What makes COH so good

Oh man.

I've been playing the latest MMO that came out over the past few weeks, and occasionally I log on to City of Heroes, because I just need that fix.

There's so many things in CoH that I take for granted that only became apparent when I've been playing this new MMO.

The sidekicking system is definitely one of THE best features of City of Heroes. Being able to team up with anyone, regardless of their level, is fantastic, and a sorely missed feature in this other game. I can't always play at the same time as my friends, and if one of us gets ahead, it's a pain to get caught up/wait for them to get caught up.

Being able to design your character and KEEP that design if you want is also fantastic. Having your appearance changed because of the gear you're wearing is one thing I've always hated about gear-based games. I REALLY hate being forced into certain types of appearance in the new game.

And man....travel powers.....I miss those SO much. Walking everywhere until you can buy (BUY?!) faster travel is SO annoying. It's SO slow. And like a friend of mine pointed out - when you see a cool building or a cool mountain or whatever in this new game, you can't GET to it. It's just there. But in CoH, you have a bunch of different methods to get to wherever you want, and that's fantastic. And travel in CoH just feels SO FAST now compared to this other game. I'll never complain about the speed of flight again.

And just the general game play is fantastic! You actually FEEL powerful in this game. If I want, I can get on my tank, do a radio mission at x8 +4 and survive without breaking a sweat. You FEEL like a superhero. In this new game, I can be two levels above a mob, and they can wipe me out like I'm made of tissue paper - and that's playing the TANK class.

City of Heroes has totally spoiled me. Once i22 hits, I'll be becoming a VIP again without a doubt.

What makes COH good:

Fast, easy to get into gameplay
Unique looks for everyone
Most of the community is actually nice (enough to make the occasional elitist d-bag really stand out.)
Lots of variety in characters.

Because, I can without a doubt, assume that everyone in the world has one time or another has asked themselves the question: If i was a superhero/villain, which powers would i have?
Only then to fantasize about how awesome their life would be. CoX allows you to experience that dream -- to a limited extent of course.

Compared that to how many times you've laid back in bed and wondered how awesome your life would be you were a Warlock with bleeding effect spells whom could then mount his giant eagle has said work was done?

Oh, and I'm not forced to fight wild coyotes and boars at level 1 like i'm some sort of scrub.

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For me, the big two are the lack of required party roles and the non-linear character advancement. As in, I can build a force field defender vastly different from your force field defender. And make it work. I hate games where two characters of the same class are, for all intents and purposes, identical.

As a third, slightly smaller bonus, is that CoH doesn't throw a hundred different powers at you. You can easily get away with just two action bars.

I've been so negative lately, so I might as well say something positive for a change. Plus the servers are down, so...

To me, City of Heroes is still the best MMO on both a thematic and technical level. For the sake of argument, let's look at those separately:

Thematically, City of Heroes gives me the ability to both create my own characters and tell my own stories. It is this level of implied ownership of ideas that makes me far, far, FAR more invested in this game on an emotional level than any other I can recall off memory. Because these characters aren't just "characters." I didn't pick them from a list somebody else made. I poured my heart and soul into making them look like I imagined them and giving them the kind of stories that made me excited to imagine when I was a kid.

City of Heroes is an outlet for the imagination that balances complexity and freedom in a way that I've seen literally no-one else. Sure, I can grab 3D Studio MAX and make my own 3D models with much greater freedom, but I'm not very good at 3DSM. I could grab a pen and paper and draw these characters, but I suck at drawing, too, as I proved when bored during our last faculty meeting. I could fire up Word and write my own stories... And I do, but they lack any sort of visual representations, and I'm not good at thinking with pictures.

City of Heroes is the only game I know of which gives me enough tools to be creative both visually and narratively, while at the same time managing those tools so I don't become overwhelmed or need extensive tutorials to know how to perform basic functions. The various storylines in the game, along with its basic setting, are flexible enough to represent just SOME of my characters' adventures, leaving the door to the broader world open for me to tell a multitude of stories that I want. Sure, sometimes canon stories and my own preference clash, but compared to other games, those "first world problems," as it were.

Mechanically, City of Heroes is a solid game which doesn't get in my way. I've heard people praise its complexity and flexibility, but you know what I care about the most? That I get to do what I want, when I wanna' do it, without the game making me jump through hoops for it and ESPECIALLY without the game requiring me to do analytical statistics to achieve it. Yeah, there's a learning curve, but beyond that initial phase, the basic systems are not that hard to figure out with the presence of Combat Attributes and Power Attributes.

One of the BIG things that spoiled me on City of Heroes was the lack of loot and power trees, and especially the separation of power from power boost. Single-aspect enhancements are the greatest idea in gaming, as far as I'm concerned. They give me complete control over which aspects of a power I want to enhance, how much I want to enhance them, and how I want to spread this around between my powers. If I want a power to do more damage, I add more damage. If I want a power to cost less, I reduce that cost. It's a balancing act, but it's a balancing act that's completely in my control.

One thing I've always hated about ye olde gear-driven RPGs is that I'd get an item which gives me something I want and a bunch of things I don't, but I can't swap out my old item which has lower stats, but gives me a bunch of things I want. It's a complex optimization problems where lots of stats are tied together. If I want attacking enemies to cause them Fear, I can't just add fear to my attacks. I have to find a sword that does fear, and I have to remove the one which does life steal.

This is even worse with conventional power trees, where "enhancing" a power just means taking it for a second time, with a power boost entirely dependent on what the developers thought meant "better." This lead to the infamous example where putting too many points in Zeal would cause your character to get stuck in a 21-hit combo, unable to move, and die because you couldn't react, whereas a low-level Zeal only did a few hits. So if I want a power that puts a protective shield around me and then explodes 3 seconds later to protect me more, what do I do? Take the next level of the power? But that doesn't have more protection, it has more damage on the explosion. And if I want my power to do more damage? Well, the next level does more damage, but it also costs more. Great, now my powers cost so much I can't use them.

And, finally, items. I HATE scavenger hunts and I HATE not having access to the items I want. To me, how I build my character should be a question of choice and decision, not random crapshot luck. If I want my powers to do more damage at the cost of having weaker secondary effects, I can. If I want my character to have more accuracy at the expense of running an extra toggle, I can. The benefits of a decision balance off against the benefits that decision denies, and each decision is a self-contained choice.

All of this just means that City of Heroes is a game I can eventually figure out, and a game where I can get the things I want without having to do unfun things. And all of THAT just means the game lets me spend much more time flipping out and killing stuff and much less time staring at an Excel spreadsheet and crunching numbers.

As I said right at the start, I play City of Heroes because it's a visually-intensive virtual action figure that happens to allow me to play out my own story. Anything that gets in the way of that is a bad thing, and in City of Heroes, very, very, VERY few things get in the way of that.

Quote:

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.

The people here are the easiest people to get along with.Content changes frequently.Power sets are diverse and allow for no 2 toons being the same (even if they have the same power sets).The diversity of costumes also makes sure no 2 toons have to look the same.

I've been burned out on CoH for the last 3 months or so, but spending the last month in a recently launched MMO has rekindled my CoH interest and reminded me why it's now the longest played game I've ever owned.

1. Travel. Except for the the first 10 minutes of the game, I can get anywhere I need to go quickly. I like having to travel through the environment, it adds to the sense of immersion in the game (which is why I have a hard time playing more than 1 AE arc in any given night), but, I've no desire to spend 5 to 10 minutes getting anywhere. CoH does it just right, a quick trip through the city and you're there. Just like in the comics - you might get a panel or 2 showing your hero traveling through the city, but you don't spend half the book seeing nothing else but.

2. Inspirations. I get a number of consumables that enhance my performance with no cooldown on their use. If I'm fighting something very tough, I can take multiple heals quicker than I get hit, so I don't end up having the effects of the heal taken away before I can even get another attack in.

3. Costumes. Not being forced to look like everyone else and have my look dependent upon what gear I want to use, is a major issue for me. Characters looking the way I want them to look makes me want to play them. In fact, I've deleted some CoH characters because I could never figure out the right look for them.

4. Powersets. You can make an incredible number of completely different playing characters. While a number of powersets play in similar ways, with only different special effects, there are still a huge number of sets that are significantly different from others. On top of that, many secondary powersets can make many primaries play very differently than with another combination. I've 125 characters at the moment, and with the exception of a handful of rerolls, they all feel different. I've never played a game where the various paths you could take within a class made the class feel significantly different from one taking another path.

5. Money. Money flows like water. I don't have to spend time being a marketeer, or farming, to make enough money to buy almost anything I want. I can get tickets running AE story missions, I can get hero merits running tips or the SSA's. and very easily amass a couple hundred million. I IO out my characters at level 7 and replace those IOs every 10 levels or so. Other than buying purples or PVP IOs, the only obstacle to getting what I want has been its availability, which can also be circumvented.

6. Teaming. I play for fun and relaxation. I have no desire to learn the most optimal builds or have to study and memorize the proper strategy for playing a role correctly on a team. In CoH I only have to know what my powers do (which is gained through normal gameplay) and have basic common sense. Being willing to work with the team (as opposed to acting as if one is playing solo and there just happen to be some other heroes in the same mission) is the only major requirement to being a good teammate.

7. Getting Away. I can move faster than the bad guys. If I get in over my head I actually have an option for survival...RUN! Better yet, I've a good chance of being able to get away. In most other games I've played, once you're engaged you're fighting to the death. Nothing is more frustrating in a game than seeing you have no chance and realizing there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. In CoH, I have inspirations and speed.

There is more, but the post is already more than long enough.

One word:

FREEDOM!


This is the only MMO I've found that gives me such unlimited freedom.

I'm free to create a unique character and have a unique adventure. I'm still amazed that I can come up with fresh concepts and combos after 7 years. I never delete a character and I very rarely repeat powers. Yet I've created over 250 unique individuals and crafted interesting stories with them.

CoH gives me a giant playground to explore and create in.
CoH gives me a plethora of costume options to create with, at lvl 1, that don't effect my powers at all.
CoH gives me the freedom to play like I want, when I want, instead of forcing me to stand around and wait for a specific team makeup.

What makes CoH so good? One word:

FREEDOM!

What makes it so good is even when there's nothing to do, there's something to do.

Me.

You're welcome.