Pros and Cons of CoH: A Video Review

I'm not exactly saying I think you should have reviewed it because it would have made a difference, I'm just saying it's the sort of thing I think should be acknowledged in a review of a game is all. You know, "Game A has B, C, and D problems and did E right. They released a patch/DLC/expansion last week that I haven't had time to play but supposedly had F, and G as features which sadly would do little to address the game's problems. They've also recently announced patch/DLC/expansion X that they say will address issue D but we'll have to see about that."

The missions generally have some new skins that get reused a lot and I don't know that the new 'tricks' you'll see would qualify as the missions being any different than they currently are. They do have a couple interesting new twists in a couple of the bigger boss fights, but I don't remember exactly where they are or I'd point them out to you.

My understanding of it is that the MA system is actually an outgrowth of them improving their own internal mission creation tool. When they had the idea to improve theirs, they decided to give us a dummied down version of it ... or something along those lines. Theirs is supposedly a more robust tool. They have more events that can trigger ('It's a trap!') and more control over object placements for instance.

Everyone knowing how to do the puzzle, and getting a whole party of people to do all the steps in the correct order, are two completely different things. It's the difference between throwing a ball at a wall by yourself and playing football with a team. Totally different experience because the mechanics are different.

I know a substantial portion of MMORPG playerbases like to solo. That's fine. However, online games biggest selling point is the multiplayer aspect. I do not play online games to play by myself; I have a vast library of single player videogames for that, all of which offer more challenging solo gameplay than any MMORPG to date can offer. I believe this is true for most gamers.

However, teamwork gameplay has a totally different appeal because it's a team. I can rock hard in a single player game, but I can't share that experience with anyone else. In an MMORPG you can. However, if the challenges aren't appropriate for a team, it becomes boring really fast. The game becomes more of a graphical chat room, where people spam buttons and talk, and you get more xp but you don't feel like you've really accomplished anything.

Oh, I absolutely get what you're saying. You say the game didn't address all of your points with GR. I disagree. A lot of what you wanted may not be there but GR did get a couple of your points. However, that's not my issue here or in my previous post. So, let's try again.

A competent review will look at significant aspects of the game. GR is significant and I think we both agree. You didn't try it out or play it and just made the ASSumption it's the same old, same old. In some ways you could be right but you don't know for sure. You never played it! Get it? In order to have a competent review, you have to review the material Did the light bulb go on? I hope so. You can't claim you've reviewed a game when you didn't even explore one of it's two major expansions! That should seem obvious to you but it isn't. This is a tip, in general, for you to apply to any and all future reviews. I hope you take the suggestion to heart.

I don't quite get your 'nice try' comment. I only suggest you remove your review for your own sake. I am, in no way, a complete fanboy to this game. If you look at my history of posts, I have some very critical ones. I would like to see the game improve. It has the potential to be so much more and might be in the near future. GR isn't great but it's a definite step in the right direction. You may want to try it someday. Not for your review but for you. It's obvious your review is very weak. Call this a lesson and maybe one day you'll put together a legitimate review.

PS - if you think Scrapper and Stalkers are nearly the same....well...you really have no clue about the intricacies of this game. You just validate my feedback: you don't know the topic well enough

Okay, let's try this again using an analogy.

I review a toaster called Toastinator 500. I give the toaster a bad review because the ******* thing doesn't even work.

You point out that my review is bad because the newest model of the toaster, Toastinator 500-A has an additional setting just for toasting bagels. I point out that Toastinator 500-A still doesn't even ******* work, but you don't care because I didn't talk about the option for toasting bagels.

Does that make sense to you?

Going Rogue did not address any of my complaints, so it doesn't change my review in any way, shape or form.

As for Stalkers and Scrappers....seriously? "Oh, Stalkers look invisible and can do critical sneak attacks on enemies, and are slightly less defensive!" Give me a break. Almost identical powersets and serves same role in a party. I honestly think Stalkers are slightly cooler, but again, they serve the same party role.

you dont accomplish anything in a game, that is what jobs, education and relationships are for, games are fun diversions to play. but i digress, so the Variety and curveball is simply that your team might goof up and screw things up for you, and you have to talk them through the standard action template? excuse me while i trip the light fantastic . sorry but that is utterly unconvincing. telling me that fun content is content that throws needlessly convoluted boss switch games at me that i then have to bludgeon people into following is, to me, less of an impetus to team up than having everyone providing some viable addition to the team but nobody is required or its a no-go. instead i can pick up a group of my choosing and not worry that, dearie me, we dont have a preset amount of dps, therefore we cant pass, instead i can pop on LB tell anyone who feels like teaming that i'm running an x and can pick the first 7 people who seem fun, not sweat over constraining gameplay limitations. you do seem to fear socialization, were you bitten by an rp'er as a small child? flawed analogy, the toaster does not fulfill its most basic function, coh does, its a playable video game. if it were that binary you would not be having this discussion. now if you said the toaster didnt work because it doesnt have a specific browing function, then your analogy would be less off.

Basic IO's and salvage are quite cheap. No where near "millions of inluence."

There are a few very powerful IO's that are in high demand by even high level folk. Yes, these are worth millions. No they are not required to play. No you cannot compare a simple damage IO to a Miracle +Recovery.

For people who aren't great at making money, all these IO's (except epic) are available for purchase for merits.

Compared to what?

Every RPG game has a variation of "upgrade and enchant your equipment." CoH's enhancement system is simplistic and not time consuming. TO/DO/SO's are all quick and easy to buy from a store and slot up your character. IO's take a bit longer, but then they never degrade.

So really you have no argument here, especially compared to other games and the amount of time it takes to upgrade, enchant and gem every piece of your armour and weapon.

This is subjective. Also inventory space gets bigger as you level, and can also be increased through achieving certain badges and goals. In my inventory I have space for 80 salvage and 29 recipes.

Would I be against front-loading the inventory space so you earn 80% of it by level 20? No, but you aren't here making reasonable criticisms or suggestions.

Subjective and you are entitled to your opinion. There is quite a bit of variation in my view. Plus this is an old game, it very much depends on what "era" the missions you are trying to do are from. Classic missions from when CoH launched are very boring. There is a clear improvement however. CoH has improved a lot from those days and the more recent the mission - the better it is generally. Take the Going Rogue missions which are lightyears apart from what CoH released with.

Now criticisms about repetitive mission maps is something you will get quite a bit of support for, but unfortunately you do not pick and choose your criticisms wisely. People will not respond kindly to just blanket whines about everything.

Its true that CoH is not a very PvP focused game and again that is a criticism that could stick if you decided to word it appropriately.

Subjective but something some people would agree with you on. However do games need an endgame to be good games? Can a game be good without it? CoH is very much about the journey not the destination, an approach I take with all my games. If you are inclined to rush through levels to get the 'peak', you will be disapointed in CoH that is true.

Its worth noting however that end game content is in the works. So we will see how that turns out.

This is subjective again, I actually like the boss fights in CoH. Sure the AV/GM fights are a bit naff and that would be a valid target for criticism, but for solo and small group play they are fun and interesting.

And what is your point? If you look to other games, the developers actively encourage this through such things as talents. This is not unique to CoH, why pretend that it is? Almost every RPG I have played has pre-requisites to abilities. If you don't like the pre-requisites, then that is just too bad.


Well like I advise all naughty children, you should probably go away and think about what you've done.

You've created a highly critical video of a game which has a very devoted fanbase, and then posted it on their general forum. What were you hoping to achieve? This is not a critical analysis of a game, it is a pure whinefest which is embarressing to watch. I feel really sorry for people who view this and then believe this is what the game is actually like. Then again, anyone with sense wouldn't take a word of seriously considering how unprofessional it is. :-)

If I didn't know better, I would say you are deliberately trying to cause a flamewar. I look forward to seeing responses to your future work; when you post such videos on the corrosponding general forum for the game you just shamelessly and cluelessly bad mouthed.

And there goes your credibility as reviewing for new players. I'm a veteran here and it took me A WEEK to get done with Praetoria. I'm not sure what you're doing to get through it in a single playsession, unless that's a 24-hour playsession, but it ain't casual or new-player-like.

Besides, if you out and out discount the expansion which brought so many new players to the game, I dare say any review you make is going to be useless as a review. You can't pick and choose what you want to include and then claim you're objective. Don't work that way.

*edit*
Also, unless you assume that people are idiots, you don't need to call missions "quests." I'm pretty sure any person who speaks English will be able to understand what a mission is, and most WoW players call their dungeons "instances" anyway.

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.

Ok then, in order:

No
You yourself mentioned it wasn't a problem at low levels, but also no change later on.
No
Fixes it for 1-20
No
Future endgame content is supposedly only available if you've purchased GR
Somewhat, yes.
That's a fairly standard MMO mechanic, but no.
There's an extremely small number of fed-ex missions and they added in a couple new mission maps.

That reminds me. Have you ever done a mothership raid in the Rikti War Zone? It's one of the more 'standard raid' type things in the game. You take down the pylons to lower the ship's shields, then you fight off waves of Rikti on the ship while you break down doors into the ship and plant bombs which cause the GM sack of HPs to spawn. You have to do it all within a certain amount of time or the shields go back up teleporting away all the people on the ship. The GM isn't terribly interesting, but the raid itself is interesting and usually is one of the fastest ways in the game to get vanguard merits which you can use to buy some nifty stuff.

You just don't get it. It's cool. I get you believe the game is whack because of your noted criticisms. I get it. I've said that. That is your opinion. For anyone to take you seriously, you need to research the item a bit more so there is some credibility to your claim.

Let's try one example: GR. One of your gripes: lame bosses. Well, like I said, bosses aren't too complex in GR or CoH. Some are different but not enough. Not sure why that is. Anyway, GR has added some changes to the mechanics of mobs in missions. The odd ambush; options part way through that effect the mish; different aggro mechanics and room design. So, while the bosses are kinda the same, the missions have given us a new wrinkle. It's not huge but it's there and kinda fun. You would not know this nor can you comment on it because you didn't even try it.

Your broken toaster example isn't even relevant here. Do yourself a favor and learn how to analyze feedback. It's not all good or valid but this thread has generated some obvious flaws with your review. You have dismissed all of them. Dude, seriously, it's a terrible review. You have noted a lot of concerns I agree with but what you presented was not a review of the game.

A week to go from level 1 to 20?

I'm sorry dude but I can no longer consider your opinion valid. If it took me a week to do that using the old CoH missions, I would never have gotten to level 50 after 2 weeks of re-registering.



Review is 100% valid because Going Rogue didn't change my criticisms.

You need to have a valid opinion yourself before you can discount Sam's valid opinion.

Your bias opinion is valid in your mind. Wow. Your video is valid because GR didn't change any of your criticisms. Astonishing. You know, it may not but you can't make that claim because you didn't experience GR Did the light go on yet?

I find you a very interesting topic today. Not sure why...but it baffles me how you are so adamant about your 'review' being accurate and dead on. I am assuming you're just out of high school or something because your thinking is very clearly flawed in analytical terms.

Yep. Go on....

Is it in the game right now? Yes or no?
Do we ACTUALLY HAVE ANY FREAKIN IDEA WHAT THEY WILL RELEASE? Yes or no?

If both answers are 'No', then my question about new endgame content is NO, ISN'T IT?!


It's all 'No', so please stop grabbing at straws.

If I recall correctly, it's one of those random zone events where you don't get xp for killing anyone until you have wasted an hour of your life and actually completed it. And the rewards are random salvage otherwise obtainable from clearing missions with enemies who do give xp, or costume pieces I could care less about.

Am I close?

If he is saying it took a week to go from level 1 to 20 in the brand spanking new zone when I got to level 20 within 7 hours of play using the original CoH content that is much more spread out, uh, no his opinion does not reflect the experience of a new player. I do not know how long he played for that week or what the hell he could possibly have been doing, but it doesn't seem to be right to me.

And that is reflective of the new player experience how, exactly? I didn't do anything to slow myself down. I soloed my way through all of the missions, a few hours a day while at the same time exploring the new landscapes, chatting with friends, working on costumes and designing new characters. You're a jaded veteran, and that's fine, but don't be a hypocrite by hiding behind the "new player experience." It's been three week or thereabout now, and a lot of people on my Global list are still playing characters in Praetoria.

Methinks the problem is you.

Whether it affects your review or not, you are obligated to include it if you want to have a claim at an objective review, which yours isn't. If you want to go on a rant about the game, that's fine, but don't pretend you're doing fair and objective criticism, especially since new players HAVE TO START IN PRAETORIA. Period. The point of a review is to give people a comprehensive look of what the game has to offer, and just because a piece of content doesn't affect your pet peeves doesn't mean other people wouldn't want to know about it.

If you want to be Yahtzee, then at least stop pretending you're being fair, because Yahtzee has made it clear that he isn't fair to the things he reviews in the slightest. In fact, after his positive review of Psychonauts, he basically swore off doing positive reviews ever again because his audience did not take it well. But you are no Yahtzee.

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.

He could have...you know...not played it hardcore like you did?

It took me about that putting a new character through Going Rogue but then I work eight hours every day and have other commitments.

Sorry but not everybody is as hardcore as you, you're may be a 'new' players to CoH but you're a hardcore grindathon veteran player with MMOs.

If that is your playstyle, I will definitely say that CoH is not for you.

completely wrong on every level, you get exp from every opponent, in fact i leveled my night widow from level 38 to level 39 last one and some teammates leveled several times. the rewards are whatever drops(rikti bosses are plentiful, thus a rare drop is possible) and vanguard merits, which you can get from regular content but at a significantly slower pace, that you can turn in for expanded salvage space, a very large and powerful pet(a vanguard heavy, a big honking robot), or some temp powers, i think there isa grenade and a psi defense thing, but im foggy on those two. as well as some costume pieces. oh, and its could not care less about, if you could care less then you are saying that you do care some..eh, im not going to fix the hindenberg with a soldering iron.

in fact, we dont have any content where you get no exp for beating enemies, even pvp and exemplaring, what the hell are you on about there?

Try replying to my previous post, I thought it was quite reasonable and I even tried to be a tad constructive.

7 hours a day is considered hardcore, and only do-able for me because I had a break that month from semesters. 3 hours a day would be my average. I've cut down considerably on gaming given my college classes are rather time consuming even out of the classroom.

However, less than 7 hours a week is like way beneath casual gamer expectations. Sure, developers like it since it means they dont have to work too hard to maintain those kind of players, but as I pointed out it is hard to maintain an online community who supports both casuals and hardcores if you don't satisfy the hardcores.

Also, WoW is not coming to you. WoW has 10 man and 25 man raids, and PVP events that rely heavily on teamplay dynamics. The difference is WoW gives casuals a reason to interact with the rest of the community. CoH might have a healthy forum community, but inside it's not so lively.

I was about to make the same comment but you got to it first. Bang on. Another glaring error made by Mr. Sweatpants. The kid is given feedback and then comes back with even more fodder for us. This guy has destroyed his credibility and yet he goes on. Amazing. Some uneducated, inexperienced guy spewing on youtube...that's what it is. It's not a review at all

There are multiple teams on the go in Praetoria right now at 230am PST. Another swing and a miss by Mr. Pit-Stains.

coh has done so for over 6 years, and still has not fallen beneath 50% of its launch population, a trick a lot of recent large budget games would envy. and you are missing my point, sam and i arent desirable because of short play spans, we are desirable because we have been paying customers for over 6 years, that is considered unusual in the mmo-sphere, and its the customers that devs want, the loyal ones that can make nice static income numbers for the company.

as the former lead developer said when he became an active competitor to coh, the game has a high retention rate of players that we "will not leave" you have no idea how much other mmo devs would like that, you dont need expensive advertisement campaigns to get us because we are already here.

edit, jaz, lets not go for physical appearance shots, its mean,please? thanks. deconstruct his reasoning, instead, it is currently set on -1 X 0 difficulty

We actually beta tested a chunk of the alpha slot functionality in beta, but it wasn't tied to any content at the time, which is what they've added for I19 (unless they've reworked the whole system which I doubt). Also I answered your question fairly nicely I thought. We don't have it now but unless you have GR you won't be able to get the endgame content they're adding in the future.

I take it you're assuming that you're assuming their version of endgame content is just giant bags of HP like the old-school AVs instead of looking at how they've been trying to give us more 'traditional' trick based AVs lately and thinking it's likely to be something like that?

But it's not all no. The mission design for the new content in GR is vastly improved over the old content, they added several boss fights in that new content that have previously unseen 'tricks' to them like Metronome and Vanessa DeVore and the general enemy difficulty's even higher than it was previously. Heck, one of your more notable complaints that I can recall was all the fed-ex quests which are almost nonexistant in GR.


No, not terribly. Vanguard merits do drop of regular rikti, but it's a fairly low chance in missions versus almost always during a raid. Also it's costume pieces as well as a variety of temp powers and the ability to increase your salvage inventory.

You might be thinking of the Rikti zone invasion, which incidentally does also give badges (and exp) which will give you psi-resistance accolade power.

The specific system mentioned (Incarnates), is not in currently. There's also not a hard release date other than "Fall 2010".

As for the other endgame content, there are plenty of Task Forces and Strike Forces, Trials, and oh, yeah... there's that whole Cathedral of Pain Trial that takes a few teams working in coordination that came out with Going Rogue (and with coordination happens quickly, and without it falls apart). But I suppose you already knew about all of that, since you "did your research".


No. It's not a random zone event, and you DO get xp for killing things before "completing" it. Why don't you learn something about the game before you try to come up with an "objective" review?

Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.

Originally Posted by Brillig It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.