The CO Community & You

Quite a few costume sets that can be bought in the Z-store can also be found in drops. For example the Roin'Esh costume set can be found in drops in the Whiteout comic series, and can be found on the auction house. Other costume sets can be found as vet rewards. Many consumables in the Z-store can be found as mission rewards and boss drops. You also get a 500 point monthly stipend for subscribing. And can trade questionite (in-game end game currency) that drops from various sources, through an in-game auction exchange for Z-points. Many of the devices that can be purchased via the Z-store isn't bind on pickup, but bind on equip, so you can often find these devices in the in-game auction house.

Creating this character would be quite easy in CO. To create Sam Tow as you envision, you would either need to be subscribed and create a free-form character or purchase a free-form character slot. After you had that, you would have access to all powerpools and sets simultaneously.

To put a rough build together for this character, I would choose:

Single Blade from the martial powerpool with a Katana weapon skin with the following powers:

Reaper's Touch (Single Blade energy builder)

Reaper's Caress (Single Blade Attack)

Dragon's Bite (Single Blade Melee Rush)

Inexorable Tides (Single Blade AoE)

Bountiful Chi (Self Heal)

And Lightning Reflexes (Basically Super Reflexes in CoH) defensive passive.

Then I'd choose Munitions from the Technology powerpool with the following powers:

Bullet Beatdown (Single Target Dual Pistol Combo Attack)

Two Gun Mojo (Single Target Dual Pistol Ranged Attack) or if you didn't want dual pistols then:

Holdout Shot (Single Target Range Attack) which does more damage when fired with low Endurance.

Breakaway Shot (Ranged AoE - Reverse Lunge)

With this build, the primary stat would be Super Strength which increases melee damage. Your two secondary stats would be Ego, which increases range damage, and Dexterity, which increases critical chance. This isn't a full build, but gives you a look at the variety of powers available.

There is other munition powers, such a shot-guns, sniper rifles, rocket launchers and grenades.

Travel power could be acrobatics, or swinging, if going for a natural superhero feel, or perhaps superspeed

As a freeform you can do all that easy. The stats can be daunting, but every 'super' stat contributes to damage and something your role needs. For the sample character you listed either Ego or Strength would do for your primary superstat - Ego if you prefer ranged or strength if you prefer melee. Grab the other for your second super stat and then grab dex for your third and you'd be a hard hitting, fast dodging, crit spewing death machine.

The customizing can be fun. I have a tank that uses a gatling gun to hose down all the minions and grab the attention of the hardest target in the group... and when said target comes over to play it gets the crap beat out of by my super strength melee attacks.

Though sometimes I just pick up and throw a tank or an aircraft or something at the group instead of using the gatling gun.

Based on this post and screenie I may just re-try CO to see how far it has come, though expectations are low.

I'm quite the reverse. That screenshot is almost enough to change my mind about giving the game another shot. Ye gads that cop is fugly, and I'm not even looking at the hero on-screen.

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On point - thank you for the stats breakdown. Truth be told, "stats" tend to be where RPGs make or break for me. I ignore them for a long time, and as soon as I start HAVING to mess with them, I tend to find another game. If it's as simple as picking the stats I need the most and sticking to them, then sure, I can go with that. It should make things easier.

I still have to say, though - I'm not a big fan of variable critical change percentages. That always seemed like the most "gamey" of RPG meta-game stats, and for what it's worth, I'm glad we can't do that in City of Heroes... Or I can't, don't know about Inventions procs. So is "critical chance" what's supposed to up ranged damage? Isn't there a stat that straight up increases ranged damage directly?

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 AT's in CO work differently in COH. I've been doing some research, and have come up with this impression:

Each Archetype is like a preset build in City of Heroes. So, for the sake of this example (might not be accurate) The Inferno is a Fire/Fire Blaster. Archetypes also appear to have a set progression of powers, so you can't choose what you get at what level.

On the other hand, you *can* add stats to different powers to alter how exactly they work. It seems sort of like slotting enhancements in COH- A damaging hold can be slotted for either hold, damage, endurance reduction or all of the above, and you can decide how many slots to devote to what. I think it's a bit more involved than that in CO though, ie: You can sort of choose which secondary effects certain powers have.

Now, this is all for the preset Archetypes. They also have a "Free Form" system for their equivalent of VIP players that allows you to pick all of your powers and even choose from completely different "powersets" as we understand them. So if we had something like that in COH, you would basically be able to make a "Titan Weapons/Fire Blast/Invulnerability" "Free Form AT."

While the AT's seem much more restrictive than our AT's are, their Free Form system seems much, much more loose than anything we have access to.

(Anyone with actual experience playing CO, feel free to correct anything I might have gotten wrong. I've been doing research but haven't actually started playing yet.)

Rough stat overview:

1. Constitution
   • Increases your health points. You get 15 health points per point of Constitution.
2. Endurance
   • Increases your maximum Energy.
   • Indirectly increases the energy returned from your Energy Builder, as energy builders return a percentage of total energy.
   • Indirectly increases the energy gained from your normal regeneration (as you gain about 2% of your max energy per tick)
3. Strength
   • Increases the strength (both distance and chance to penetrate resistance) of all Knockbacks, for melee only.
     1 Str = 1% Knockback strength
   • Increases your Knockback resistance
     1 Str = 1% Knockback resistance
   • Increases melee base damage with a target of 20% (does not include Ego Blades attacks). This bonus is separate from the Super Stat bonus
     At level 40, it requires 70 Strength to reach this target. For levels below level 30 the formula is Level*2, and from levels 30-40 the formula is Level+30.
   • Increases the size of objects you can lift, and makes lifting lighter objects faster (numbers scale with level).
4. Dexterity
   • Increases your chance to land a Critical Strike with a target of 30%(?)
   • Increases the effectivness of Stealth granting powers.
5. Intelligence
   • Increases your ability to see through Stealth
   • Reduces the Energy cost of all powers
   • 1 point of INT accelerates recharge by 0.15%
6. Ego
   • Grants Hold Resistance.
   • Increases ranged knock strength (1% per point).
   • Increases the amount of Energy gained from a successful Block up to 30% of your maximum energy pool.
   • Increases Ranged and Ego Blades base damage. This bonus is separate from the Super Stat bonus similar to how melee powers scale with Strength.
   • Increases the size of objects you can lift with Telekinesis and makes lifting lighter objects faster (numbers scale with level).
7. Presence
   • Increases the effectiveness of Healing Powers. This bonus is separate from the Super Stat bonus similar to how melee powers scale with Strength but presence has a target of xx%.
   • Increases the duration and health of all Crowd control effects.
   • Increases resistance to all Crow control effetcs.
8. Recovery
   • Increases your Energy Equilibrium
   • Slightly increases your maximum Energy
     8 Rec = 1 Energy
   • Increases the energy returned from your Energy Builder and Energy Unlocks.

Semi agree... if you stick to the archtypes.

This is the totals of stuff that you will get by the time you hit level 40:

14 Powers (12 for Archetypes)
2 Travel Powers
3 Super Stats (pre-chosen for archtypes)
6 Talents (awarded at different stages if Freeform or Archtype).
36 Advantage Points (these are like enhancements... each power can take up to 5)
6 Build Slots (Freeform Archetypes only)
2 Costume Slots (Gold Members only)
1 New Character Slot (Gold Members only)

Critical chance can be completely ignored and acts like a scrappers innate. Each super state works automagically in conjunction with whatever passive you choose. Before, each passive worked better with specific stats. They removed that, thankfully. In other words, doesn't matter what you choose, it benefits your passive the same.

For a dumbed down view of the stats in-game:

Strength: Increase melee damage, knock-back distance and knock back resistance. It also influences how much you can lift in-game. Cars, barrels, street lights and posts, tanks, etc.

Constitution: It simply increases your hit points per level.

Intelligence: Reduces the endurance cost of your powers, increases the recharge speed of your powers as well as increase perception.

Endurance: Increases your maximum energy level, also increases how much endurance your Endurance builder attack builds.

Dexterity: Increases your critical strike chance, as well as the effectiveness of stealth granting powers.

Ego: Directly influences your ranged damage (Not melee damage) and increases your hold resistence.

Presence: Increases the effectiveness of healing powers. Also increases the duration and strength of crowd control powers.

Recovery: Increases your energy equilibrium (Where your energy sits at outside of combat) as well as increasing your maximum energy and the amount of energy your energy builder generates.

Stats are not as complicated in CO as I have seen in other RPG's. And if you don't want to look too hard into the numbers you don't have to, to be an effective player. You just look at what compliments the type of character you want to play. Min-maxers and number crunchers on the other hand can pour over the numbers and fine-tweak their character through super stats, gear and mods.

There is 26 powerpools and individually there is 432 powers in the game. 49 of them are travel powers. More powers are coming soon for Telepathy, as well. There is a mind-boggling amount of powers going free-form. If you play as an arch-type, then yes, it does limit them.

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.

I find the stats to be no real different than enhancements in CoH. Certain enhancements increase damage, accuracy, end redux, recharge redux, etc. And the same goes for stats in Champions. Certain stats effect certain powers better than others - just like certain enhancements increase certain powers better than others. And instead of having to slot multiple powers, in CO you pick stats that blankets all your powers.

Now this I can completely agree with, and it is the same thought I have when playing 'strong' but not 'super-strong' characters. However, despite having Super strength, you don't have to pick up heavy objects. When you approach an item that you can lift, you get a small prompt at the bottom of the screen telling you to press z to lift it. All characters in-game have the ability to pick up the basic of items, barrels and small crates, as well.

Champions is pretty easy on mediocre builds. And as long as you follow the basic rules of having some form of self heal (when you get over your head and are unsure of your build) and slotting a passive, whether offensive or defensive, you can survive pretty easily. And if you're using an arch-type, they're pretty balanced to begin with, and there isn't too much to worry about. A self heal can be forgone by the use of inspiration like orbs that drop from enemies, and health consumables. But a self-heal can really make things easier.

To be honest, there isnt anything that i have met in my short time playing the game where you *had* to lift something large to progress... Sure, it might make it *faster* if you did, or allow you to throw that car out of the way, but there is nothing making you do it (tell a lie, i believe that in the tutorial you have to lift a wall off an NPC... adrenaline allows you do it though is my reasoning for the "non strong" characters.)

I mean there's a higher percentage of "stats" vs. visually distinct and meaningful powers as compared to City of Heroes. I remember making level 12 in Champions Online and having... Crap, I think something like four powers. Four or five, I might have simply ignored one of them. By level 12 in City of Heroes, I have... Two at level 1, one at level 2, then one at 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12... Eight. And it keeps going higher.

Basically, it sounds like I'm playing a very off-hand mostly-passives build, because so much of what I had to pick is stats, gear, buffs and so forth. It felt like playing... Say, an Invulnerability character where most of my "powers" just alter my stats. I'm more of a "stuff to do" type of player, in that I want to shoot pistols or throw fire or jump real high...

Speaking of which, is there any kind of jumping animation that's applicable to non-fatass characters who don't land with a thunderous crash, denting the world as they come down? It made sense for Xanta when I tried it, but Sam is sort of a "super ninja" and it would really only make sense for him to land softly. That would actually be a pretty big thing, especially since I don't like the flailing limbs animation.

Again, though - just stats aren't bad enough on their own as long as they don't keep me from enjoying the game. I'm not after ZOMGAWESOME!!! "Enough" will do.

I probably won't be using an archetype. I looked through the selection of them and, frankly... It's a fighting game character selection at that point. I want to make characters, not pick through someone's pre-made list of 15. But what you describe seems simple enough, and I guess I can always ask for more help. Only trouble is I won't be posting as Sam Tow any more. Thanks to Perfect World's corporate interests, I'll be posting as Stardiver. Well, at least Star is a cool character in her own right

Yeah, I can simply not pick up heavy stuff if it doesn't make sense... But what I mean is I don't like the idea of "packaging" such dissimilar concepts under the same monolithic stat. To me, it's a little like being forced to fly if you pick Sorcery as your power because... Well, most sorcerers fly, right? And most people who are good melee fighters are strong and strong super heroes can throw cars, right? I've always been a fan of picking stats separately from each other on a more micro level. It may be harder to figure out (Arcana and I never seem to see eye-to-eye on the subject), but at least it wouldn't make me feel like I'm paying for benefits I don't want to have.

Speaking of which, does Champions have such comprehensive status protection as we do here?

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.

I always liked the "Amalgam comics" idea- a collision of universes.

- Back with the first Praetorian Invasion event, the fiction explained that ever since the Rikti invasion the barriers between the worlds have been weakening.
- We even had an issue dedicated to alternate-universe versions of our selves getting mixed up in our universe.
- The worlds are colliding, and as we fought the war against the Battalion, more and more of these barriers came down- they became closer and closer.
- That moment when the incarnate-you sent back the memory fragment with Mender Ramiel was when you realized the end was approaching, when all the universes were coming crashing together. If only you had started down the incarnate path sooner, you may have had the power necessary to set things straight.... but it wasn't enough.
- The universes merge, and you find ourselves not-ourselves, in a universe that's familiar to us yet vastly different. We know that this world is reality yet it doesn't feel entirely real to us anymore... and echos of our past lives visit us as we sleep.

I'd originally seen this as the way to end CoH to begin CoH2... but I guess it could equally apply there...




I won't be going to CO anytime soon, if at all. Cinder Flame and I will be here and only here until the moment the servers shut down and then we'll probably take a hiatus from MMO's for a bit. If I do try out CoH's little cousin, I don't think I'll be bringing any of these charactes over, though. I've tied them too tightly to this world, so I think they'll stay here.

Graphically CO is more Borderlands to our MW3. Not so much bad, but incredibly stylized. Definitely not everyone's cup of tea.

From my experience, even when you get into the details of stats, it's not messing with stats so much as messing with what gives you stat bonuses. Pick your 3-4 stats, then make items (NON-COSMETIC) that give you the best numbers for them. You really -cant- try and manage all 8 stats, nor would you need to. It's more comprable to power selection than the invention system. You pick stats, then pick items/talents that give stats.

Ego boosts ranged damage, hold resistance, some stuff with telepathy/telekenisis, and how much damage you do -when- you crit. With a very small bonus in increases your crit rate. The critical strike boost, however, seperate to the boost to damage you get to ranged attacks for having high ego. Dexterity is what pumps crit rate, basically letting anyone spec into the scrapper inherant.

CO has a different approach to powers. Instead of 6 attacks with one animation each, they'd have 3 attacks that cycle 4 animations each. A few attacks in CO represents a powerset here, and it ends up being very different gameplay.

I personally like CO, I just like CoH better, so in the 1111 days my lifetime sub's been active, I've probably played 11 of them. Without CoH to pull me away, you'll probably find me at CO.

It's a good game, I just like this home better.

PS.

Blocking. If you do get hit, you can escape early by doing the "Tap button to escape thing". Certain stats, such as ego, reduce the effects of mez and thus reduce the ammount of button tapping.

For a laugh, many years ago, me and a few friends tried to come up with a fairly comprehensive RPG *stat* system for dealing with something like what you have suggested.

Even if we started off with a few basic stats, to avoid the "lumping" together (ie strength for melee damage, although not necessarily for lifting stuff), we ended up with a nice large selection of derived stats, advantages/disadvantages and so on. Somewhere in the region of 20 odd. We then decided that we would stop there, as we hadnt even gotten to the "powers/skills/abilities" stage....

This was only done for fun, and more as an example of depending on how you describe the basic statistic, and then interpreted and explained your reason to the others, if the action should be stuck into a basic stat or a derived stat.

Side note: I have also played a very basic RPG system, 6 stats rated from 1-6. Roll a die, add relevent stat, beat target number.

You had to explain why you were using a stat, even if it wasnt directly relevent (so intelligence *could* be used for a lifting test, as intelligence could mean that you know where to place the tree branch properly to get the most leverage).

Yeah, lumping of stats together can be annoying, but if you are already running with 6 to 8 fairly distinct stats, it will happen unless you want to have an explosion of derived stats.

Champions has , arguably, more things to do and requires more moving, dodging and creative use of powers than CoH. Since attacks don't hit (and damage) you until they connect. For instance, if said enemy is charging up the power Room Sweeper, you can move back, jump over them, take to the air and completely avoid their attack.

What you described is acrobatics as a travel power. Not as fast as superspeed, can't jump as tall as super jump, but runs, twirls around in the air, back flips and the likes.

If you need any help, you can join the CoX channel in-game that was set up to help CoH players transition over. You can also contact me via @Akaebeel in-game, and I'll be glad to answer your questions, and try to put it into CoH terms.


Do you mean mez protection? If so, Champion has a similar system that CoH does, in term of protection, certain stats increases your resistance to it. But where it differs in you're actually held, instead of riding the hold out, using a break free or power, you can repeatedly press z (or any button really) and break out of it earlier. But the primary defense is to block. Blocking vastly reduces damage as well as increases mez protection.

Not to mention, many attacks have no cooldown, or no appreciable cooldown.

Hell, when I first played it near launch all I needed was one or two solid attack powers, with no cooldowns, and the rest of my power choices went either went into defensive choices (which you needed a lot of back then) or flavor choices.

Right now I'm tinkering with a few lowbies, trying Alerts, and tryin gto get back into the game. What are these "CoH channels" people have been mentioning? There doesn't seem to be a way to search channels like there is in CoH.

Yeah, about that. Can melee powers be used on the move? I know people will want my head for saying this, but I feel "rooting" is one of the best parts of City of Heroes, as it allows for animations to involve the whole body instead of having to restrict animations to waist-up only. It's what tends to make "fighting" games feel perpelxingly MORE responsive when I'm restricted by not being able to interrupt attacks with movement. It's what bugs me about Guild Wars 2 to a large extent - I'm always strafing around and flailing like a man possessed, which makes the game feel like a miasma of "stuff happening."

Speaking of which, I also like our slower attacks here. Sure, it sucks to be stuck in a 2-second attack animation, but that longer window means the actual animation can look considerably smoother. Wow and its ilk look really spastic in this regard, especially when moving.

Good to hear. Not quite the tradeoff I wanted to see, but it's a tradeoff that's easy to make, conceptually speaking. Plus, I believe I can take de-facto Super Jump as a second travel power, right?

I think we're talking about different terms. Status resistance reduces the duration of status effects. Status protection stops status effects from taking effect to begin with by opposing their magnitude directly. Consider the difference in, say, Rooted between PvE and PvP here. In PvE, you never get held (almost). In PvP, you always get held, just for a shorter amount of time.

Are there status protection (protection specifically) powers, or does Ego do this? Or does anything at all do this, aside from blocking?

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.

Cox channel is "CoX" you can use the slash command /channel_join CoX or right click a chat-tab go to channels and type in "CoX" to join.

A good portion of powers can be used and charged without rooting you down. However quite a few of the heavier hitting, more powerful powers (Such as Lightning Strike) roots you down as you charge it.

You get your first travel power at level 6. They get their second travel power at level 35. So yes, you can take super jump too, yes. Almost all travel powers can also be charged, as well.

Ego and block is the only status protection in Champs. However I should note, that you'll see specific symbols over your enemies heads that alerts you when they're charging up an attack or hold, and what type of power it is (I.E. single target, AoE, cone, etc.) so you're visually alerted to types of powers, and can react accordingly.

Being stuck in an animation means less when being able to move makes little to no difference in whether you get hit or not.