Things I loved about COH game design

3 key things about COH that made the game immensely more accessible, replayable, and fun, and could be carried over into another game:

1) The inspiration system. Other games have consumables too, but COH was unique in that none of them had cool-down timers and they take up their own type of inventory that scales with level. This enhanced the versatility of your character unlike any other game I played*. If you wanted to play content that your build wasn't quite up to the challenge for, you could stock up on inspirations that could help you get through that challenge, and if your build was up for the challenge you could stock up on inspirations that enhanced what you already do well or shore up weak points.

Don't have a tank but need to take the alpha? Take a few purples and oranges. Health bar going down too fast? Start spamming greens. And because there was no cool down, your only limiting factor is quantity and quality. Plus, these inspirations were easy to come by and teammates frequently helped each other out if someone needed a particular type.

2) Class/Powerset Progression. I preferred this form of progression vs most other games. This is one of the reasons why the game never felt like a gear treadmill. Also, this game design feature allow you to combine different powersets, creating a huge number of power possibilities that really enhanced the replayability of the game, leading to what was known as "altitis". The only other games I can think of with rampant altitis like this are Eve Online and WOW. Funny how those games are wildly popular. Maybe the secret to a successful MMO is to have game design features that lead to altitis? Just a thought. (also, Champions Online seems to have its fair amount of altitis, but it has other weaknesses which I won't discuss here).

3) Enhancement System: Enhancements, IO or otherwise, were our equivalent of gear. The great thing about COH is they always balanced the game around the most easily attainable enhancements, so you never had to grind those IOs just to feel like you could compete with the content. And if you wanted to slot IOs it really made your character feel awesomely powerful.

Taken altogether, they really made COH special. From a software development point of view, they're probably more complicated to design/code and balance vs other more streamlined game designs. But so what, I say! There's this trend of games coming out trying to streamline their design (i.e. unified inventory, gear based progression, simplified class/role systems) and those games just aren't as fun to play. Granted, they're probably easier to design, code, and balance, but the end result feels like a soul-less, bland game.

Honorable game design feature mentions:
a) Loot dropping: it was random (I think), so you didn't have to worry about need or greed, which IMO drives a wedge between you and your teammates.

b) Controllers: was a cool class concept, and added versatility to team composition and play.

c) Tanks: felt real tanky, for lack of a better term, but at the same time you didn't always need one depending on the team composition.

Really, it's hard to name just ONE thing (a lot of what I love is how everything fits together), but a few would be:

Class/powerset is a big one. I love that, for example, a "Brute" could mean a hulking super strong and invulnerable guy, or an agile swashbuckler with a pair of rapiers, or staff-wielding stone figure, or dozens of other combinations of offensive and defensive powersets (and that's before pool powers and Epic/Patron powers get factored into the mix). In most MMOs I've tried, once you pick a class, that's it; all the powers you'll ever have are pretty much pre-selected for you at that point. CoH has enough variety that even playing the same class can be a completely different experience.

I also love the emphasis on survivability. What other game gives you the potential to be 75% resistant to damage with little work (let alone the 90% that some classes can achieve with a little work), or the "active defense" ability to completely shut down single enemies or even entire groups for long periods of time? (To compare: in a certain other superhero game, an "Invulnerability" character has about as much durability as a CoH Blaster with Tough and an Epic/Patron resistance toggle unless you devote your entire build to it)

And, yeah, I love Flight, as well as the other travel power options. Completely unrestricted, not requiring a special mount or quest to unlock, or any of the other drawbacks that plague travel powers in other games (when they have them at all). Flight is my favorite travel power in CoH (with Super Leap being a close second).

Honorable mention: Masterminds. A huge army of controllable (and namable!) summons, and possibly a few more uncontrollable pets or pet-like entities depending on your exact powersets (Gang War, Soul Extraction, Dark Servent, Tornado, Lightning Storm, many of the Traps, etc).

Some interesting perspectives here. With CoH being my only online game, I had no basis for comparison. Now I'm finding out that all the features I liked and took for granted are far from being standard in gaming. This makes losing CoH even more of a downer. It's just wrong that CoH and the people behind it are being penalized for getting it RIGHT. I mean, what the hell?

Good chat system.

Initially very little charcter/account binding for items that was destroyed as time went on.

Initially very nice movement that was taken out. But it still had better movement than other games.

Gear =/= character look.

Character customization, while continuing to be a work in progress, was great. (I'm looking at you Epic/Power Pools. So close, yet now so far.)

The chat system.

The ability to create so many alts. (My Fire/Fire tank didn't play the exact same way my Fire/Dark or Fire/SS tanks did. Then there were my 3 Dark tanks, and my 4 SD tanks, then there's my 12 controllers... er nvm.. )

The IO system. Without it, and the ability to create alts, I would probably have been bored with the game along time ago.

I also wanted to mention Super Group bases. While we were told the underlying tech was a complete rats nest, I liked the concept. I was amazed at what some of the players were able to create, in-spite of the severe limitations the Base building tools had. It's unfortunate that the developers wouldn't/couldn't find a way to have improved this under utilized portion of the game.

the casual feel of the game pre-IO.

Hero/villain/gold side and in between feature.

Chat interface

Super group bases were a cool feature but wished it was more intergrated into the game. After the transportation system revamp, it all became moot besides storage.


Events of the Winter, Valentine Day, The Summer Movie event.

Customization was straight.

The power selection choices.

Quote:

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!

Enhancements and the ability to solo everything were the selling points for me. I like to have the freedom to both look good (the pieces I want) as well as be capable/strong. Enhancements let me achieve this by avoiding the visual clutter that almost every other MMO seems to find a beneficial/enjoyable system. I'll take invisible enhancements over "mix-and-match the game' any day.

Demorecording. End of line.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite