Interesting Review on ZAM

After watching his reviews of a few other games I have to say that I don't like the guy and it seems like he didn't give the game as good a review as he should have considering his other reviews. As in he made the game look as bas as he could rather than look at each piece as he had with other games... so meh.

TL/DR version:
The guy makes some valid points pro and con. He also has some criticisms that are completely invalid or can easily be worked around with a little common sense. And he's irritating to listen to.

Novel length:
OK, I get that this guy is presenting a new player perspective on the game. No, I don't know how his reaction to this game compares to his other reviews because I didn't care for his presentation style and didn't want to subject myself to more of it. There are some great aspects of the game that he completely missed, but a new player may miss those at first as well. There are a few things that he mentions that I agree with and a few where I don't think he really had a clue.

Right at the beginning, he mentions that starting in the new area is neither hero nor villain but a neutral area. Later he seems to get confused that the "good guys" are asking him to do something that is "bad" and he has a choice to make. Really? And this is a confusing point for you, so must therefore be a flaw in the mission design...

He talks in character creation of spending "several hours" working on his character design but seems to have spent the majority of it clicking the random button and for all of that settles on a knock off of a trademarked character.

As to his making no mention of power customization, admittedly his primary was pistols, so not much to be done there. On the other hand, he did choose a devices secondary (which does have some customization) although I only know this from the slotting screen. I never actually saw him use a secondary power.

Getting into actual gameplay, he begins by saying "The city is massive with three separate parts, and an underground area" and then uses the mission teleporter to go 700 yards. Correctly observing that the power takes such a long time to activate that he could have walked there by then, he seems oblivious to the fact that it wasn't intended to get you to missions that are across the street.

With regard to instanced missions, he says that the problem isn't so much with the fact that almost all missions are instanced as much as the fact that all instances look the same. I will go beyond agreement on saying that instanced missions aren't a problem and say that I actually prefer that. In other games I've played, it's not uncommon (especially shortly after a new content publish with an influx of new/returning players) to find a line formed to wait for your turn at rescuing the hostage or fighting the named boss. Not a problem with instances. I (and many others) would love for there to be more variety in the appearance of instances, but as he also correctly points out most other games have the same problem. A valid complaint but it is a problem with the industry, not just this game.

Potentially very fast, very fun combat, even at low levels. Point in our favor. And that's about as much time as he gives to this aspect.

Every so often you are given a new contact, and you can even call them up instead of having to run across the zone to talk to them after every mission. And that's actually more time than he gives to that point, but I think it deserves more. Being able to call your contact instead of making the trek across the length of the zone to them every 15-20 minutes is one of the major selling points of this game compared with most of the competition as far as I'm concerned.

Couple of valid points: the fact that captives that you observe fighting an opponent stop fighting and become cheerleaders when you come to help them. Either they should help you fight or they should not be shown fighting to begin with. I can buy that as a valid criticism. Also, NPC's get lost easily. Some other games get around this by putting NPC's on rails, so if you come to a fork in the map, the NPC will always go the way they want, and probably die in the next fight if you don't stick with them. I'm not sure which I prefer, but NPC pathing is something that could certainly stand improvement.

Next comes his criticism of fleeing mobs. Personally, I never saw this as the horrible bane of game design that many other players do. It makes sense to me, for example, that a 6' tall minion who is hanging out with three friends would run when an 8' tall hulking, fire covered hero beats the three friends into pulp in under ten seconds and seems to shrug off being shot. I also take issue with his statement "Now, you've seen mobs get low on health and run in other games, but you've never quite seen it like this!" Actually, I've seen it in other games almost exactly like that. Depending on the AI in other games, sometimes he will agro other mobs and come back with reinforcements, other times he just wants to get away from the guy who was beating the crap out of him. What really irritates me about this complaint from this guy is that he has a devices secondary, which means even at level one he has a ranged immobilization power! If runners are so much of a pain, use the power that will stop them from running! There are means to handle runners and it doesn't honestly take a whole lot of thought or skill to use them. Like I said, I never seemed to have too much difficulty with runners and don't see it as a crippling flaw in the game. Mother always said to bear in mind that not everyone is as smart as me, but I really don't think it takes that much to come up with ways to compensate for fleeing mobs. Especially if your tier 1 secondary is a power designed to do exactly that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zombie Man I think it was clear he was coming back to CoH, but, that it's been so long he might as well be a newb.

Given the amount of time he devoted at the end in complaining about not being able to die from falling damage, I don't think it was clear he was coming back at all. I've started here between Issue 1 and Issue 2 and death from falling was not in the game in all that time. Also in the beginning, he talks about how it's totally foreign to him and he had to figure out the controls, etc before starting. Pretty clear to me that he had no experience with the game going in. Which is fine. Probably even better to get a completely fresh opinion.

Aside from his whiny voice and the fact that he talks way too fast for any kind of informative presentation, he gave that much time to not being able to die by jumping off a building and completely missed or glossed over power customization, being able to call contacts, sidekicking, fast combat, combat using the y-axis and various other features that most of the competition doesn't have or does poorly. This is not a source I would go to in the future for information on any games.

Slug.

LOL, while I kinda dont agree with the things he finds negative about the game. And I think he kinda focuses on the negatives in his review. I did find the part where he tried to suicide his toon at the end hilarious.

He's right about mobs RUNNING AWAY!

Sam, he's referring to this particular reviewer who totally failed to use his ranged attacks and his ranged immobilize power to do anything about runners.

We can launch into personal opinions about game mechanics we do or don't like, but I think your opinion on AI running has been represented.
I'm not going to keep posting about how much I have enjoyed running AI, hehe
At least... I'm not planning on it... Don't tempt me!!

Slug, very well said. I agree completely.
I don't see how it could be seen as a fair/balanced review when he continually slowed the fast paced narrative down to highlight negatives and just casually quips that some things were pretty cool.


However... Benefit of the doubt:

Maybe he got so annoyed by having to create a character, load into the game, change the settings, restart the game in order to just set the resolution and graphics options right.
I think this could be the most valuable aspect of this review. That poor introduction could easily ruin a new potential customer's mindset and outlook on the game.
It's not necessarily the wisest way to be, but a large amount of people will let such an introduction ruin their perception to the point that they'll never let the game rise above that.


Here's the question I was wondering about though... It's been so long since I did a completely fresh install of the game... What are the default settings when you load it up?
I would have thought the resolution would default to the desktop resolution. How would it have ended up so off on his machine?

1) Usually one mob from a groups runs away, but they always come back, though it can take a minute for that to happen. More experienced players can tell which mob is most likely going to run, and target them first. Or take action like using ranged attacks, control powers, etc. I would agree that I'd like to see most enemy groups not do this, but a few should still have the option (ie, Hellions, Skulls, etc)

2) The way the person fights, running around, I fight like that fairly often on some characters, particularly in outdoor missions, for variety, and coincidentally some mobs who would normally run, choose to keep fighting when I do this. I did think find it interesting that he was really impressed with putting recharge enhancements in all his attacks, with and how that sped things up for him and allowed to play in a more exciting manner.

3) He does speak very fast, though perhaps that's because he is of Hispanic descent, but I didn't find it hard to understand him personally.

4) The goofiness at the end with him trying to fall to his death, the character creation comedy, don't really lend anything to the review, which really wasn't that deep of one. However, it did hit some good points. I think the 1-2 minutes he put into it being goofy could have been better spent on other things.

5) The point about not being able to choose resolution in the beginning is really his most valid point, and I think some effort could be put into fixing that issue. Fortunately it's fixable and generally not a problem again on the same system, once you change the settings.

6) I found it amusing that he didn't understand the difference between the Loyalist and Resistance fighters. However, to be fair, you do bad things for good reason, and good things for bad reasons, in this game, so I can see how it would be a little bit of a challenge to understand what you are doing, and how it effects your growth towards being a hero or villian.

7) The focus on the mission teleporter power was unintentionally-funny, and I believe gave the wrong impression of what the power is used for, and the ironic things is the new expansion is designed in such a way where the power is less valuable than CoV or especially CoH.

8) I agree that mobs you are rescuing should help you out.

9) The instanced missions are still preferable to the non-instanced missions of previous generation MMO's and hold up fairly well to existing MMO's. I would like to see more tilesets and more randomized levels, but I don't think this subject was handled too well. The total variety of tilesets, missions, etc in the game are pretty respectable.

My main issue for runners is when bosses or even archvillains do it. Nothing makes an epic fight feel meh like your big bad opponent running like Sir Robin.

I don't really have too many issues with mobs doing it, as most mobs don't get to run off when I'm soloing or teaming. I either don't run into the problem that much or I drop them in time. I'm pretty fast and flexible as a player, though.

But it is an issue, and something odd with the mob AI that really should be looked into. We had that one thread stickied in Player Questions forever about it, so it really should be a priority to do something about.

I do think we need more maps and tilesets, even if CoX is better or on par with most MMOs in this regard. We should blow them all out of the water, especially with how long this game has been around. Content (story arcs and TFs) and maps are a big need for me in game right now, even though GR has tickled this for me some (though a lot of the sewer maps are being overused, even if they are cool).

Sam,

I do see your point and certainly something could be done to make running less of an issue or at least have more of a point. I've often thought that it would be a nice feature if some maps would occasionally have one minion who would try to run to activate an alarm or auto defense system or something. If an occasional runner would make things more challenging, it would have more of a point than one guy running halfway across the map and then turning around and walking back.

As I said, I seldom have an issue with runners and I do tend to favor melee classes like Scrappers or Brutes so I don't usually have a hold or immobilize. I notice you said you tend to play at -1x3, while I usually play at +0/x2 or +1/x2. I occasionally have one runner, but seldom more than 2 or 3 per mission and they are usually dealt with easily. I never encountered a situation where half of the mobs run in every fight. I believe that lower conning enemies are more likely to run. Maybe this is why you see more mobs running from you. I don't know. If half a group will consistently run at -1/x3, that is certainly something that should be addressed.

My point was, when this reviewer ran into something he liked, he would devote one sentence to it, maybe. When he finds something he doesn't like, he goes on and on about it and ignores the fact that he has a tool to mitigate the exact issue he's complaining about but refuses to use it. He was playing a DP/Devices Blaster and I never saw him use a Devices power. When a player completely ignores their secondary and makes a point of complaining about a problem that their secondary can solve or at least reduce, I find it difficult to take that person's criticisms about any other aspect of the game seriously.

Reminds me of a pick up group a friend and I joined at one point early in the history of the game. The Tank (a brand new player to the game) was complaining about how ineffective his defenses were. About halfway through the mission, we realized that this player was not actually turning on any of his toggles. And yes, we did point out to the new Tanker how to better use his powers and he stopped complaining. If you refuse to use the hammer in your toolbox, don't whine about how difficult it is to drive the nail into the wall.

Maybe, like the new tanker, this reviewer just doesn't understand how to use his powers or what benefits might be derived from a power named Web Grenade. If this is the case, he should seriously reconsider his career choice as I don't think he's cut out for game reviewing.

Slug.

A lot of it is mitigated by simply knowing how to play the game. Experience does resolve a ton of issues, because you learn to adapt to the quirks in the game. I didn't mind the criticisms brought up as much as I minded how they were brought up. Some were just silly, and detracted from the more serious ones brought up, as well as took away from the good things that were talked about. The 1-2 minutes of goofing off doesn't really add to anything, and could be used to bring attention to real issues, or provide praise where deserved.

But I find this practice too common, not just in the blogosphere, the online video review sites, and so forth, but in mainstream media on a variety of issues. Quite frankly too few people know how to get to the point. To any point. Video game reviews (particularly in video review fashion) are certainly no exception to this, unfortunately.

So a) I don't think the review was that good, but b) I didn't expect it to be.

If web grenade had anything close to the range of tier 1 and 2 blasts you find in any blaster primary I might give more credit to all the ranting in this thread about how mobs that run away are the players fault.

He slotted a green in Rest, what a noob.

Certainly not a love letter for City of Heroes, but he did raise some valid points, and gave praise at times when it was appropriate. Not the best review, but not the worst. Take heed of the running and video settings issues, as these have been cited numerous times by your veterans in this thread.