Where CoH went wrong

As unpopular as it was ED needed to happen when it did, though I don't believe all those people spouting ED was put in to make room for IO's, they happened to far apart to really have anything to do with each other.

I remember playing several characters before ED, and it was fun being invincible and being in no real danger, but it wouldn't have stayed fun. Nothing was a challenge at the end game back then. I'm sure all those grey names that happened in my global friends wouldn't have stuck with the game this long if ED had not happened. And I know I wouldn't have played the game for the very long time I have. And with CoV, the villain AT's without ED would have been completely broken.

My big gripe with the game, was really the game play itself. The stories, the TF's, the people the atmosphere was great. But being rooted every time I used any attack annoyed me the entire time. and in the recent times playing even with the revamped starting zones after being done with the new stories, it was just the same game, and the last few times I had played I had tried to make new alts and could just not power through those early levels anymore.

I love the game, I was going to give it a break and come back, and now I'm sad I won't really get the chance to.

Three things that went wrong. IMHO, these caused the demise of the game.
(1) Fracturing of the population. This was accomplished with CoV, Praetoria, and too many servers. They should have reduced the servers to about 6-8 total. CoV introduced new classes which were great, but they should have allowed all ATs on all sides and switching early on and make it very easy to swap sides. Praetoria was beautifully designed with decent stories, but sadly the low level content was tougher than the other zones and did not appeal to the masses. I liked the zone and the challenge, but low levels were something that people just wanted to get through and not dwell on by most. I would have saved Praetoria for a new COH2 perhaps or made zones to 50 upon its release. The problem in the end however was with all the servers and zones, finding a team was sometimes a challenge unless you played blue, so a lot of resources were spent fracturing the group.
(2) Incarnate System - Grinding short TF's over and over was a huge mistake. They should have made incarnate system like an accolade, but with choice of powers. The accolade could have required certein tf and mission badges of course. The new trials were fun, but after the 50th time I did a SLAM and still was not tier 4, it was depressing.
(3) The marketplace - Loved the idea originally, but the marketplace made it quite challenging to for new players to enter the economy of the game and therefore, they probably turned a lot away. The inflation rate after the market was introduced in the game was ridiculous and players that used to have 10 million were considered rich once, but now 10 million became laughable. New players would take 6 months to a year to earn enough influence to really enjoy the IO system. I think the marketplace introduced a facet to the game that was unnecessary, and the occasionaly time iron cost 1 million influence would even bother me.

There were lots of small mistakes, but in the end, the mmorpg needs to build community, and to build community, the players need to be kept together close, have new challenges and focus on playing the game, not taking lots of time to build IOs or such. The devs should have revamped missions and arcs more frequently than they did. They spent too much time worrying about closing exploits and not updating content. Lot of new content started to show since GR, but there was a large lag time until updating the content really took off.

I also have to add that CoH did a lot of things right. Great character customization, great animation and powersets that really created so much alt-itis, and some great task forces and great events. While we are saying what the did wrong, remember, they did a lot right. Over 7 years of active players and so many of us in an outcry means they did quite a lot right I would say.

Hmmm.

- Lack of focus. One of my complaints earlier when I left for a bit was the feeling the dev team was like a hyperactive dog in a room of superballs - chase one thing, then another, then another. AE felt abandoned, for instance. Villainside didn't get much attention for a bit, etc. Something new would be introduced, then not integrated into what came after.

- Going to extremes. Specifically I'm thinking of hero vs villainside. Heroside had people complaining there were "too many" zones (which I still don't honestly agree with.) I'll go with "underutilized" and "similar missions," but if they'd had unique paths in each... Villainside had too few, to where it was actually acting against me (300+ alts...) wanting to roll a villain. There could have been a happy balance in the middle.

- "It's someone else's idea, they left, we're nto going to work on it." Ugh. I hated hearing this. So we have wings - so what? Make avilians. Do the whole gadzul/blood of the black stream thing, and so forth.

- I13. Instead of dropping everything as one major change, the changes should have been rolled out a bit at a time, tested, adjusted, rolled out, etc. Still saddens me to see how the zones just died.

- Incarnate system. I *still* feel that there should have been a slight increase in power in regular content, with them getting to go full bore in Incarnate content. And the dropping of shards after Alpha... eh. (And not at all in DA.) Raid content should have had solo/small team content rolled out right alongside it, and so forth.

See my Guides and Tutorials

My initial hope for the incarnate system was that each level gave you an additional enhancement slot once you achieved each incarnate level. Where you could use the final slot to 7 slot one power, should you chose to do so. Nothing as broad a stroke as the Alpha slot, nor as game changing as Judgement/Destiny/Lore, etc. What we could have done with an extra 10 slots on a build... the idea leaves me drooling. Sigh.

Just to throw this out, here's how I would have handled the Architect:

Have the basics be as it is; you write an arc first as a text file locally, then publish it when done. However, basic published arcs have a significantly reduced XP/INF rate, and drop nothing but inspirations. The rate should be high enough so that players don't feel that they're wasting their time, but still low enough that even the most lucrative farm earns less than running radio/paper missions. As a pulled-out-of-my-rear estimate, 50-60%.

However, players who feel that they have created a gem of an arc can pay a small fee, maybe $5-$10 worth of Paragon Points, to have their arc looked at. First, a GM or low level Paragon employee spends five minutes looking over the arc, to make sure that;

1) The author spent more than ten minutes on it; it works properly and is not riddled with spelling errors.
2) It's not a farm.
3) It's not horrible. ("Mynx's Furry R.ape Adventure")

Then, some player volunteers play through it, with the author's name removed to prevent favoritism. Arcs that tell a good story and/or pose a worthy challenge are given a "Paragon Stamp of Approval": they are listed separately from the bulk of arcs, and yield full XP and drops.

And, 3-4 times a year, the devs go through the top rated arcs and choose one or two that they really like. These become part of main CoH lore, like the SSA, and the author gets some sort of reward.

Opinions?

Well done !!!

The one thing I disliked was the Freedom Phalanx and Arachnos becoming stagnant and irrelevant for a long time.

Where did CoH go wrong? I don't think it did. I liked it for what it was.

Still, it's interesting to consider paths not taken.

The founders of CoH (Rick Dakan, Jack Emmert, and others) indicated that they had played the Champions pencil and paper roleplaying game, and that's what inspired them to create a superhero MMO. When CoH was released, its strengths included character creation, travel powers, and strategic combat (all big parts of Champions). I told a friend about my initial impression from playing CoH, "It's a great superhero combat simulator."

But, for me, that was largely the extent of CoH's appeal. I played for the first month's subscription that came with the game purchase, and then I canceled my account.

At the time, I had played several other MMOs and was tired of their conventions. I didn't like the emphasis on gaining experience points and levels. Much of CoH's gameplay, such as hunting Skulls in Perez Park, seemed mindless and lacking in charm. I wanted more of a story and a more complete roleplaying experience.

A gaming friend whom I had met while playing Ultima Online commented that he had tried City of Heroes as well as many of the other MMOs of the era (Everquest, Asheron's Call, Dark Age of Camelot, and so on), and, despite the technological advances in the later games, he had never found a roleplaying environment that was as sophisticated, complex, and involving as UO.

UO was created by Origin Systems, and their slogan was "We create worlds." Their approach was very different from CoH. I had friends in UO who enjoyed playing the game by managing a store where they sold player-crafted goods; they rarely bothered with combat. Others roleplayed as elected town representatives in a player-run political system. A chess or checkers board could be placed on a tabletop as a decoration in a player-owned house, and when clicked on, a window opened showing an enlarged board with moveable pieces, allowing players to play chess or checkers.

CoH offered comparatively little in terms of roleplaying environment. For example, we could make up secret identities with a civilian occupation; but, besides Day Jobs and multiple costume slots, the game didn't provide mechanics to support it.

The basic concept--there's a coastal city in Rhode Island that's the focal point for heroes and villains in the world--was acceptable for an MMO at the time. But, the premise would be rejected as nonsensical by any editor of a comic book or producer of a movie or TV series. (Unless it was a metaphorical setting, like "the city" in The Tick.)

CoH provided the opportunity to dress up as a hero and go fight bad guys, and that was good enough. Casual play was a strength.

I returned to CoH after a friend told me that a lot of good stories had been added. He was right. The game constantly improved, particularly after the staff increased from 15 to 80. Toward the end, the latest wave of designers provided fresh, new approaches to storytelling.

Still, I would like to see a superhero MMO or single-player game with more of a roleplaying environment.

However, I doubt it will happen. Industry trends seem to be going in other directions, more towards casual play on mobile devices for mass appeal.

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CoH went wrong by being too fun, Needed more gear grinding and l337 gear based PVP, Because every game needs PVP or it sucks.

I am totally probably sorta serious.

my 2 cents:

Everyone seems to have covered off on in-game stuff. Mechanics, QOL issues, etc.

What I will always see as the big missed opportunity is how this game was marketed and how that marketing message could have shaped the content.

I think that greatest strength of the Co* brand was the ability to explore and create your character. The costumes, the emotes, the back stories, even the missions to support it all. Its what separates this game from the WoW clones.

Minecraft is a solid explorer brand. Little Big Planet. Second Life. All games the have vast opportunities for self expression and creation.

Co* belongs on that list too, but I think the perception among outsiders - when there is any perception among outsiders - is that its WoW but with capes and tights.

This is a HUGE message, a huge chunk of brand relevance, esp. in a market that increasingly wants to explore themselves as they explore content. NCSoft never delivered that message, not in a way that really had any emotional punch to it, and their marketing dept owes a HUGE apology to the dev team, and to the fan base.