direct control of them. They are frozen in the archetype modifiers, when you choose an archetype.
Then there are the more dynamic attributes, like tohit, and damage strength, and regeneration. These "attributes" we do have control over, but not by directly manipulating numbers on a screen, but via powers. That abstraction, where the intrinsic ability of your character is improved by the use of powers, is an especially interesting one to me. It was the one place where the devs' original "hide the numbers" philosophy generated a win. Its much more interesting to create a character as a set of powers, than it is to create a character as a set of numbers, even though ultimately both play mechanically the same way.
After all, what is RPD but a way to "+1" your damage resistance? What is tactics but a way to "+1" your dexterity? They might have totally messed up the math, but the concept is very sound. Give people powers to use, instead of points to allocate, and let the game engine figure it all out.
[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]
In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
(Please support the best webcomic about a cosmic universal realignment by impaired angelic interference resulting in identity crisis angst. Or I release the pigmy water thieves.)
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
this thread has some serious walls of text son
[/ QUOTE ]
They're called paragraphs dad and they are used to separate out various ideas so they are easier to read. Not every thought can be explained in one single uncapitalised line.
[/ QUOTE ]
I'm actually being slightly sarcastic as a true wall of text doesn't have paragraph breaks, therefore the walls of text present in this thread are extremely unsound and I would never use them for support. Just a fair warning.
[/ QUOTE ]
Ahh, I apologise then - I'm currently tired and surly!