Champions Online: just doesn't cut it.
By
Ael Rhiana,
Posted on: 2012-10-06 24:47 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
One really quick thing I want to bring up with regard to CO:
We don't know how many people they currently have working on it.
Cryptic's usual MO is to have a big crew during development and initial launch of a title, then shift most of them over to development of their next MMO, leaving a smaller team at the helms of their older titles. This happened to CoH when work began on the MMO that would eventually become CO. It happened to CO when STO went into development, and it happened to STO when Neverwinter went into development. This isn't due to malice, but to the fact that it generally DOES take more people to get an MMO off the ground than it does to keep it running afterwards.
Now, I'm not privy to how many total developers are employed by Cryptic/PWE, so I couldn't even begin to guess how big the teams are for each of their titles. But it's obvious that the newest title or the title currently in development will have the most resources allotted to it. Furthermore, those titles associated with well-known commercial properties (Star Trek, D&D) will probably have more resources than other titles (CO). As such, CO could be operating with a very small crew, much like how CoH was operating with 14 prior to being acquired by NCSoft. The result is that the devs really have to pick and choose the things to be developed.
I beta tested CO, initially played for the first 3 months, and recently began playing it again. While it does have some problems and questionable design decisions (like completely scrapping the already-existing crafting system which also scrapped a lot of potential for visual character customization), it's not the horrible, bloody trainwreck that some people claim it is. Most of the game's issues - those that are in the hands of the developers, at least - could be remedied if the game had more resources devoted to it. If PWE isn't pushing Cryptic to immediately get to work on yet another MMO after Neverwinter launches, maybe we'll see CO get some love. Maybe some former Paragon devs will end up working on it. Who knows, really?
Positron: "There are no bugs [in City of Heroes], just varying degrees of features."
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Boy, there's a difficult proposition... But what the heck, lemme try.|
Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
Can you find me something that's universally and objectively bad?
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I'm going to go with black holes. Because they're bad for the universe, as they destroy space and time and any object that gets in them, and objectively bad for anyone in the universe.
However, even those are beneficial to a certain extent... would our galaxy be the shape it is without the supermassive one in it's center?
Even so, it's just a lion in a cage full of lambs... eventually, it's going to eat one. Then another. Except THIS lion cannot be stopped from continuing to do so. Best not be a lamb, but where you gonna go? Other black holes are traipsing around, looking to eat ya.
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The other I thought of is the eventual heat death of the universe. Although there are differing theories about the entire thing, whether it will come to pass or not, I believe it's the only answer. Nothing's moving towards each other, so the heat death is inevitable.
I'm thinking that there's nothing good about it. The universe itself becomes 0 Kelvin, everywhere, and all motion stops. Not awesome for anyone or anything.
Which, in actuality, means that the universe itself is the thing to be universally and objectively hated, because, man, it's gonna kill us all just by being in it.
And what's worse is that all the observable things beyond our local group is likely to vanish outside the sphere of observation. Light/electromagnetic radiation acutally does have a finite amount of distance before it degrades. There will be a 'we can't see any further' point in time, where everything else has gotten beyond that. Sad really.
But nobody on Earth will be around to see it, because many many years before, the Sun will have bloated upon it's exhaustion of hydrogen and/or helium for it's fusion process, turning into a red giant, and expanding it's outer layers, consuming Mercury, Venus, and most likely incinerating, but possibly also consuming, the Earth. And perhaps Mars too.
Even before the consumption, the Earth's atmosphere will boil away, as will the oceans, and every thing on the planet will be baked to a crisp. It is likely even the crust will become molten.
But the end of the Earth, in and of itself, isn't universally and objectively bad. It's just objectively bad. The Vogons need the planet gone anyway for the hyperspace bypass, after all.
Or so I've heard on all that. I don't actually, positively know. Much like I don't actually, positively know that we do or do not have aliens and their tech stored in Area 51 or something.
Mike
/Would like to know, though... just to be the guy who knows there are ETs or EBEs or whatever you wanna call them.
//Oh, and yeah, CO isn't any good for me either, but that's objective. You like it, fine, I'm glad for you. I can't stand it, m'self.
August 31, 2012. A Day that will Live in Infamy. Or Information. Possibly Influence. Well, Inf, anyway. Thank you, Paragon Studios, for what you did, and the enjoyment and camaraderie you brought.
This is houtex, aka Mike, signing off the forums. G'night all. - 10/26/2012
Well... perhaps I was premature about that whole 'signing off' thing... - 11-9-2012
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Unless, as some scientist theorize, black holes are the method by which new universes are started. Each black hole that forms in our universe may be chance for a new "child" universe to split off from ours.|
Originally Posted by houtex
I'm going to go with black holes. Because they're bad for the universe, as they destroy space and time and any object that gets in them, and objectively bad for anyone in the universe.
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Originally Posted by houtex
The other I thought of is the eventual heat death of the universe. Although there are differing theories about the entire thing, whether it will come to pass or not, I believe it's the only answer.
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There was an alien race of artists in GURPS Aliens that believed that entropy had to be a gift from a benevolent creator, because it ensured that sentient beings would always have something to fix or improve, and therefore would never be without purpose.
I'm a published amateur comic book author: www.ericjohnsoncomics.com
******MA Arcs****
Arc 5909: "Amazon-Avatars"
Arc 6143: "Escalation" (Nominee: Architect Awards, Nominee: Player Awards, and Dev's Choice!)
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while it does have a huge number of choices, by no stretch of the imagination can you call that jumbled mess of a GUI a "better job".|
Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
I
But CO did do a better job designing a costume creator that has a lot more choices. |
And it takes *work* to make a worse GUI than Paragon Studios.
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Originally Posted by Goliath Bird Eater
One really quick thing I want to bring up with regard to CO:
We don't know how many people they currently have working on it. |
A month or so doing a little playing and lurking on their forums indicates they have a skeleton crew manning the game...which is the Cryptic MO.
Hopefully whatever population bump they get from our expatriates will inspire them to re-commit resources.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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How about...bugs? Game-breaking bugs are objectively bad, right? For example, one of the missions in the Vibora Bay Crisis was bugged for a while (I don't know how long, but weeks at a minimum), with the result that you couldn't finish the mission, or the Crisis, and therefore couldn't get access to a chunk of CO's content. Imagine if you flat-out couldn't visit Night Ward because the Shadowed Paths power that sent you there wouldn't work. That, in my humble opinion, would be universally and objectively bad.|
Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
Or people could just accept that when someone calls something bad they are stating a preference.
Can you find me something that's universally and objectively bad? |
From what I understand, the CO crew fixed this in the latest patch, so I don't want to pile on, but it's one of those worrying signs that makes me reluctant to sub to CO (which I know is optional). I also understand that two of the three adventure packs have gamestopping bugs. CO doesn't have a lot of content, and it sounds like some portion of it flat-out doesn't work at any given time. Again: Bad.
But I get what BellaStrega is saying. There's a difference between "I don't like this because it's not what I'm looking for" and "I don't like this because it's badly designed." Complaining about the blocking mechanic is the former (I like it, but can understand why people don't). Complaining about the boss fight at the end of the tutorial is the latter (unless the point of the tutorial is to show you how the death penalty works, in which case, it's a secret success).
Or for another example that doubles as a pointlessly-spiteful potshot at a game I'll probably wind up playing in December: I don't like that they have a goofy writing style, but that's a matter of taste. You can fit a goofy character into a serious world (plenty of my CoH characters have been jokes), but a serious character just looks stupid in a goofy world. That's a pure matter of taste, though, and I've seen CO players say that they like the campy writing style. It's Silver Age! It has a sense of humor! Whatever floats your boat.
On the other hand, I also think that the humor is badly-written. It's not funny! It's just childish and feeble. I feel like there's a writer shouting "Get it? GET IT?" at me, and I want to squeegee the flopsweat off my screen. Example: In one mission, you rescue the characters from Anchorman. The joke is that they're the characters from Anchorman. That's as much work as they put in - look, it's a reference! It's like Scary Movie. Of course, people must like the Scary Movie series since there are now thirty of them, so it's still subjective, but at least you can make the case that it's objectively lazy and shallow. After all, if you'd never heard of Anchorman, would the NPCs make sense at all, much less be funny?
That, I think, is the difference between "this is bad" and "I do not like this." Champions Online tries to be campy: I do not like this. They put in the absolute minimum amount of effort in doing so: This is bad.
For what it's worth, I did laugh at the Ghostbusters references in Night Ward, so I'm not opposed to humor-by-reference. I think the difference is that those reveals would both have worked just fine if you'd never seen Ghostbusters.
I'll admit, it isn't my preference compared to coh, but what I want is a character creator like coh's, and right now, its CO or absolutely nothing(DCOU does not cut it, at all). so since its the only game that is friendly for me to port my characters over there, it works out. The freeform stuff is nice and the community, whether out of genuine concern of calculated pragmatism has been welcoming, and cryptic apparently hired some unspecified devs, and most importantly, it is NOT NCSOFT.
It was good enough for me to lifetime back in the day, partially as a bet that it would grow and improve like coh did in 3 years time. It hasn't quite hit that mark, but its shown some interesting growth, I like the new perk system introduced in "on alert" so there is where I will go with copies of my coh characters.
they need to get babs off neverwinter and get him animating fast though, their animations are by far their weakest link, hand to hand moves are stilted and jerky, and the "athletics" travel power makes the character look like they are traveling downhill while running on a flat plane, and a lot of bestial's claw moves just look horrid.. the martial arts animations are surprisingly pretty good, the thunderous kicks combo actually looks better than the comparable "storm kick" power here, but then I make a stone character, and its just flailing their arms with rocks on them, yuk.
one funny bonus of co is you an make an arch enemy, i didnt have one for my Rian frostdrake characer, yet, so i know who it will be...ncsoft president T.J. kim, with demonic minions. Think I'll be doing several nemesis missions. Time to kick that twit in the face a few hundred times.
oh and xie, its club caprice.
I can tolerate the cartoonish graphics, I enjoyed the combat system and charged attacks, I liked the costume creator... sort of (see below)
But I can't call it home. There is no villain option and the dialogue is so dumbed down I almost expect to be rewarded with shiny scratch-n-sniff stickers for a job well done. Also as mentioned above, its too campy, and not in a fun way 
So about that costume creator... Its decent but there isn't much option for muted colors, some pieces look silly and the proportion sliders can get pretty ridiculous
That thing would be quite comfortable in Pocket D but there is no Pocket D, just some barren dive called Carpaccio or something...
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Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
Can you find me something that's universally and objectively bad?
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
Here's my two and a half week update:
A big warning for anyone going in cold: The tutorial is badly broken. In the original tutorial, your stats rose as you leveled and you got gear to boost them even further. Since On Alert, now you have to pick three Super Stats that rise as you level. And you don't any of those or any gear until after you leave the tutorial. And they have yet to fix the difficulty of the end mobs and the end boss to match that you no longer have the original stats.
It took me a few falls, but I was able to take down Black Talon with my heavy STR and CON tank. My poor Marksman, on the other hand... owowowowow. My recommendation if you're silver and you're just starting: Go Behemoth.
The good news is that once you finish the tutorial, you have the option for all following alts to skip it and start at level 6. Also you start in the Powerhouse, which means you can remove your starter non-energy builder and replace it for free with one that wasn't listed in creation (i.e. Assault Rifle).
The Pros:
- I might be branded as a heretic for saying this, but here goes: The combat, to me, is better. I can't say enough good things about having heavy hitting attacks with zero recharge. I'm a sucker for beat 'em ups, its why I loved CoH for so long. But being able to drop swaths of mobs with spammable AoEs? Every day and twice on Sunday, thank you. Sure, blocking and endurance management are vastly more important, but I like that too. I'm no longer rotating my way to victory, action there is more lively and interactive. I like that.
- Freeform. Or 'how to make a ranged tank'. Or even 'how to make a survivable blaster'. My main is blapping about with twin shooters and a pair of fairy fists. The farther I go along and the more defensive powers I take, the less squishy she feels. And powers are somewhat modifiable through advantages and specializations. There's not much in the way of control options, alas, but, that's a discussion for the next session.
- I said it before, and it bears repeating here: I love getting missions from plucky news reporters, costumed legends, people running up to you in the street, and the Chief of Police himself. Oh, and being in the middle of street sweeping for one mission, having your nemesis's minions drop in to say hi, and getting a mission to stop yet another of his fiendish plans. I feel more like a superhero. Then again, I still have a soft spot for Adam West and the Superfriends. 
- Become powers. Maybe eventually they'll be customizable enough to slap a Jolly Roger on one, but still... usable vehicles and mecha.
- The environments are nicer. The city does look and feel a little more like a city, but then you get to travel to frozen tundras, deserts, and jungles too. And you have interactive environments like the TV studio, the bad guy bar, the mayor's office, and even a courtroom. Its little things that make it look a little more alive.
The Cons:
- The comicesque graphics won't be for everyone. I don't mind as much since I'm old school like that, but everyone's mileage will vary.
- I like getting missions from Not April O'Neil. I don't like that she had me save the cast of Anchorman. Even if it did involve Foxbat. And there's no clues either, just the odd bit o' lore here and there that you might've passed up while flying through the mission. The storytelling is just not as detailed, and I really do miss that.
- It looks like PWE's finally putting enough money into STO and CO to get things rolling again, and it looks like bugs are getting squashed but they're still there. And Cryptic can still be sloppy at times.
- The Paragon Market didn't hurt my wallet as much. There's so many nice things that are just.... nnngh. Though I can grind Questionite for Zen, if I was that compulsive of a player. @_@ And I got a lot more for my VIP membership than I do being Gold there.
- Open dueling. I was never one for PVP, and it seems some players just don't take 'duel declined' for an answer. :P
- Club Caprice doesn't have half the population Virtue's Pocket D did. If I want to people watch, there's the duel arena in the middle of Ren Cen or the Millennium City Powerhouse, but its no Atlas Park.
Blood Widow Ricki * Tide Shifter * T-34 * Opposite Reaction * Shaolin Midnight * ChernobylCheerleader
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The style in Borderlands and Borderlands 2 reminds me of a graphic novel and you really don't notice the outlining as you play. Basically, I guess you could say that it just "fits." |
Originally Posted by Father Xmas
Don't the fairly successful games Borderlands and Borderlands 2 also use a cel-shader with outlines style? So somebody must like it or choose to ignore it.
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Champions, as someone else mentioned, seems to be based on The Incredibles and the graphics just don't mesh as well. However, you do get used to it after awhile and once you learn to play with the body and face sliders you can do some pretty nice stuff. I'm very pleased with the last couple of characters I made. You can actually customize the shape of your character's body as much as the look of their costume. Want a superheroine with a big bottom and small breasts? No problem! Want one the other way around? Again, no problem!
I think they do need to add more options for facial appearance, though. Not necessarily in the sliders - just some different texture and shading options would work. Right now there is a choice between basic face or one of a half dozen really hideous faces (i.e. no choice).
In response to something someone else said; I can't imagine why ANYONE would complain about the cloth/leather/metal options! One of the biggest problems we have with costumes here is that the textures often don't match. On Champions you can take just about any costume item and match the texture (well, the shine anyway) to the rest of your costume.
I really think people don't give Champions a fair chance. I'm sure that no one here mastered all the nuances of CoH during their first week in the game. That said, though, I think Champions has a lot of room for improvement. Cryptic does some things very well, but they are very lacking in other areas. I think if you gave the Paragon Studios team a couple of years to work over Champions the way they've worked over CoH, that game would SHINE.
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If Jack and his crew can pull off the Foundry, all will be forgiven.
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Originally Posted by Golden Girl
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Blood Widow Ricki * Tide Shifter * T-34 * Opposite Reaction * Shaolin Midnight * ChernobylCheerleader
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Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
Can you find me something that's universally and objectively bad? |
(and this is just a pun, i actually liked the album.)
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Wind waker too, which was huge, but also got controversy because it didn't fit the style of an earlier tech demo of link fighting gannon. cel shading isn't something that is just good or bad, its a matter of preferences, particularly for people used to a style for 5 years. i love cel shading and have to admit, I had to tag off the outlines myself.|
Originally Posted by Father Xmas
Don't the fairly successful games Borderlands and Borderlands 2 also use a cel-shader with outlines style? So somebody must like it or choose to ignore it.
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I will admit, fully human characters with no facial coverings do look a little wonky there, but since I play monsters, robot and such, i am somewhat insulated.
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Lol. That about sums it up for me, too.|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
A classic thread title since 2009.
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Sorry, Tic Toc, if you're out there. I did try to like it.
I guess it's off to EQ2 for me. I always played that one on and off too; I'd say the big gaping hole that CoH's demise is leaving behind in my superhero gaming time is doomed to stay just that-- a big gaping hole.
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The guy has a mouth and hair... the game is doomed!|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
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Why didn't I see this before?!
*Calls Cryptic customer support for an LTS refund immediately.*
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Damn it you're right again. I mean without him, I wouldn't be upset about losing CoH, because it just never would have existed.
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Originally Posted by Golden Girl
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You're right. But this face totally ruined it. It's like a photo of the smoking gun...|
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
Damn it you're right again. I mean without him, I wouldn't be upset about losing CoH, because it just never would have existed. |
while it's still smoking. Can't you see the smokiness of that hair?
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That's why I wish we could have cherry picked the good stuff from both games to improve our costume creator.|
Originally Posted by Nethergoat
while it does have a huge number of choices, by no stretch of the imagination can you call that jumbled mess of a GUI a "better job".
And it takes *work* to make a worse GUI than Paragon Studios. |
I'd even like to include the way STO lets people put Tattoos on characters with an x, y, z axis.
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Don't get me wrong. States had to go. He did lots of things right but he got to the point where he was causing more harm than good.
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Originally Posted by MrPlayskool
You're right. But this face totally ruined it. It's like a photo of the smoking gun...
while it's still smoking. Can't you see the smokiness of that hair? |
CO will be an all right (albeit inferior) replacement to CoH.
The powers aren't as flashy, the characters don't look as good, and the combat while better in some areas seems very dumbed down in others.
vs
vs
*Example* My power armor character at level 30 pretty much wins every standard encounter by pressing 3 once or twice. Thats it. It toggles on the mini gun which hits an arc for like 8 seconds which is enough to melt all minions and LT's. Bosses are usually few and far between.
It apparently has some sort of steep DR curve when it comes to making tanky characters. At the moment I have :
50% res all from my defensive slot
24% res all from defensive gear
10% from specilization that activates on ST crit (35% chance to crit)
10% from Phalanx defense advantage
6% res all Aura
6% res all from another crit proc
Flat +80 damage reduction on all attacks
A 31-40% dodge chance that will further reduce damage taken by 20% (+9% dodge when using energy builder)
A 10% chance to heal 20% of any damage taken
A 54% heal (2,258 HP out of 4,200 Max) that is up every 15 seconds
15% of my life returned for every enemy I defeat.
Some crazy absorb power that absorbs up to 1600 damage and refreshes 834 points every time you are attacked with a 15 seconds up / 50 seconds down cooldown. (Can still add 2 more ranks to this power at some point)
If that wasn't enough, I can switch to "Tank" role and gain 10% enhancment on existing damage res rates and 25% increased health.
While the standard 3 minions or 1 Lt 1 Minion are pretty much a snooze to get through (toggle on 3, wait, repeat) its surprisingly easy to get in over ones head in team ups. To the point where I'm holding down block an awful lot (270% extra resistance?)
I feel sorry for the people who go for glass cannons or support, or maybe I went overboard on mitigation. Who knows.
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My post wasn't meant to be totally serious |
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
Don't get me wrong. States had to go. He did lots of things right but he got to the point where he was causing more harm than good.
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
What if the much-despised Mr. Emmert left because he knew then what we know now...even back then? LOLOL
�Many things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done.�
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You need to get to level 10 before the costume options really unlock, then there's other costume options, and some of those you can earn in game instead of purchasing outright.|
Originally Posted by B_L_Angel
What flexibility of choice ?
I made my toon there and as far as i could tell my choices were bad colors and how she stuck her behind out. I did like they have A quiver. Really how many archers in this game and it took 8 years ? |
CO has improved quite a bit since it's debut, however, people are right, it's not CoH.
If you're looking for a game that is just like CoH, give up now.
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
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This Is a problem that kind of bothered me. combat can be interesting, but it became a thing of one or so powers being really good, so you just spam them. For me, martial arts was, thunderous lunge, into a group, dragon kick with full charge, drops every minion, burning chi fist for the survivors, if its a nasty boss throw knees to interrupt hits and keep chi fist on him.. for my sorcery main, its skarns bane and sigil of the primal storm, drop survivors with the ST charge blast. mechanically its st's and aoes here too, but at least there is a flow of techniques, made thing s a bit more visually distinct.
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Originally Posted by MrLiberty
*Example* My power armor character at level 30 pretty much wins every standard encounter by pressing 3 once or twice. Thats it. It toggles on the mini gun which hits an arc for like 8 seconds which is enough to melt all minions and LT's. Bosses are usually few and far between.
It apparently . |
I don't like CO. It feels like a cheap knock off of CoH. To me it feels like a game that came out before CoH and not 5 years later.