Comic Con Reveals

Originally Posted by Archon Helios

Archon here in San Diego after coming home and relaxing from preview night of Comic-Con. Out of everything there, I spent most of my time playing and trying out the new Freedom version of the game. I enjoyed it so much I couldn't help but share what I've found and collect more data as Comic-con goes on.

First we'll start with what everyone is most interested in. The new powerS. That's right, plural. I didn't try out Time Manipulation, but I did play with the other two sets, Beam Gun and Street Justice.

Beam Gun is a single target focused power set that acts as a primary for Blasters and Corrupters and secondary for Defenders. The damage numbers look low, but the set relies on a special debuff that makes Beam Gun powers deal significantly more damage, somewhat similarly to Sonic Attacks. Expect more details on exact powers in a future post. Beam Guns are primarily Energy damage.

Street Justice is a combo-centric melee power set for all the melee archetypes(Brute, Scrapper, Stalker, Tanker). All the powers have their own secondary effect as opposed to other sets like Dark Melee that focuses on to-hit de-buffs. Most of the set's powers and combo points that make your Finisher powers stronger. This isn't the same as dual blades in that it's not going toward a buff, but almost like a Rogue in WoW. Street Justice is mostly Smashing and Lethal damage and the attacks are punches and a couple kicks with some lighting effects.


The next important part of Freedom is the freedom to make any non-epic archetype either a hero or villain. This is a choice at level one and allows players to by-pass Going Rogue, making the expansion a tool to switch sides and an interesting story mode.

The choice to be on either side comes from the new tutorial that is for all archetypes. Galaxy City is under extreme Shivan attack. Both Arachnos and Long Bow are on the scene trying to drive them back. A new super powered person trying to save your earth from invaders, you fight your way past the Shivan till you find a hero nearly dead on the ground. You are given the choice to save(hero) or leave(villain) the man on your way to the center of the Shivan invasion. Inside you fight waves of Shivan much like the events in Praetoria until a giant Shivan pops up. Fight him till he crawls away and you can now move on to the newly renovated Atlas Park and Mercy Island.

Yes, I said NEWLY RENOVATED. I don't have a lot of details because I spent more time going through the tutorial with different characters, but new graphics, some NPC replacement, and a lowbie trial are to be expected. Yes, they turned the Sewers into a trial. It takes about 45 minutes, but you get 4-5 levels out of it. Not quite the lvl 1 to 8 grinding it used to be, but that's what we get.

With a new business model comes a new way to spend our money. City of Heroes will have an in game shop where all the current booster pack costumes and possibly other content will be obtainable. Part of the new tutorial actually teaches you how to use it by having you "purchase" a free medal from the shop.

The final stop on this post will be the biggest. A new character creation interface. I'll divide this into page by page sections so it's more organized, but before we touch on those I must say the look of the interface is much fresher and more appealing.

1st- You select either Going Rogue or Freedom and your character's origin. Unless you select an origin you will not be able to access the other pages. If you select an epic-archetype and the wrong origin, the game will send you back to this page with the correct origin now selected for you.

2nd- I call this the Filter for New Players. Basically, you select options such as Ranged Damage, Melee Damage, Support, Summons, Control, etc. and on the next page only archetypes that fall under that group will be shown. If you don't select a filter here all the archetypes will appear on the next page.

3rd- Archetype selection. I love what to this. If you remember clicking Blaster and seeing Health: Low, Damage: High and thinking that's pretty vague then you'll be happy for this. On the screen there are about 6 different specs that I don't currently remember and each is rated 1-10. I'm going to make sure to examine this element well.

4th- Power Selection. I dislike what they did here only because I keep forgetting to choose a secondary. Basically, it's 1 page with 2 built in tabs. You have to choose your primary and then click the tab within the page to select the secondary and I was more focused on other things at the time. It might not be a huge problem though.

5th- Body Build. Mostly the same, but spruced up like all the other pages were.

6th- Costume Creation. Ever wanted to see what you would look like with any costume available in the game? Now you can. The new Costume creator lets you try on what you have yet to purchase, but will not let you finish the character with those pieces on. the left/right buttons for selecting pieces are smaller and harder to click and the buttons all seem different to me... it's just something to get used to, I suppose, as someone who doesn't do a whole lot with costumes.

7th- Power Customization. Same quirks with Costume Creation, but as of yet I don't recall any different options for this function.

8th- Register. Like the final portion of the old character creation, except it doesn't look like an up close look at your driver's license. It now has the same look as the rest of the process and works just as well.

One thing about the new interface I forgot to mention is that you can select your character's name from any page via a text box at the bottom of the screen.

Archon Helios, signing out.

Originally Posted by Snowzone

And still nothing to help sweeten the deal with the lack of Dominator proliferation. "After i21" doesn't cut it when every other AT is getting something right off the bat.

If there is something though I will happily eat my words.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow

Street Justice seems like an odd choice for a new powerset, considering the power customization options on both Martial Arts and Super Strength were supposed to do just that, but I won't turn down a new set. Now the only question is whether I want to make a new character or reroll an old one into using this set. I have a level 30-ish MA/SR school girl who might look better with a more brawl-like set.

Originally Posted by Chyll

I read out that description that it is the new mechanic that differentiates it, rather than the animations. So it should be interesting.

Originally Posted by Mallerick

Beam gun! That must mean we're getting some new weapon customizations. energy rifle/sci-fi type weapons, blasters, phasers, PPGs ... Glee!

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow

Well... Mechanics don't really make a set for me. As long as the set works (unlike Dual Pistols, but that's for another thread), then I'm fine with any gimmick that comes attached to it. I'm much more interested in what the developers will do with the set visually to set it apart from Martial Arts customized with all the custom animations.

That's not to say I expect it to be bad, actually. Far from it! But it will decide whether I want to reroll a character or make a new one.

Originally Posted by Chyll

In contrast, since MA and SS have never really appealed to me, I'm looking foward to what makes this set different in how it works. If it isn't different enough, I'd agree that customization with the animations for existing would have worked fine.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow

Sure, the set itself didn't work, but it came very close.

Originally Posted by Socorro

Any new costume parts, hairstyles...?