Champions Online: just doesn't cut it.
By
Ael Rhiana,
Posted on: 2012-10-06 24:47 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
This mechanic of three NPCs, you kill two and the third one kills you; you respawn at start of mish and have to fight the same three NPCs ALL OVER AGAIN until you manage to defeat all three is a simply exhausting mechanic, and one that sucks a great deal of what fun there is out of Champions Online.
Its just drudgery.
Questions:
Is the zone respawn rate still so outlandishly fast that a ranged-based character's most common cause of death is the *&#$%##(*^% respawning on top of you as you engage the next mob?
Quote:
I haven't had that issue with my ranged alts.
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Originally Posted by Chase_Arcanum
Questions:
Is the zone respawn rate still so outlandishly fast that a ranged-based character's most common cause of death is the *&#$%##(*^% respawning on top of you as you engage the next mob? |
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Quote:
It's not that noticeable in the beginning city, and I didn't have much trouble with it in the Desert, they still respawned quickly, but the mobs were spread out enough to hinder it hurting you.|
Originally Posted by Chase_Arcanum
Questions:
Is the zone respawn rate still so outlandishly fast that a ranged-based character's most common cause of death is the *&#$%##(*^% respawning on top of you as you engage the next mob? |
Canada, on the other hand, is a nightmare because of it. Especially in the base areas.
whats with its default jumping animation for females.. its like my character went to finishing school just to learn how to jump like a 'lady' before I charge off and clobber someone. ergh. I took Athletics and run it full time just to get rid of it 
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by savagedeacon_NA
In CO they consider the group of enemies, not the single guy: If before you died you killed every single member of the group you were facing they don't respawn, but if even one was left alive everyone will respawn and you will have to fight that whole group once again. In the alerts however that don't happens and the guys that you killed don't respawn
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Bad_Influence
This mechanic of three NPCs, you kill two and the third one kills you; you respawn at start of mish and have to fight the same three NPCs ALL OVER AGAIN until you manage to defeat all three is a simply exhausting mechanic, and one that sucks a great deal of what fun there is out of Champions Online.
Its just drudgery. |
What I hate are the RIDICULOUS amount of "hunts".
And the fact that you HAVE to return to your contacts. Which is why I tend to grab as many missions from them as they'll give me.
What REALLY peeves me off are the hunts that are:
- Insufficiently explained in the mission text
- Not given a bounding area and/or actually tells you the wrong general neighborhood.
Teaming is really primitive over there. Plus, the looting system isn't automatic and round-robin. The looting style is picked by the team captain.
One piece of advice to people building free-form melee toons.
DON'T neglect to take "closer" attack right away.
Movement in-game is so slow that if you don't have a closing attack, you're going to get mauled when you eventually get knocked back and have to waddle your *** back over to the enemy.
Another, pay CLOSE attention to some of the gear you get early on. Some of the stat-boosts on the early component drops from missions are SIGNIFICANTLY better than a lot of the stuff that comes along later.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
I tried Co for about a month, FTP only, so no free forms. I decided randomly one night to download and try it, just to see, and it just happened to coincide with the release of the alert system, or roughly a day or two after release. So there was a fairly large in game population going also.
What was fun: Ranged toon AT, the one with the machine gun. Yes, machine gun isnt really golden age comics, but you can run while you shoot. Also, there are a few attacks that continue to fire as long as the button is pressed. Not realistic per se, but better then the assault rifle in CoH i thought, even if it was more liimted in functionality. The guy was made of wet paper, but he poored out a lot of AOE at a long distance, which made him much easier even to play then.......
Melee anything. OMG clunky and annoying. While machine gun guy would approach a spawn and position and blast the whole lot of them to smithereens, melee guy? has to close the gap, which aggroed the spawn, and basically removed the surprise attack completely from his methods. His reward for increased danger, fight times, and loss of mobility? No aoe hardly, and only enough increased defenses to be noticable against a one on one fight with a boss. Which, in most caeses, I found to be much more difficult to handle do to the loss of kiting ability.
Overall, if you want to try the game, either make a machine gun guy and go shoot the robot cowboys(a refreshing zone i thought) and stick with that type of play, or avoid that altogether so you dont get spoiled on the kiting mobility. I havent myself played it in months now. been on Star Wars most recently, really enjoy it so far but then I always was a story guy first, mash buttons second so your mileage may vary.
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May the rawk be with you.
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Quote:
I don't think I've ever had that happen. I generally only get defeated if there's more than one group or a Supervillain and I don't have a defensive passive. |
Originally Posted by Bad_Influence
This mechanic of three NPCs, you kill two and the third one kills you; you respawn at start of mish and have to fight the same three NPCs ALL OVER AGAIN until you manage to defeat all three is a simply exhausting mechanic, and one that sucks a great deal of what fun there is out of Champions Online.
Its just drudgery. |
I did have a Supervillain reset its hit points while I was standing just on the other side of an object from it to keep out of its attacks for a minute, though, and that was mildly frustrating.
And I gave up soloing one of the Blood Moon missions (Halloween event) because I couldn't do enough damage to overcome a Supervillain's self-healing. I had handled multiple groups of purple enemies and another Supervillain up to that point, though it took awhile and things got a bit rough once facing two Master Villains and six Henchmen.
Goodbye may seem forever
Farewell is like the end
But in my heart's the memory
And there you'll always be
-- The Fox and the Hound
Quote:
I agree with a lot of your complaints. Teaming, rewards and mission handling are much clunkier in CO.|
Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
Uhm. I hadn't noticed this in the missions I was doing...
What I hate are the RIDICULOUS amount of "hunts". And the fact that you HAVE to return to your contacts. Which is why I tend to grab as many missions from them as they'll give me. |
But your point about having to return to contacts isn't true. In many cases you never have to see the contact face-to-face. They just do a terrible job of documenting this.
If you use SOCRATES, the "crime computer," you can get missions from contacts anywhere, even other other zones. When you open the crime computer window select Search for Emergencies. You'll get a Remote Contacts window. Scroll through this to find the contact you want. Then it's just like you're talking to them directly. When you finish a mission use the same interface to call it in.
I just used it to get a mission from Antoine Harrison, who's in Millennium City, while I was in Canada. I went to MC, did the mission, then called up SOCRATES again to get a reward, which included gear that was added to my inventory.
Some remote contacts don't show up in the list, but most of the regular ones do. In the average case this makes getting and calling in missions simpler than it is in CoH.
One really dumb thing about CO is that there's no Exit button when you complete an instanced mission. You have to find a door to the outside to leave. It's really inconvenient until you figure out the last thing that SOCRATES does is allow you get out of the current map, which is another option that appears when you're on an instanced map.
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Originally Posted by SpyralPegacyon
I haven't had that issue with my ranged alts.
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Vyver
It's not that noticeable in the beginning city, and I didn't have much trouble with it in the Desert, they still respawned quickly, but the mobs were spread out enough to hinder it hurting you.
Canada, on the other hand, is a nightmare because of it. Especially in the base areas. |
I first tried the game a bit after launch, and the desert zone specifically had this problem. While clearing a path through grondlings solo... moving pretty darn fast overall... I'd often find that the previous mob would respawn right where I was before I even had chipped the next mob down by a third.
I learned that it was much safer-- even for a ranged character-- to enter melee range of the next group of baddies right away. That way, when the respawn happens, you're (hopefully) too far away to aggro them.
Was quite a pet peeve of mine.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Rodion
One really dumb thing about CO is that there's no Exit button when you complete an instanced mission. You have to find a door to the outside to leave. It's really inconvenient until you figure out the last thing that SOCRATES does is allow you get out of the current map, which is another option that appears when you're on an instanced map.
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Socrates and the crime computer have a "Leave Instance" button.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Rodion
If you use SOCRATES, the "crime computer," you can get missions from contacts anywhere, even other other zones. When you open the crime computer window select Search for Emergencies. You'll get a Remote Contacts window. Scroll through this to find the contact you want. Then it's just like you're talking to them directly. When you finish a mission use the same interface to call it in.
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Are you f*cking kidding me?
My guides:Dark Melee/Dark Armor/Soul Mastery, Illusion Control/Kinetics/Primal Forces Mastery, Electric Armor
"Dark Armor is a complete waste as a tanking set."
Quote:
So, yeah, the people who've worked on the CO interface enjoy a certain degree of non-intuitive obfuscation.|
Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim
......
Are you f*cking kidding me? |
The game has always lacked polish.
Quote:
A-freaking-men!
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Originally Posted by BurningChick
So, yeah, the people who've worked on the CO interface enjoy a certain degree of non-intuitive obfuscation.
The game has always lacked polish. |
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
I think I figured out why CO doesn't quite do it for me. It's not the game mechanics (well, not entirely the game mechanics), but that it doesn't have the same sense of being "alive" that CoH had. CoH had devs who were always adding new things and excited to be doing so. Just think of all the new powersets and costume sets that were in the pipeline, on top of all the new story arcs and metagame twists and turns. Even if everyone didn't always like where the world's story was going, you couldn't say it wasn't going somewhere. The game was not stagnant in any sense of the word.
Compare that to CO, which has deathly-silent devs and very little information on anything upcoming. If there are any new powersets or costumes in the pipeline there, they're not even hinting that they exist, let alone having weekly coffeetalk videos showing them off. If there are any new developments in the "Dr. Destroyer Returns!" metaplot going on, there's no hints that they're coming. (At least, I can't find any hints of such on the official CO forums. Their latest test build just has a few powers tweaks and bugfixes, nothing exciting, and the devs don't seem to communicate with players at all)
Quote:
If you read the entirety of the quote you included in your post, you'll note that I mention this. I wrote it the way I did to emphasize the total lack of transparency inherent in the design.|
Originally Posted by MrPlayskool
Socrates and the crime computer have a "Leave Instance" button.
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Unlike CoH, you can call in missions even when you're inside the instance. It therefore never have occurred to me to try to use the crime computer until I exited the instance, so I didn't realize there was a hidden exit menu choice (it's not really correct to call it a button) until I expressed my frustration with having to find a door to a friend and he clued me in on the secret.
What were the CO designers thinking? Do they think that clicking a button is somehow more immersion breaking than clicking an icon and selecting a menu item?
Quote:
in COX in instances, I keep getting the "no signal" message when trying to call in a mish while still inside one. Is this a bug that I thought up to now was normal?
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Originally Posted by Rodion
If you read the entirety of the quote you included in your post, you'll note that I mention this. I wrote it the way I did to emphasize the total lack of transparency inherent in the design.
Unlike CoH, you can call in missions even when you're inside the instance. It therefore never have occurred to me to try to use the crime computer until I exited the instance, so I didn't realize there was a hidden exit menu choice (it's not really correct to call it a button) until I expressed my frustration with having to find a door to a friend and he clued me in on the secret. What were the CO designers thinking? Do they think that clicking a button is somehow more immersion breaking than clicking an icon and selecting a menu item? |
-Female Player-
Quote:
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Originally Posted by mauk2
Evil_Legacy became one of my favorite posters with two words.
"Kick Rocks." I laffed so hard.  Never change, E_L! |
Quote:
Nnnnnno, that's how it's always been.|
Originally Posted by Evil_Legacy
in COX in instances, I keep getting the "no signal" message when trying to call in a mish while still inside one. Is this a bug that I thought up to now was normal?
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I mean, there'd be better coverage in Paragon if the damn Clockwork would stop using all the cell towers to build Paladin.
My guides:Dark Melee/Dark Armor/Soul Mastery, Illusion Control/Kinetics/Primal Forces Mastery, Electric Armor
"Dark Armor is a complete waste as a tanking set."
Quote:
ah ok. Just was wondering. So it's working as intended.
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Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim
Nnnnnno, that's how it's always been.
I mean, there'd be better coverage in Paragon if the damn Clockwork would stop using all the cell towers to build Paladin. |
-Female Player-
Quote:
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Originally Posted by mauk2
Evil_Legacy became one of my favorite posters with two words.
"Kick Rocks." I laffed so hard. Never change, E_L! |
Quote:
Wow. I only knew that you could *get* missions like that. I was unaware of turning them in and leaving instances through that interface. Good to know.
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Originally Posted by Rodion
I agree with a lot of your complaints. Teaming, rewards and mission handling are much clunkier in CO.
But your point about having to return to contacts isn't true. In many cases you never have to see the contact face-to-face. They just do a terrible job of documenting this. If you use SOCRATES, the "crime computer," you can get missions from contacts anywhere, even other other zones. When you open the crime computer window select Search for Emergencies. You'll get a Remote Contacts window. Scroll through this to find the contact you want. Then it's just like you're talking to them directly. When you finish a mission use the same interface to call it in. I just used it to get a mission from Antoine Harrison, who's in Millennium City, while I was in Canada. I went to MC, did the mission, then called up SOCRATES again to get a reward, which included gear that was added to my inventory. Some remote contacts don't show up in the list, but most of the regular ones do. In the average case this makes getting and calling in missions simpler than it is in CoH. One really dumb thing about CO is that there's no Exit button when you complete an instanced mission. You have to find a door to the outside to leave. It's really inconvenient until you figure out the last thing that SOCRATES does is allow you get out of the current map, which is another option that appears when you're on an instanced map. |
Goodbye may seem forever
Farewell is like the end
But in my heart's the memory
And there you'll always be
-- The Fox and the Hound
Maybe, must maybe, Champions Online will be it. For me, the first step is the creator. And I'm not entirely unhappy with my recreation of "The Knave of Trumps" in the CO-verse.
I've been playing CO more and liking it more. They have an underwater zone! I picture Aqua Man getting in Batman and Superman's face and going, "See guys. I told you it wasn't stupid."
Also, their comic and adventure packs are ridiculously fun and engaging. The fact that CO is a much more modern game really shines through.
Quote:
I went and recreated my main over there. He'd been created previously, but I'd deleted the original to make way for something else at the time in beta.|
Originally Posted by wei yau
Maybe, must maybe, Champions Online will be it. For me, the first step is the creator. And I'm not entirely unhappy with my recreation of "The Knave of Trumps" in the CO-verse.
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Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
I think we're moving into the Acceptance phase of grief. I'm actually looking forward to installing Champions (which I can only do after I clear off some HD space. Which will happen on December 1st), despite my many many issues with it.
I'll miss my Masterminds and my Dominators a lot, but I'm vaguely excited at the idea of putting together a Freeform character. (Or several Freeform characters)
I just hope defensive powers in CO live up to their hype. That's going to be the deal-breaker for me. My Unleashed was not as sturdy as I expected, but that was before I read through their (woefully incomplete) wiki and learned a little bit about how CO's mechanics work, and that "melee" didn't automatically equal "class with damage reduction" like it does in CoH. If my Tank or Hybrid with the Invulnerability passive is still getting easily KO'd by a a group of two or three punks with handguns at the easiest difficulty setting, I'm out of there.
(All that said, if Paragon Studios reforms and starts active development on CoH again, I'll be back to CoH in a heartbeat and never look back)
I have noticed this in both CO and DC Online, so perhaps it's a standard MMO feature that COH did not adopt, but in those games if you leave the instance all the enemies you fought respawn. And in CO, at least, when you die the enemies regain full health.
Can make for a LONG night... o.0