Pros and Cons of CoH: A Video Review
By
Airhammer,
Posted on: 2010-09-06 13:43 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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He still did a better job coming into the game cold then you did as a "vet." You're looking at competing with hundreds of other online reviewers, dozens like BFF that are sponsored by companies. Name one reason why I should go to your site for your review over any of these other people? I didn't see that reason in your review. If anything, I saw a reason to never watch another review from your youtube channel.
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Originally Posted by GKaiser
Not really. I actually play the game when I review it, not just jerk around in it for a few hours like most reviewers.
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He have body by superadine?
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Originally Posted by Chyll
Just reading the comments and the semi-evasive responses from the OP tells me all I want to know.
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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An authority on why I have very little interest in playing it further? Yes it does. Like I said in the review, if I wasn't reviewing it I would have stopped at level 35 because that is when I became very bored. I had to force myself to keep going. Are you trying to suggest I don't understand why I don't like something?|
Originally Posted by Lord_Thanatos
Yes 97 hours in a game that has existed for 6 years makes you an authority on the game.
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And as for my claim of a million + subscribers in other games....uh, there's no backpedaling, those are facts.
Some people don't agree with my conclusion. I knew that before I even made the review. It'd be more helpful if you explain why you like the content I don't like, rather than try to dismiss my reasons for disliking that very same gameplay by trying to claim I'm ignorant and stupid and so forth. Because trying to prove I don't know what I'm talking about isn't gonna fly, because I do. The only difference is you like the stuff I don't like.
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I was not power leveled to 50, as the footage attests to. You should really stop making assumptions.
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Originally Posted by Golden Girl
Well, getting PLed to 50, and then spending the next 90 hours running around looking for leet endgame PvP can give you a certain outlook on the game, I guess
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Facts that you don't care to acknowledge aren't quite the same league, or are mostly Asian, or free to play (hmm, don't have to pay a sub, why might someone go there...) |
Originally Posted by GKaiser
An authority on why I have very little interest in playing it further? Yes it does. Like I said in the review, if I wasn't reviewing it I would have stopped at level 35 because that is when I became very bored. I had to force myself to keep going.
And as for my claim of a million + subscribers in other games....uh, there's no backpedaling, those are facts. |
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| Some people don't agree with my conclusion. I knew that before I even made the review. It'd be more helpful if you explain why you like the content I don't like, rather than try to dismiss my reasons for disliking that very same gameplay by trying to claim I'm ignorant and stupid and so forth. Because trying to prove I don't know what I'm talking about isn't gonna fly, because I do. The only difference is you like the stuff I don't like. |
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"Some"? |
Originally Posted by GKaiser
Some people don't agree with my conclusion.
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| trying to claim I'm ignorant and stupid and so forth. |
Seriously, if you're going to do such a one-note review, you really need to do something to give it more variety and life, otherwise, it's just going to come across as embarrassingly incoherent trash.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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I'm just trying to copy your unique research style.
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Originally Posted by GKaiser
I was not power leveled to 50, as the footage attests to. You should really stop making assumptions.
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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This here says what's wrong with your review.|
Originally Posted by GKaiser
Because Going Rogue has new content that is uniquely different than existing content, right? I mean, oh boy, a new zone just for people who are level 1-20! A couple more hours worth of flavor texts structurally identical to every other quest in the game! What fun!
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You're looking at City of Heroes like every other MMO, where you have to rush rush to the yayo, I mean, level cap to start enjoying things, dismissing missions as 'flavor text' and saying that the new missions are the same as the others in the old game, the issue 0/6 content?
I -wish- some of the mission tech from i18 made it into i0/6 missions. I wish some of the i0+ missions had the story writing that the i18 (and even the i6) ones did.
To put it quite frankly? You're playing the game wrong.
That's it pretty much.
The fact you got from 1-50 in 97 hours doesn't say much to me about the kind of gamer you are, except that you grind and grind and power level and then moan how it 'isn't fun'.
Know how long it took me to get to 50 on my first character? One and three quarter years. I did missions, task forces, levelled other characters, got badges, talked to people, and dinged fighting a huge freaking snowman atop Portal Corps roof.
That, to me, was fun.
If I'd have ground my way there? Then I would not have found that fun.
This new expansion, I have 9 characters I've been playing through. Some soloing to explore the new content (that you dismiss as flavour text) through the different paths available, and only three so far are at 20, and I've not even left Praetoria with them yet, I go and help others team if needed, or roleplay, or badge hunt.
What do I do with my 50, all these years on? Play new missions when they come out, badge hunt, help friends, tinker with the build, and ponder about earning inf, salvage and recipes to start on IOing her up beyond Common IO's. And it's fun.
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I'm not writing my own review, I'm giving feedback about your's.
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Originally Posted by GKaiser
It'd be more helpful if you explain why you like the content I don't like, rather than try to dismiss my reasons for disliking that very same gameplay by trying to claim I'm ignorant and stupid and so forth.
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I'm not trying to change your mind here. I really don't care. I am just wondering why you don't back up your 'facts' with any empirical evidence. Please link me to a game, other than WoW, that has more than a millions subscribers. Also, please compare apples to apples here - that means pay to play games and not free to play. |
Originally Posted by GKaiser
An authority on why I have very little interest in playing it further? Yes it does. Like I said in the review, if I wasn't reviewing it I would have stopped at level 35 because that is when I became very bored. I had to force myself to keep going. Are you trying to suggest I don't understand why I don't like something?
And as for my claim of a million + subscribers in other games....uh, there's no backpedaling, those are facts. Some people don't agree with my conclusion. I knew that before I even made the review. It'd be more helpful if you explain why you like the content I don't like, rather than try to dismiss my reasons for disliking that very same gameplay by trying to claim I'm ignorant and stupid and so forth. Because trying to prove I don't know what I'm talking about isn't gonna fly, because I do. The only difference is you like the stuff I don't like. |
Geez, what kind of schooling are you taking? Not to be rude here but you can't make all these types of claims without referencing or proving them. Any level of university teaches you that. Should we do this in forum posts? Nah. However, when trying to do a serious review then maybe you should. Again, it supports my theory of you making a very so so effort with this review.
You ignoring GR, or even mentioning it, also is a major indictment of your objectivity and ability to review.
After reading a lot of this thread, it seems you are not interested in feedback and just get very defensive. Some of the posts are a touch unfair to you, granted, but you really need to 'man up' here and take your lumps when putting yourself out there with this type of review. I suggest you read some of these comments in this thread and take them to heart if you want to be taken seriously.
I wanted to post and say,
1) I agree with you that players lie about what they want. They'll say they want instantaneous travel between areas, but then when given it they'll complain the game world is too small. They'll say they don't want forced/encouraged PvP and then complain that it's dead. I'll accept that sometimes it's two different groups that will never get along, but I think theres also a large percentage of people who think they'll like something or want to like it but really don't.
2) I can't agree with your comment about inventions costing 100million. By level 27 I was able to have all my slots filled with basic inventions for damage/resists/accuracy and what not that did not have to be replaced every level. However this was accomplished by making a million or two influence on the auction hall. It was easy enough to look at what items had high numbers of bidders but few being sold, take my one of those items, place it up for a high price, and wait a hour(or day) for it to be bought.
3) The game does have a built in system for finding a group. You click, "Team", click to set yourself as "Looking for any", and set your message. The problem is a lot of people don't use it or forget to set themselves for what they are looking to do(missions/patrol/task force/any/pvp). I think this further supports that people don't always want what they think they want. You said the game needed a system to find groups, it has one, it just doesn't work because no one uses it.
The rest of your review I thought was accurate. The missions repeat themselves a lot, there isn't much difference between fighting a minon and fighting a boss besides health, and the enhancments needing to be replaced every 3 levels(which only takes a group or two) seems unnessessary. I think you could have afforded to talk up the positive features of the game though. Such as the ability to group with anyone of any level at any time using the sidekick/exemplar feature. If there are only 8 people on the entire server, those people can group, no matter what level they all are, and still be an effective team. This should be a standard feature in MMO's to prevent friends from being unable to play togather.
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I already talked about why "Free to play" doesn't matter. Players playing the game costs bandwidth. Like it or not those games are more commercially successful than CoH is. But this isn't about them, it's about CoH. |
Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
Facts that you don't care to acknowledge aren't quite the same league, or are mostly Asian, or free to play (hmm, don't have to pay a sub, why might someone go there...)
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| No, sorry, you don't know what you're talking about, and you've made that clear with your replies here. You also refuse to admit that, frankly, the review starts biased and stays that way - it's blindingly obvious within the first minute you're not interested in reviewing the game, you aren't coming to it neutrally, and the review is going to reflect that. |
I also rolled a new character, so the experience is more similar to that of someone who may be coming into the game not knowing anything about it.
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To be fair your review kept on implying that WoW was so much better than CoH so it's easy to see where we'd get the idea.|
Originally Posted by GKaiser
Also, your ability to make wild and incorrect assumptions such as that I'm a WoW fanboy makes you a winner.
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And I'm kind of curious here, but I've seen people complain that CoH hasn't fundamentally changed its playstyle over the years. Do other games do that? I mean I made a hunter in WoW when it first came out and didn't really have a lot of fun, then I tried it again before that last expansion came out and it was the same exact game I'd played before but with new races that played almost identically to the others. EQ didn't fundamentally change in the couple of years I played that and DAoC stayed the same in spite of all the endgame content it added over the course of my five years there.
It was all the exact same thing. There was just more stuff to do and occasionally some slightly different ways to do it and that's what CoH has picked up.
You also did your credibility a slight disservice when you only played the old-school CoH story-arcs instead of branching out into CoV or the newer areas. The zone design and quest layouts have drastically improved over time and the TFs start to get more complex than just 'hit that one guy a lot until he's defeated'.
Your review also completely ignores the planned inclusion of endgame content in the next and future issues and you didn't even mention the expansion even though it came out several weeks before your review was posted. You didn't have to dwell on it, but just a sentence letting viewers know about the recent and upcoming change and acknowledging that certain aspects of your review might be different than what you experienced because of that.
MA Arcs: Yarmouth 1509 and 58812
On a (probably) final note, it seems pretty clear that you didn't discuss GR because you never played it. I'm basing this off your initial server screen showing all green dots and you stating that all the servers are empty. I'm guessing you got your time in before mid-August and never bothered to do anything to include GR at all.
Again, from a reviewer, this is just pure laziness and as good a sign as any that this isn't someone to take seriously.
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I played EQ from pre-Kunark to early 2009. It was the same game the whole time -- just more mudflated as time went on. Not that it was a bad game (heck I played it for ten years) but it never really innovated itself.
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Originally Posted by Oliin
EQ didn't fundamentally change in the couple of years I played that.
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You have probably spent more time playing with the auction house than I have, or had better luck with salvage than I was on whatever server / time I was playing. I was able to sell items on the AH, but I definitely did not make 1 million from selling stuff I was already in my 40s, and that was from Archvillain drops and rare recipes. At level 50 a lot of the pre-30 mats didnt even sell and I had to basically throw them away so I could put up mats I could sell. |
Originally Posted by Norrec
I wanted to post and say,
2) I can't agree with your comment about inventions costing 100million. By level 27 I was able to have all my slots filled with basic inventions for damage/resists/accuracy and what not that did not have to be replaced every level. However this was accomplished by making a million or two influence on the auction hall. It was easy enough to look at what items had high numbers of bidders but few being sold, take my one of those items, place it up for a high price, and wait a hour(or day) for it to be bought. |
If we are to consider enhancements are "gear" like in most RPG games, I believe the acquisition of gear upgrades shouldn't be terribly painful. A big problem with just making some low level IOs is the bonuses don't increase to match the character's level, which is needed for how enemies are balanced. Because of the limited salvage space, it's more of a pain to make IOs than it should be given how replacable they are.
Ex. Having lv 20 IOs for your Defense enhancements isn't gonna help you a lot against level 30+ enemies, and you're gonna get hit more than you should be for that level.
So while the bonus from an IOs cannot be outleveled, you need to replace them anyway because the bonus they give is too small against higher level opponents.
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| 3) The game does have a built in system for finding a group. You click, "Team", click to set yourself as "Looking for any", and set your message. The problem is a lot of people don't use it or forget to set themselves for what they are looking to do(missions/patrol/task force/any/pvp). I think this further supports that people don't always want what they think they want. You said the game needed a system to find groups, it has one, it just doesn't work because no one uses it. |
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| The rest of your review I thought was accurate. The missions repeat themselves a lot, there isn't much difference between fighting a minon and fighting a boss besides health, and the enhancments needing to be replaced every 3 levels(which only takes a group or two) seems unnessessary. I think you could have afforded to talk up the positive features of the game though. Such as the ability to group with anyone of any level at any time using the sidekick/exemplar feature. If there are only 8 people on the entire server, those people can group, no matter what level they all are, and still be an effective team. This should be a standard feature in MMO's to prevent friends from being unable to play togather. |
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That's kind of my point. The only game that I've ever played that (to my knowledge) actually changed its gameplay was Star Wars Galaxies. I think we're all aware how well that turned out.
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Originally Posted by Jophiel
I played EQ from pre-Kunark to early 2009. It was the same game the whole time -- just more mudflated as time went on. Not that it was a bad game (heck I played it for ten years) but it never really innovated itself.
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MA Arcs: Yarmouth 1509 and 58812
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Yeah, it does. Lvl 20 SOs are 80% equivalent to SOs at your current level. Given that the game was based around SOs, you're not really much of a hit to be using lvl 20s and you should be moving into higher level IOs simply by playing the game.|
Originally Posted by GKaiser
Ex. Having lv 20 IOs for your Defense enhancements isn't gonna help you a lot against level 30+ enemies, and you're gonna get hit more than you should be for that level.
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| So while the bonus from an IOs cannot be outleveled, you need to replace them anyway because the bonus they give is too small against higher level opponents. |
This thread is an interesting commentary on the review process.
Honestly, i think this sort of back-and-forth could happen about a lot of reviews. Most reviewers, however, would not put themselves in the position for it to occur (not that they necessarily should).
I have not watched the review, not do I intend to. I do think it is unfortunate that the reviewer opened himself up to criticism but seems unwilling to accept it. There was a feigned interest in comments in the first post, everything since has been troll protocol.
Sermon
@sermon
One of Six, Cannibal 6
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Feedback on your review:|
Originally Posted by GKaiser
Hello. I have a web show called The RPG Fanatic where I review computer rpg games. I decided to make CoH my first MMORPG review and while I had played the game before (in Dec 2004), I recently re-visited it, playing from level 1 to 50. After doing this I concluded that CoH has some innovative game design elements I wish other MMORPG developers would incorporate into their designs, but CoH also lacks a lot of content I expect an MMORPG to have today. I dissect the game in the review.
I will be reviewing the Mission Architect system in an upcoming review, and thought some of you might like to see my review for the game overall and add your comments. I might include and/or respond to some of those comments in my next review for the MA system. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waClZLJdIvk |
1. Tone is very unprofessional. I don't know where you've been educated but in every *professional* outlet I've ever done presentations, I have never used swear words. It significantly diminishes and takes away from your presentation and has me immediately questioning both your credibility and etiquette. Learn to present in a professional manner.
2. Your review was poorly researched and shows bias. I won't go into all the details you got wrong, but let me say that there were several laugh out loud moments where you made assertions that were either outright false, exaggerated or poorly researched. There's no way it will take you 30 minutes to swap out enhancements. For someone like you who claims to have an extensive background in playing MMOs, the SO system of enhancements is one of the easiest, simplest enhancements systems out there. You have either exaggerated, didn't get your facts straight or you just don't know how to play.
Believe it or not, I'm being kind here. If your review was posted in a more professional medium like a game review magazine, the criticism of your exaggerations and falsehoods would be far more scathing.
3. You do not have a background in game design, software development or journalism, and it shows. Game reviewers, the good ones at least, know where to draw a line and criticize the game as "unfun", "difficult" or "poorly implemented". However, they do so from the perspective of a player. If you do not have a specific background in game design, you should not make game design criticisms, largely because you are ignorant about the underlying balance issues and mechanics. It would be as if you were someone who criticized the engineeering of a car without having the foggiest idea of the engine or transmission works. Sure, it is fine to review how the car looks or how it runs, but there is a line.
4. When reviewing a game, you need to review it in the current state not how it was back in the day. There were many updates to this game that you apparently missed that could have been rectified simply by reading the patch notes or consulting one of those online websites devoted to CoH that you say don't exist (http://www.paragonwiki.com).
My grades of your review:
Presentation: B-
Professionalism: F
Research: F
Objectivity: D-
Dude's pitstains are totally showing.
Ad hominen attack, i know, but still...
-STEELE =)
Allied to all sides so that no matter what, I'll come out on top!
Oh, and Crimson demands you play this arc-> Twisted Knives (MA Arc #397769)
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I do think WoW is better designed than CoH. WoW still has a lot of design elements I highly dislike and is why I'm not playing it anymore.|
Originally Posted by Oliin
To be fair your review kept on implying that WoW was so much better than CoH so it's easy to see where we'd get the idea.
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| And I'm kind of curious here, but I've seen people complain that CoH hasn't fundamentally changed its playstyle over the years. Do other games do that? I mean I made a hunter in WoW when it first came out and didn't really have a lot of fun, then I tried it again before that last expansion came out and it was the same exact game I'd played before but with new races that played almost identically to the others. EQ didn't fundamentally change in the couple of years I played that and DAoC stayed the same in spite of all the endgame content it added over the course of my five years there. |
Using WoW as an example (only because I think most people are familiar with it), WoW has changed substantially over the years, to the point its target audience isn't even the same audience it as when it first launched. This can be seen in the raid and pvp design; sure, leveling was much easier than say EQ and the penalties for death were much less severe, but it was still very much for a hardcore gamer audience. It's become much more casual friendly in recent years, with optional hard modes for the hardcore players. The newest expansion is completely re-designing the original game content to follow the new design philosophy.
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| You also did your credibility a slight disservice when you only played the old-school CoH story-arcs instead of branching out into CoV or the newer areas. The zone design and quest layouts have drastically improved over time and the TFs start to get more complex than just 'hit that one guy a lot until he's defeated'. |
Forcing myself to play a hero from 1 to 50, I had no desire to roll a villain from 1 to 50. The game isn't working for me and I listed the reasons why.
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| Your review also completely ignores the planned inclusion of endgame content in the next and future issues and you didn't even mention the expansion even though it came out several weeks before your review was posted. You didn't have to dwell on it, but just a sentence letting viewers know about the recent and upcoming change and acknowledging that certain aspects of your review might be different than what you experienced because of that. |
Wow you are still online. Just wanted to leave a comment for your video review. You made a video about the flaws of city of heroes and you threw it into the den of coh fanbois. You know you are gonna get flamed right? I can't wait until you make a video about the flaws of world of warcraft and throw it into the wow forums. If you're actions are for hilarity of seeing rabid fanbois flame you while frothing at the mouth smashing keys on their keyboards then bravo.
Like what i read on the first page you got a few things absolutely right and missed a few updates to the gameplay. Some things you try and diagnose about gameplay.... why? Its a wasted effort to try and fix gameplay when you havent grasped all of the essence of city of heroes. All of this oberservation im giving is vague i know, but its just not worth it to give you criticism of your flawed points.
Im not flaming you, its just your method of review can be improved upon.
My Pre-Order Coh box.
My character in coh beta.
My character in a coh beta mission.
MISSION. Not quest. Quest is for a fantasy game. MISSION in City of Heroes. The fact that you persist in calling missions "quests" shows that you don't even give a rat's *** about the game at all.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork