Where CoH went wrong

A lot of people are harping on five major points. But I want you to notice something: Four of those points were gambles, and ultimately they might have been gambles that paid off. Those four were:

City of Villains
Going Rogue
Mission Architect
Incarnate System

All four of those had the potential to bring in more players who wanted new kinds of content. They only drove players away when undersupported or mismanaged.

Personally, I liked Going Rogue and thought it was a net positive, but it was tragically abandoned. I cannot say bad things about the Mission Architect -- it was an incredibly ballsy thing for the devs to do, to give players the ability to create their own plot arcs. The AE was unique amongst all MMOs and I guarantee it brought in more players than it drove away. The only flub that I see was in letting players get xp from Artifact missions. It would have been just as fun and easier to balance if the only rewards were tickets and salvage.

I can't fault the devs for being innovative with those systems, and I would not let the take-away lesson be to avoid that kind of innovation. While they were all mismanaged in some way (especially Incarnates, IMHO), these were all brave and creative add-ons to any MMO.

The fifth point, however, was inexcusable and is entirely negative:

Enhancement Diversification

While ED might work hand-in-hand with the IO system, those two changes should never have been released separately. The terrible communication breakdown about ED and GDN were also major crises. ED struck just as the game was most popular, and crippled the momentum that could have built us into a major player in the MMO market.

The lesson learned in CoH is to be innovative, but when you create a new system make sure you have a plan to expand and support it forever. Don't do nerfs without balancing them with positive features, and never, ever, lie about what you are doing.

As many of you know, Bases were kinda my thing for a while... so...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Starsman Bases (was nowhere as easy to make a distinct looking base as it was to create a distinct looking character, they went too Lego on it's design making it too hard to create them and too hard to make them not look generic.)

Sorry, but I have to disagree here. It wasn't the lego-ish-ness of bases that made them difficult to build, it was the initial PVP-raid-pathing that made it such a pain in the tukus.
As evidenced by some incredibly beautiful bases since that was disengaged, many builders loved the "legos", and were in fact begging for more pieces.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tutelary Bases were never fully realized. Not just PvP but taking a note from CO, instead of one character having an arch nemesis, the whole SG would have one and occasionally need to defend their base. I think it especially important because very few got to enjoy base-building if in a large SG so defending it against a threat, I would perceive more value in it as 'just one of the grunts'

Disagree with this somewhat. Bases should never have been perma-linked to PvP. It should have been OPTIONAL. Many groups used their bases for RP purposes, or even simply as showcases for their visions... raiding and PvP was never on their radar.

HOWEVER, I do agree that bases could have used more functionality in terms of group activities. The re-vamped CoP was, even considering it's flaws, a step in the right direction.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JKedan Quote: Originally Posted by I Burnt The Toast 1. Bases. I get that they are a tangled mess, but who is to fault for that? That would be the dev(s) who initially created the base system. Maybe someone should have been overseeing the project a little more in case ..you know.. in the future they wanted to change things in it or add to it without breaking everything -Bases. As soon as they realized that the CoP and base PvP were crap (and my (admittedly biased) recollection is that the playerbase realized it pretty much immediately) they needed to completely revamp the base construction system. Making it so you could only earn Inf OR Prestige was also a terrible idea.

QFT on both points.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fire_Away CoH lost a battle of attrition with its customer base by stubbornly adhering to principles that needed to change and "selective listening". It wasn't one specific thing or group. It was the base builders over here, the pvp players over there, the soloist, the villain, the non incarnate grinder, the non Preatorian and, in general, the disenfranchised. Like it or not, when it came to influencing positive change in CoH lets just say that some players were more influential than others... and it wasn't always based on the validity of the argument. The way the devs and the community treated these "minority" groups did not help the cause (for example, an "I do not pvp therefore precious resources should not be wasted on pvp" attitude). People insisting, to this day, that "everything is fine" did not do the game an overall service. They are just as bad as those who say "everything sucks". Sometimes the devs "sticking to their guns" reached the level of the ridiculous. What real harm would have come to bumping base storage numbers sooner, switching pvp back to the way it was, having female mastemind pets,or doing a hundred other little things that would have promoted happiness? And now (gulp) comes the really hard part to say. I honestly believe that CoH could have done a better job in the integrity department. I'm not saying anyone purposely "lied". But the players were told too many things on too many occasions that, in the end, simply did not (for whatever reason, legit or not) pan out. I have had devs look me straight in the eye from a couple of feet away and tell something (which I in turn, with permission, spread to the entire community) that did not happen. I gotta to tell ya that's a hard thing to "get over"... regardless of how much love you have for the game and those play it. I wish I could say I was alone in having that feeling, but I know for a fact I am not.

Well and bravely said.
I know you get grief for it, but sometimes tough criticisms need to be expressed.


Other posters have covered my other complaints pretty well, so I'll just give a quick review:

• AE nerfs and consequent badge removals... bad form... really bad form.
• Too many currencies. What're we, in pre-euro Europe? Pre-Central Bank US? sheesh
• Disparity in Incarnate progression for small groups and soloists. pathetic
• Divide between Heros/Villians/Praetorians... weird

All that being said, CoH is still an incredibly and fantastically versatile game.

And since you can't have versatility without some complexity, I accept it for what it is.


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Where CoH went wrong?

#1) Same old, same old maps. I understand we are in a city, but seriously? No one thought of an underwater world, the Rikti homeworld, outer space missions, deserts, Antartica? The closest thing we had to a farm world was Croatoa and that still had cities.

#2) Storylines. The first thing developers said after they created AE was "Don't use kill-all missions in your storylines... players generally tend to hate that." And what did they do? Nearly every story arc have kill alls (some have multiples). In addition, many of the story arcs were throw-aways and didn't *really* get good until the end. In the middle of one arc in Independence Port, the entire next mission was to deliver a music CD to the friend of the contact who just happened to be on the other side of the city. Did you notice that ninety percent of the missions happens over 800 yards from your current location? Why? Most of the story arcs weren't good at all--again, in the last year, they've really improved.

#3) The "Random" hit roll generator: I've said this time and time again that the so-called "random" rolls were tainted, but no one listened. CoH was adamant against putting those numbers out there and with good reason. I've finally figured out the reason why the numbers are skewed... different powers produce different numbers with different objects. There is no way in hell they tested EVERY power against every villain and every object in the game. (IE: the inherent technology power of Taser vs. oil slick. Even with my invention sets upping the chance to hit to 95%, I miss 20 - 30% of the time. Bet they didn't test this power to this object).

#4) Poor customer support: When I alerted the devs to this development, my response was (quoting here), "There isn't a problem with it and we're not going to retest the numbers). And if I get never see that generic email again --thank you for telling us your concerns. Be aware that some problems take priority over others and that yours will be evaluated for blah, blah, blah. I've seen that email at least fifty times.

#5) Bugs not being fixed: oil slick has been the bane to pets for YEARS. Not fixed. Mayhem missions will sometimes not produce a hero causing you to fail the mission--been that way for years. Not fixed. Baddies get stuck in walls all the time. Not fixed.

#6) SG bases: And here's a pet peeve of mine. People spend a LOT of time working on their bases. Would it have killed someone to create new base content? Posts dating back to 2007 have asked for fire bases, underwater bases, space bases, underground bases... all of those are graphics already being used in-game! Why not let you add fire (other than the wall torches or lighting bonfire) to the base? The water graphic is in EVERY city, Cave graphics are in caves and temples. That's just laziness.

#7) Contentment by the players: I'm shocked that more players weren't upset when CoH went F2P and came out with new content every month when devoted players were paying fifteen-sixteen bucks a month and getting sporadic content. Realize that the last powers available BEFORE F2P was dual pistols and demon summoning. Since then, a ton of new powers, emotes, costumes, maps..etc have all surfaced--and I mean a LOT of them. This was Paragon's way of saying, "We already have your cash, so we'll take it easy and spoonfeed you bits at a time" versus today's, "We need your cash so we'll slam you with new stuff every second." So much for devotion.

With all those issues, it's very sad to say that the other super powered MMO's are exponentially worse. The next best bet is Champions... wait 'til you see that one!

If I had to pick just one thing, I'd pick PvP. Adding PvP after the fact is a really tough needle to thread, and when you try to do it in a game that allows players to be gloriously imbalanced.... it's going to be a disaster.

And as others have pointed out, this decision bled over in to a lot of other bad designs and issues.

As soon as they made the new tutorial, it was obvious GR was going to become a ghost town :/