I Love City of Heroes/Villains.

[xyzzysqrl]

It has now been a little over a month since the woof and I resubbed to City of Heroes (and got City of Villains free with it). In that time, we've run one duo of characters up to level 40 (the max is 50) and played a wide variety of other characters into the 15s and 20s. We've done solo and duo work, but no teams bigger than two people.


There's a LOT I'm loving about the game, in ways that I didn't love it when I played it for more than six months previously. Recently they've started streamlining and reworking a lot of things. What I've decided to do is give a rundown of why I've been enjoying myself so much that I keep starting over, keep making new characters, screwing around and such.

In part, I think, it's that the game is so damn fast-action. At any time you have a hotbar, maybe two if you're over level 20 or 30, full of powers. All coded to the number keys. Tap numbers, you're instantly blasting away or pounding in melee combat. Power recharge takes anywhere from 2 to 10 seconds, 30 if it's a REALLY big power. You can modify your powers with enhancements to make it faster if you want.

So you've got a decent range of attacks, and you go barreling into a room full of bad guys. Swords are swinging, fireballs flying, everything looks awesome, and in under two minutes they're on the ground and you're not. Wait a second to get some energy back and charge to the next group. There's no World of Warcraft "sit and eat food and drink", there's not a lot of downtime at all. Just maybe drop to one knee to charge back up and slot in something that will make you even MORE badass and keep going. Charge on in.

There's also not a lot of problems with group composition. Every possible combination seems to work, and almost everybody CAN solo as long as you're careful about building your character. If you're entirely focused on healing and force-fielding other people, not so much... but mostly. Still, no big deal about which characters we pick.

I pick a controller and he picks a blaster? Great! We're both fragile, but NOBODY will ever get close enough to touch us as I pin them to the floor and he blows them up.

I pick a mastermind and he picks a brute? Okay! Fights become a crazy melee as all of my mercenaries charge in, guns blazing, and he punches people in the face so hard they fly down flights of stairs.

I pick a defender and so does he? Surprisingly, yes, this works fine! We're moving slowly but we're still taking out thugs left and right, beefing each other up and making the enemies suck so bad nobody can fend our combined might off.

I take my scrapper out solo, I have to turn the difficulty level of the game UP so it'll be a challenge. This is awesome, as singlehandedly I plunge into mobs of enemies and come out crowd-surfing a pile of falling bodies.

Every new story arc reveals something interesting. We're constantly going "Oh my god." at plot revelations. Laughing as we make connections. Going "Hey... WAIT. IT'S THAT GUY." as someone from thirty levels ago bursts back on the scene in a way we didn't expect. When at level 39 or so we teamed up with two NPCs we last saw around level 15 and blitzed an alien mothership, we were cheering the whole damn time. It's great.

Yes, there's a finite amount of content. Alts -are- playing through missions we've done before, at times. They also still don't have enough -maps-, so most warehouses are eeriely similar. This is a failing I'll acknowledge... but I'm not worried about it. I can play the same map over and over if it's fun. (HELLO, PHANTASY STAR ONLINE'S FOREST 1 AND 2.)

There's badges to work towards, of course. Pokemon-style "You did this! Have a mark of pride!" bits. Yesterday I got the badge for taking one million points of damage over my character's lifetime. Today I got the badge for crafting over a hundred inventions. No idea what I'll end up with tomorrow.

Character creation! Make a character look like pretty much anything you want. Retro 30s sci-fi bug guy? Sure! Werewolf? Yes! Schoolgirl? Sure! Clown wielding a sledgehammer? Awesome! And so on.


The genre is "comic books", which if you are a comic book fan you know means ANYthing goes. Fight zombies, fight mecha, fight ancient romans. Explore shadowy ghost worlds. It's all fine.

Really though... it's the sheer fun of nonstop combat that keeps me playing this game. I think of it more as a game in the vein of Phantasy Star Online than I do a game in the line of World of Warcraft. It succeeds massively in that, and has become possibly the most streamlined and playable MMO on the market.

This is exactly what people keep citing to me as the major failing of it, and I do rather wish they'd stop. Yes, it's an easy game. Yes, crafting is easy. Yes, fighting is easy. Yes, character creation can be slightly limited. (There's only 550-some different combinations of powers you could pick! Alas!) Yes, it's fast to get around.

No, I do not consider these failings or downsides. You bust through everyone, send them flying, pick off the stragglers. Set fire to people and turn them into statues. Get a badge for setting 500 people on fire. Fuck yeah. Let's log on as bad guys and go rob a bank next!


Charge onward into glory. That's what this game is FOR.

Comments

The Woof's Take on This

[sirkalen.livejournal.com]

Not, mind you, that it is so easy you never feel challenged. That would make the experience rather unsatisfying. Rather, it feels like it takes a lot to challenge the kind of character that's lasted up to level 40.

Why?
Because you're goddamn superheroes, that's why.

I know it's sometimes fun to focus on the early stages of a hero's career, or on a low-key hero who can't just Superman his way through any fight without the slightest fear of defeat or even pain. However, part of the fun of playing a 'Hero' is that you get to be HEROIC. While persisting in the face of imminent defeat can be heroic, it's not very heroic to charge in and die repeatedly at the hands of flunkies.

So, yes, a lot of time is spent royally thrashing goons who have NO PRAYER of defeating a reasonably well-played Hero. But face it, isn't part of the fun of a comic-book hero getting to watch, say, Batman showing up and completely owning some small-time thugs in order to get a leg up on a stronger villain?
Haven't -you- ever wanted to be able to do that? Be honest.
I know I have.

Also, at least to those of us who are NOT used to massive, epic raids, needing to severely min/max every stat just to survive, etc, some of the challenges in CoH ARE challenging. They are challenging in very different ways, too, depending on what kind of Hero you make.. and very satisfying to complete, both in that we overcame the challenge, and in that the WORLD of CoH is a fascinating one that is largely revealed only a bit at a time, when one completes said challenges.

Come to think of it, seeing what Other People(tm) think comic-book-heroics are really about is fascinating too, and there are enough customization options that folks' Heroes really are unique. Five Origins, Five Archetypes, a similar number of power sets to choose from, but walk into the auction house at peak-usage-hours and I bet you'll see a hundred or more people who don't look a bit alike, each with their own take on how to be a Hero, and why they do it.

And if half of them do it because it's FUN to run around being super-powerful and smacking down anyone dumb enough to be a villain in Paragon City.. then I say let 'em. Games are -supposed- to be fun, and if this many people are having fun playing CoH, how bad a job is it really doing?

[relee.livejournal.com]

Yes, there's a finite amount of content. Alts -are- playing through missions we've done before, at times. They also still don't have enough -maps-, so most warehouses are eeriely similar. This is a failing I'll acknowledge... but I'm not worried about it. I can play the same map over and over if it's fun. (HELLO, PHANTASY STAR ONLINE'S FOREST 1 AND 2.)

The insides change a lot but I've gone in the same door to the King Garment Works sooooo many times. XD

The random combat on the 'overworld' is the only thing I really like about the game. In missions it gets so dull with the same baddies over and over and over. Some of the missions are constructed, though, and that's good. I read that they're making it so that players can make their own missions by selecting the location, bad guys, and writing the fiction for plot arcs, but they'll probably just end up with those ugly random room things and not be able to construct finite levels. But yeah, the random overworld combat is awesome. Gang wars, giant robots, mid-air battles against flying swarms of baby ornithopters...


The other thing that bugs me is that I'm so interested in the story of the missions, but most people you group with couldn't give a flying fuck, they just want to power level.


I want so hard to like that game but I always end up quitting again once I've had my fill of punching goobers across the street. Or kicking them, when I play KO Bunnygirl.

[relee.livejournal.com]

Also now you're making me want to punch people across the street again. o.o

Well we'll see if it lasts. I still have CoX installed from the LAST time. XD

[xyzzysqrl]

See, that's the thing. I don't group with people largely. I don't powerlevel. I just play and enjoy the parts I want to. I don't really care about wandering around on the streets... and that's okay. I don't have to do that.

I don't mind fighting the same bad guys over and over, because they're all in level ranges.

Basically, it's about accenting the fun parts and leaving the rest.

[relee.livejournal.com]

Yah... Whenever I play, everybody is busy playing with someone else, or simply not around when I want to play.

The last time I played, I did get some group action. I played on Pinnacle with the big RP community there, but it always feels so awkward. Then when I tried grouping with people, I dunno why, but my system couldn't handle it! We went on some mission together against the Circle of Thorns and they had the difficulty turned way up so there was all these guys who looked like my character Arkkogamannon except more on fire (Arkkogamannon isn't on fire enough!) and even when I turned the graphics to zero it was like mollasses. :/

And yet when I solo, everything is nice and fast and smooth and clean. And when I'm outside with other people, same thing. Actually now that I recall, it was really really strange! The only other time it gets that slow, is when the Rikti invade and I go to wherever and get my ass blown up.


Speaking of which, what is the farthest you've ever gotten knocked back? In CoX for me it was on CoH during a Rikti attack. There's a parking garage in, uh, I think it was Galaxy City, and there was a bomb on top. KERBLEWIE! I went flying all the way off the parking garage from like THE MIDDLE, and all the way down to the ground! XD

[xyzzysqrl]

For me it was probably during a Rikti mission where you have to destroy some bombs. I wasn't aware (because the boyfriend has INSANE knockback protection) that they do knockback if you're close to them when they go bom, so I shot back about 250 in-game feet. My stone-pet guy then passed me at roughly mach 5.

[sirkalen.livejournal.com]

I'm -still- kind of shocked that standing ON TOP OF an exploding A-Bomb didn't kill me outright. F'ing OW.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

A gravity controller summoned an invisible fridge to protect you.

[foxish.livejournal.com]

Character effects are almost always more damning to system resources than NPC or mob effects--the system gives them more priority--and once they all start accumulating things simply get crazy. I get dropped frames by Ms. Liberty and every single Wentworth's in the game simply from overkill effects.

[relee.livejournal.com]

My computer should be able to handle it, though. Ms. Liberty and Wentworths are no problem for me most of the time, only during Rikti invasions does it get crazy... And that time against the CoT with a bunch of high levels from the RPC.

[koogrr.livejournal.com]

I've found a lot of good RP on Virtue. Glad to hear your chars are doing well, I'm really looking forward to player-created missions. Some of those stories could be very good.

I'm still "On Break", so I haven't reactivated my account, but I like CoX a lot more than WoW. Specifically for the heroic aspects. I remember when my druid finally hit lvl 60 (when it was the current cap), and she'd still get accidentally pwned by NPCs while walking around.

Not, stupidly picked a fight, stayed too long, and died. But, walking down a road, Crimson what's-that, AH I'M DEAD! Level cap, and I still couldn't fricking run away without dying. I ran naked through the Stockades, aggro'd and blasted everything in sight, now THAT felt like being lvl 60. But yeah, the micro-managing, fiddly-bits, make one mistake and the whole raid wipes, or try to add the 15th star and the blade explodes. Don't need that.

[xyzzysqrl]

Yeah. I'm -seriously- studying up on my backstory, so I can write nicely canon stories for the player created missions. Admittedly some of my stuff is unambitious (I intend to test the mission creator with a simple "Devouring Earth are doin' stuff to our penicillin!" arc) but there's some interesting stuff in there to work with. The Warriors, for example, get Not Enough Love...

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

I hope the mission creator stuff actually comes out soon...

Because really, why have a supervillain if you can have your plots foiled by your (or your friends') heroes?

Or, you know, the mission where you stalk Ghost Widow and leave 20 love notes in her tower, then have to fight off a jealous Wretch.

[foxish.livejournal.com]

Wait, what's this about player-created missions? This sounds badass if I'm reading it right.

Dirgemaker has an elabourate backstory I've been working out in my head--it might even fit in with a sort of a comicbook universe I penciled out last year--and I've so wanted to take it places. Not sure it'll fit within the scope of CoX though.

[relee.livejournal.com]

They're making it so that players can create and share door missions, and mission arcs. You pick the area and who the bad guys are, and write the NPC text, and the players go at it. Not enough details to know how much you can do, though.

[kiruppert.livejournal.com]

You got your primaries to 40? I hate you both. My primary hero is 32 and my primary villian is 37. I've been playing for TWO YEARS.

You suck. *Sulk*

[relee.livejournal.com]

I think the highest I ever got was my Mercs/Traps MM General Violation, who got to 25. I think. He might only be 20.

[koogrr.livejournal.com]

I got Johnni (my Mercs/Traps) to lvl 50, and am re-running her as Lynx Spider J (without her men). Lots of fun.

[foxish.livejournal.com]

I've got Dirgemaker up to 26, almost 27; the level curve is -substantially- more graceful than WoW's, even when soloing.

[iridium-wolf.livejournal.com]

It took me from beta until a month or so ago to get my first *50*. So don't feel bad.

[xyzzysqrl]

We're terrible people. *perky*

[foxish.livejournal.com]

I'm absolutely adoring CoX so far. It does very few things I don't like (forcing me to drop to the login screen to switch characters, slightly sloppy camera controls, minor mob imbalance in zones, etc.), but everything else it does is whizzbang zambo-mambo. It's fast, it's lightweight, it's directly accessible and doesn't layer itself in a thick veneer of statistics and group-based functionality--you can actually PLAY CoX rather than interact with it. Fringe things like a functional and approachable Auction House, easy crafting, simple character stat management, basic but still entertaining skills, STORY STORY STORY STORY, and the superhero bases that even a small group can enjoy...it's just :D-inducing.

I'm having a freaking blast with heroes like Gayajenda, Chop-Chop Master Onion, The Dirgemaker, Chop-Shop, and so on...thanks for tempting me back!