MMOgrinder reviews City of Heroes

I first looked for a bust of Shakespeare, or even Francis Bacon all things considered.
Mmmm. Bacon.



.

Ironically, what I first looked for was a blinking *book* that you'd pull out of the bookcase. Then I looked around the room for something like a bust or other object. Then I went back to the bookcase again and that's when I waved my mouse over it, and basically headdesked my way through it.

Yeah, before they got the indicator arrow working right, I was sitting in there going, no...that's just too cliché...WAITAMINUTE! Comic book!

*CLICK!*

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

Heh. The mental image of that is priceless. Especially if you were playing a squishy at the time.

A team of stumped melee'ers around you wondering "Okay...what next?"
Then Arcana hauls off and headbutts her way through a book case while they stare at her, wondering if she lost her mind...

Tank: What are you doing?
Arcana: Opening *THUD* the *THUD* secret *THUD* door *THUD*THUD*
Tank: Oh... {Whispered to teammates} She's lost it, we should run away very VERY fast...

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

That was my second time in Manticore's Mansion where they do include the arrow since I'd already been through the door once. I didn't record it on my first run through.

Also hello, everyone. Feel free to ask me anything about about why I said what I said. You seem way more civil than the Facebook page has been.

I felt the same... it was like he was playing two games. The music seemed to be from the old game, pre-Freedom, for example somehow Freems get that and VIPs get new music.

It felt like it was an ok review but he was very jaded and hadn't played for long.

Still, look on the bright side, he never got to try Incarnates

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

Unless some responsse have been deleted, then the Facebook comments aren't really uncivil - the apparent knowledge gaps and misunderstandings in the review gave the impression that it hadn't been done to a very high standard, which caused some players to express surprise and/or annoyance, as CoH goes along quite quietly under the radar, so reviews don't come along that often.

I believe the review was fair because it seemed clear to me the idea was to provide an impression of what a brand new player would know and observe. A brand new player would not know all the things some people assume the review should have taken into consideration. It was not intended to be an advertisement for the game or an authoritative encapsulation of it as far as I could see.

I thought your review was great as a new player experiencing the content the first time. The game has weaknesses and great strengths. It is a game with a hook as you play you begin to see things through your characters eyes.

Please stay and play the game more and see why it is so loved even with all the warts and blemishes.

A brand new player should use the Help channel if there's something that they don't understand.

A brand new player won't stick around if they have to keep asking others "Ok..now what?"

Fair enough. I have two.

First, as I mentioned above, I think CoH's combat system was something the original team sort of stumbled into, and it shows insofar as its almost unique: only Champions Online is similar for obvious reasons. But my question is: you mention that on the one hand City of Heroes makes you push a lot of buttons constantly to fire attacks, and on the other hand combat in other MMOs seems to you to be more "fast paced." To most City of Heroes players, that probably sounds like a contradiction: because CoH doesn't have global cooldowns you can fire attacks pretty much constantly provided you have enough of them and they recharge fast enough. In the early levels you can have only few attacks recharging slowly, but for damage dealers that usually resolves itself once you're around level 20 or so, if not earlier.

Have you seen combat at those higher levels, and if so how would you compare its "pace" to other MMOs with global cooldowns where there is enforced waiting after action?


Second: what do you think of our powers system in general. In general, in most MMOs where powers are balanced with very tight limits (which is not the same thing as balancing "correctly") generally the only thing that dramatically changes your ability is the acquisition of a specific power or ability. That one ability can dramatically change what you can do as a character. But enhancing that ability, or using skills to improve that ability, is usually highly restrained. You're often fighting for a percent here and a percent there. Here, when we enhance an attack for damage its *normal* to increase that damage by 100%, doubling its damage on the target. Its not abnormal to also improve the recharge of that power by 33% or more, allowing us to use it 33% more often. Invention builds that allow all powers to be used *twice* as often, sometimes even *three times* as often, are not entirely rare.

I think most City of Heroes players, if they thought about it, would agree that this wild and admittedly crazy power system works well for the superhero genre, where vast levels of power are the perceived norm. Separate from your experience with the character customizer where you can customize your appearance, what is your personal take on the nature of customizing your performance? Do you notice it at all, and if so what is your opinion on how effective or not effective it is in creating a more "powerful" feel to the combat in the game?

Consider this: if you want to solo something in this game that is not directly intended to be soloed, its often the case that a tray full of inspirations - which are specifically intended by the game to be chomped like chicklets as you get them to keep giving you bursts of superpower - will allow almost anyone to defeat almost anything short of Monster-class critters (like the Jello mountain, Karem Rularuu-Jabar, and the rest of your poster). And we tend to like it that way. But it does have detractors. What's your take?

Comment directly above yours.

"dork sounds like a wow lover then why didnt he do a review on wow..coh gameplay character customization and new updates surpases wow ina longshot.."

Hardly civil... and I'm not even sure if he watched the review. Don't know why the mere mention of WoW causes such rage.... still. I don't even play WoW anymore. But, like the players here, it's the MMO I know the best.

When I go into a review, I go in as a new player, allowing only what I experience as a Free Player. Sometimes, I spend money, and sometimes I don't.

If people feel I shorted this game... I probably did. This review took place during Christmas, and I was almost late with it. I literally finished it two days ago, having gotten sick during the holidays, when I didn't have somewhere to be.

I spend roughly two weeks with an MMO when I review them. I say roughly because I never know what's on my plate for those weeks. And this week was a bit of a doozy, so I apologize for that.

If you think I sound unenthusiastic... that's how I talk. It takes a while for people to get used to it. I know. Watch some of my other videos if you haven't. Eden Eternal was another overwhelmingly positive review I did, so if you think I was sounding distant and harsh... well there ya go.

Still, I don't feel I outright misrepresented the game, and if Paragon liked it enough to link it on their facebook page, I feel they at least appreciated it.

But please. Ask me specifics and I'll gladly explain myself.

Its the internet. Mentioning corn on the cob will cause rage somewhere on the internet.

He came back for a second post and wasn't trolling! Quick someone toss paragon points at him so he can become productive member of our community! What? We still can't do that? Damn you marketing!

As the most level-headed and one of the brightest shining examples of the best in CoH's little forum community, I welcome and thank you for the review, and by extension, exposure for the game.



.

would you consider playing to 50 and doing another review?

combat does start off slow, but as you progress though the game, it does pick up as you gain more powers and slot them properly.

Button pushing is normal among many MMO's, but in the case of CoH, you literally have no other form of attack. To a player coming from another MMO, this is baffling, and they are used to be able to at least attack physically, either with a melee or ranged manner. Physical attacks usually don't do much damage, (depending on class, of course) but it allows both a sense of actually physically fighting your opponent. In the case of a ranged "spellcaster" this might not be much different, as you still have to stay in place for many spells. (There are a few instant cast abilities that allow movement while being cast, however.) But for a melee class, it comes across as outright baffling to just stand there and let an enemy beat on you while you are essentially waiting to decide if you want to stab them again. Melee attack skills usually don't have any sort of, as I've heard it called "root time", so you can move around at will. I have been told that there's no "facing" in this game, but being stuck in place so often will seem outright restricting to players coming from another game.

My best example for wanting to move around while attacking? In the video at one point a Hellion tosses a torch at me, causing me to have to move out of the fire. It's a common practice that standing in the fire is bad, so being essentially "stuck there" because I'm mid casting feels confining. If as a ranged caster in other games, you are mid casting, and you suddenly find yourself in a plume of fire, you just... step out of it and start the cast over again. Not to mention the damage done by spells in those games is usually much higher.

I will give credit the the "superhero" aspect of the game, that even as a blaster you can hold your own against a lot of enemies, and really helps the feel of being a powerful character. Trying the same in other MMO games will get you killed outright.... unless you really know what you're doing.



Enhancing super powers rather than relying on gear and talent trees to do the job for you is ingenious. Yes, at an early standpoint it's a negligible amount, especially for free-players to really notice a difference. I augmented Frost Breath (my Blaster's most high damage attack) with a ton of power enhancements, and I barely felt it made a difference. It's still a really good idea, as I can't count to number of Spells I had in WoW that I didn't even want to upgrade, or being forced to wear very specific pieces of gear in order to function properly in several situations, making my character a carbon copy of every other character like them. It's only gotten worse. CoH lets you be YOU.... or superhero you, at least.

As I said at the end of the last reply, it's a superhero game, It'd be weird not to be able to take out a ton of characters at once. But I can see from a gameplay standpoint why people wouldn't like it, but then again, if people don't like, they can just not play it. Why wouldn't you want your superhero to BE a superhero?

The Miller Merits will be on sale at a 25% discount any day now.

Indeed. Preach it, Brotha Butane!

Well, CoH does have Brawl and the ranged origin power from level 1 on, and they both recharge in a little more than the time it takes to execute most attacks. They also don't do a lot of damage, but by the time that becomes a real problem you should have a variety of powers to use. Brawl doesn't even use endurance, so it can be spammed infinitely.

It sounds like rooting is mostly what makes it feel slower to you. Which makes sense in a way, but isn't something i think about since i haven't played other MMOs very much.
Amusingly enough, not that long after introducing more combat where mobility to avoid doom even at the lower levels is important they introduced a powerset with fairly long root times. Titan Weapons hit like a truck, but it can prompt a moment of nervousness when the warning animation of a location-based attack appears just as you're starting one of the ponderous initial swings. Especially on my Brute where i tend to set one of the attacks on auto during combat.
To me that is definitely one of the best aspects of this game. That and most ATs being able to fulfill multiple roles on a team with no set makeup being necessary.

Overall i've come to love how fast-paced combat is at the higher levels as well as the ability to mow through masses of enemies.

That's a question I get most often when I do MMO Grinder. (Well, not specifically leveling to 50, but you know what I mean.)

The issue is with me, I don't really play the MMO I review after I've finished it, but this game got not only myself, but quite a few of my friends interested in it. The guy in the green suit with the lightning powers I was playing alongside was a friend of mine who absolutely ADORES this game, and it pulled him out of the rut he was having with CoH.

I also really want an MMO that I can actively roleplay in, and this game was just that. Meeting "The Dawn Patrol" was fascinating, and seeing characters like "Iron Goliath" transform from a young woman into her giant mech suit was just awesome to me. WoW's roleplay is dead, as Blizzard's enforcement of the RP policies amounts to "Cool story, bro."

So I definitely want to get my character transferred onto Virtue and keep working on her (especially since my villain Violetshade rarely talks.)

Of course I have MAGfest next week. All in due time.

I'm fully willing to stick with the game and keep going until I reach max level, but I won't have all that much time to devote to it with the show and all.

Global BTW, is @Ciann_Magnol (does that have an underscore or not. Either way, it's the same name as my main Ciann Magnol)